I was strolling the forecourt of Motorman Imports the other day, checking out some V36 Skylines (Infiniti G37s), when I started chatting with the salesman. Some of you may remember that, way back in 2016, this was where I photographed and shared with you a Japanese reikyusha funeral car based on a Toyota LandCruiser. I mentioned that to the friendly young salesman and he beckoned me to the giant shed where more curiosities awaited.
Apparently that reikyusha took a long time to sell. That’s understandable, given the niche audience in Australia for ornate Japanese funeral cars. Well, this hearse is going to take just as long to sell.
Aussie readers will recognize this hearse is based on an AU-series Ford Falcon wagon. For context, this is what one of those looks like.
For more context, this is what a typical Australian hearse looks like. It seems American hearses tend to conceal the contents of the cargo bay while Aussie and British hearses have large windows.
This? It’s not like any hearse I’ve ever seen. It’s somewhat normal-looking for the side – more like a stretch limousine than anything – but the rear is bizarre. Not much room for anyone to clamber in there so you’d hope the coffin slid out with ease.
It gets weirder. Moving around to the front, we find…. A Rolls-Royce frontend. Oh, hearse manufacturer, you’re not fooling anyone.
Here’s a closer look at the frontend. Not a total hack job but very incongruous.
The wheels also don’t match. Couldn’t they have swiped some from a Fairlane or LTD?
The shed was full of the bizarre and the exotic and, as I had a lunch engagement, I unfortunately didn’t have enough time to truly capture it. You’ll notice a Morgan in the background of some of these photos, plus an Aston Martin DB7 that won’t move under its own power. In the foreground is a Nissan March (Micra) convertible.
Here’s another March convertible. Looks a bit different, doesn’t it? That’s because this is Mitsuoka’s version, called the Viewt, which was designed to resemble the 1963 Jaguar Mark II. Mitsuoka, of course, is a boutique purveyor of Japanese cars given retro redesigns. It’s rather amusing to see a couple of these Viewts parked next to a Daimler DS420, a car from the era and class of which they’re trying to emulate.
The salesman advised me the glut of Marches and Viewts in the shed was because they were recently included under the Australian Government’s Specialist and Enthusiast Vehicles Scheme (SEVS). All cars made under 1989 must meet two out of four SEVS criteria to be eligible for import to Australia and they must then be complied to meet safety and emissions standards. Anything prior to ’89 can be imported without modification.
Finally, we have two London taxis imported from Japan. As with a lot of the cars at this JDM dealer, the mileage on these is quite low with only 15-20,000 miles on the odometer of each – certainly much lower than an actual cab in London. These were used as wedding cars back in Japan; the black one has a 2.7 Nissan diesel, the white one a 2.2 gas engine from a Land Rover.
The owner of Motorman Imports certainly has a sense of humor and loves to acquire left-field vehicles, even if there’s little chance they’ll sell. I’ll have to make the trip again some time to see what else has wound up in the shed.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: The Japanese Retro Trial (2nd Witness) – Mitsuoka Viewt K12
Curbside Classic: 1998-2002 Ford AU Falcon – Proven Mechanicals, Avant-Garde Styling
There’s a butt for every seat. Those will all sell, eventually.
That Falcon-Royce would probably fool my mother who actually is a Brit and at least half the attendees at any current funeral not in Britain, if they are even paying attention to the hearse.
Very cool, it’s fun to get surprise access to normally unavailable areas, isn’t it? We need a CC badge we can just flash to the cognoscenti. Maybe something like a brass Brougham emblem or similar.
Probably, it’s Bogan’s version of funeral car…
Has Australia got a verified odometer law to go with these things? Huge speedo haircuts plagued JDM imports in NZ and because Japanese owners tend to keep the interiors and their cars in general in quite nice order disguised high mileage junk fooled a lot of buyers, handy in one respect ex JDM imports filled wrecking yards with hitherto impossible to find parts to keep others alive.
That hearse though OMG, good luck selling that, Mitsuokas could not be complied here for a long time but now I see some wearing local plates instead of dealer tags so some rules must have changed.
I guess now with no local industry to protect import laws in OZ have been relaxed to allow entry of JDM cars, your roads will look like NZs after a few years, have fun.
Another point which I learned while living in Japan is that “mileage” is not an accurate indicator of wear on a JDM car. By this, I say that because Tokyo is very crowded, cars move slowly and don’t travel great distances. But: those low speed trips have the engines running for many, many hours, in high heat conditions, running the a/c, and as for transmissions and clutches – well, my office was 16 kilometers from my apartment, and stop signs and traffic signals averaged out to one full stop every 400 meters. That works out to a LOT of shifts. And little stuff – the contacts in my left-turn turn signal switch wore through at 34,000 kilometers. That came from a LOT of signaling left turns, and for that matter, if my lazy math is right, 34,000 K at 30 KPH average is more than 1100 hours on the engine. In the U.S. where average speeds are higher -say 80 KPH that same distance would be only 425 hours on the engine to cover the same distance.
So yeah, JDM used cars look great, and have comparatively low miles, can get awfully tired in those miles
I don’t see the Morgan but a Super 7 or a clone is just as well.
There’s an Aero 8 beside the mad hearse.
It seems Australian import rules have changed dramatically now there’s no longer domestic production worthy of protectionism.
