The country where you can't drive to the Motor Show

As a Toyota fan who turned to a Subaru fan after Japan's largest automaker failed to produce road-going version of Corolla WRC, I was delighted to hear finally Toyota GT 86/Subaru BRZ made its debut at Tokyo Motor Show as a production car.

Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to drive a legendary AE86 Corolla Levin/Sprinter Trueno. However, my father used to have Toyota Carina sport sedan with the same famous 4A-GE engine turned to 140 brake horsepower in front wheel drive configuration and I had drove it time to time. The Carina looked exactly like an ordinary small family car, but with the high revving 4A-GE, it ran like a sport car. Not like a tail happy rear wheel drive sister, though.

The sport cars once dominated the Japanese car market are now endangered species there. For younger generations pleasure of driving is a thing of past, or exists only in games and manga. As majority of Japanese household just can't afford second car, these less practical cars could not survive decades of economic slump. The combination of high performance and utility in Subaru WRX and Mitsubishi Evo has evolved under such circumstance.

Actually Japanese motor fans can't drive to Tokyo Motor Show. As the top page of the event website clearly announces, only viable option to get there is by using public transports just like their everyday's commute to workplaces.

How many of Japanese fully enjoy driving their cars?

Many of them have no time to do it. Every weekday, they spend hours having themselves carried back and force in unbelievably crowded trains. On weekends and holidays, roads to popular attractions are all congested. Vehicle taxes and legal maintenance fees are ridiculously expensive. The road code is out-dated and impractical. The enforcement by police is arbitrary. In Japan, having a car does not mean freedom of mobility. Rather, it brings a lot of restrictions and compromises.

Many of sport cars lost their playing grounds in Japan are now enjoying New Zealand roads. Japanese cars have been providing freedom and joy of driving to people around the world but not so much in Japan. What an irony it is! I hope the debut of Toyota GT 86/Subaru BRZ reminds Japanese what they enjoyed a few decades earlier, the days with full of motions.

Ray