You say anything prior to ’89 can be imported without modification. The fellows at Mighty Car Mods might disagree. They recently attempted to import an ex-JDM 1970 Nissan Fairlady but it arrived sans engine and brakes because there maybe, possibly might have been asbestos in the engine gaskets or brake pads, and that’s a nono.
Haven’t watched those those lads for quite a while, but the story sounds right. There’s a background to it.
Sadly, this country was a huge miner, maker and consumer of asbestos products, the makers were corporate cowboy and crooks, it has killed many and will do so for a long time to come yet. Since 2004 (!) it has been illegal to import asbestos products: individual fines are $180,0000. So it’s always a hot-button national issue.
In about 2015, a scandal emerged whereby lots of cheap Chinese-made building and brake material were detected on import. There was a (quite rightful) hoo-hah, and Senate enquiry. One perhaps unexpected result was that as of mid-2017, the customs folk warned that they would inspect many more old vehicles being imported. Even if there was no proof of asbestos, if not certified as such overseas BEFORE importation, they’d ban it or remove it at vast cost to buyers here. Currently, I believe no such certification/removal service is accredited in Japan.
Again unfortunately, due to long-running political factors, our govt department once known as “Customs, Immigration and Citizenship” is now called “Border Force” (yes, really), and is run by a bunch of medal-emblazoned, mutual-saluting uniformed public servants, and has an attitude to commonsense and flexibility the same as any para-miltary set-up. Now, it is not unreasonable to make people prove they’ve removed things like brake and clutch bits, but gaskets, as in head gaskets? Surely something like a plate affixed underbonnet warning of the presence of concealed asbestos (removeable on the gasket removal if needed later) would be a sensible compromise (but that’s not the mentality we’re talking about).
Hence, those lads have an engineless car.
Reputedly, Maserati flew in a few old models just for launch of their latest in late 2017, but Border Force would not release them because the may contain asbestos – even though they were fully and quite recently restored.
That hearse looks like it is built to provide more room for possible living passengers instead of dead ones.
I wonder what it is that makes the hearse manufacturers in some countries use small windows while in other countries the hearse manufacturers use large windows?
I have to assume that those vehicles from the far left field have fat profit margins if it takes so long to sell them. Looking at the asking price for those London Taxis certainly supports a fat profit margin if the sell for near their asking price.
We have a number of companies that import cars, mainly Japanese, under the 25 year rule and the asking prices indicate a fat profit margin, if they can actually sell them for anywhere near that price.
This is one I occasionally find myself driving by. http://sodo-moto.com/in-stock/ but have never stopped.
I can’t imagine that this one http://sodo-moto.com/listings/1972-toyota-carina/ cost them more than $100 to buy, shipping of course is a different thing.
I think they thought they were going to make a killing on this one http://sodo-moto.com/listings/1973-toyota-el-corona/ but 6+ months in they have dropped their price significantly.
On the other hand the Jimnys and Land Cruiser variants sell almost as quick as they get off the ship.
There are various direct buy schemes going on in NZ which exclude dealers from the equation, you still have to pay the freight charges and get your purchase complied which can be a minefield,
Lots of people have been caught out buying cars from the US and OZ that turn out to be little better than scrap but they tend to be older collector cars not late model used Japanese cars though it does happen,
Wow, they have a lot more inventory than the last time I looked. Perhaps people are holding off on their purchases or they stocked up. Some interesting stuff but some that’ll take a lot of time and TLC to make good again. Still, the prices are reasonable for a lot of things that you just aren’t going to find easily and still way cheaper than going over and attempting to find and source it yourself, never mind the time aspect. I’d imagine they’d buy to order as well based on pictures if you had a desire for something particular.
This one is starting to look interesting at the new price. http://sodo-moto.com/listings/1992-suzuki-cappuccino-2/ The clutch job can’t be too hard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as0yU1Af2hQ If this guy can do it, I figure it is a 1.5 hr job on my buddy’s lift.
Sad to see that this guy seems to be a professional at a Hyundai store.
Either way it looks like a fun back roads summer cruiser. I would not want to take it out in heavy traffic but I have seen at least one out on the local freeways.
Wow, William, that hearse… Just when you think you’ve seen everything, along comes something like that. Easily the most unexpected car on CC this year. Rolls-Royce + Falcon = Rolls-con, in more ways than one…
Isn’ that so! I thought the back and sides where fascinatingly strange, but wasn’t expecting that nearly-comical nose job at all.
Perhaps it was a one-off creation for an extremely tall, tight-assed two-bob snob.
That hearse is just plain mad. Who would commission such a thing? The French have a tendency to use big Diesel vans as hearses, like Peugeot J7s or Renault Traffics. I used to think that was borderline sacrilegious. But this is a whole nother level of tasteless.
What a fantastic place! I love the Lotus Seven (clone I assume) as well as those taxi cabs. The shear size of the hearse would keep a lot of oddball car fans from buying.
Lord have mercy, that limousine/funeral coach is a mess. The US-market norm has, at least since the 40s, been “landau’style” coaches with vinyl top and long landau bars, but that seems to be changing. More and more “limousine-style” cars with side glass are turning up in local service. Part of it is to show-off the expensive casket. The ones built by Eagle Coach in nearby Amelia Ohio also have long central “skylight” sunroofs over the cargo area to let the sun shine on the casket. Reminds me of the early 2000s era Nissan Maxima and whatever Nissan’s minivan was called.