CC In Scale: A Gallery Of Japanese Car Models

One of my favourite regular CC posts is Tatra-san’s random monthly sightings where he shows us vehicles many of us have never heard of. With that in mind, let’s turn to some Japanese oddities, such as cars you may not be familiar with. No Skylines this time; even if they are my favourites, they’ve had their day. As always, there are more out there; these are just the ones that have taken my fancy.

Let’s start with a snack. Aoshima has a range of these ‘selling cars’ as they describe the series: not only food trucks but I’ve seen a game truck online and one with what looks like a boxing ring. But a food truck I can relate to. My adult daughter loves Takoyaki (battered octopus balls), so that’s the truck I built. Sakai-san sits ready in the kitchen: how will you have yours?

Let’s start with some old coupes. This was once the standard Japanese big car. This Nissan Cedric is from the early seventies 230 generation. Size-wise a bit smaller than a seventies Nova, notably narrower, and in export form (Australia, Europe) powered by a detuned 240Z motor. Thoroughly conventional, largely unexceptional.

Here’s its equivalent from Toyota. Odd styling for this generation, but still built on a full chassis. Both of these are old kits from the seventies, though they have been reissued by Doyusha.

Mitsubishi Galant GTO, from Nitto’s Metallic Series. Some Japanese companies (notably Aoshima) offer kits with pre-painted bodies. What Nitto did here was chrome-plate the entire body and then give it a light blue-tinted clear coat. Very much like the ‘Spectra-flame’ colours of the early Hot Wheels cars.

The first front-drive Mazda 323. Like many of the older Japanese kits, this Nitto kit is motorized, but here it drives the front wheels through neat little plastic universal joints. So nice to see they didn’t just adapt an existing chassis, but made the model drive the front wheels. They also made a Ford Laser variant of this kit, which I’ll build one day.

Isuzu Piazza -Impulse in the US. This is a rather primitive kit from around 1980, but it’s the only one out there. It’s a shame nobody’s ever done a better one.

Second-gen Honda Prelude with working four-wheel steering adapted to a very inaccurate chassis.

Nissan Cefiro, another medium-sized six. This is a platform mate for the Skylines I’m not showing – I had to sneak one in somehow!

A first-gen Honda CRV, all ready for the holidays.

This Subaru Sambar AWD kei van came with even more holiday gear.

Mitsubishi’s little 4WD, the Pajero Mini VR-II.

Isuzu Vehicross. Outrageous styling for the time, but it looks relatively tame and tasteful now.

Suzuki Vitara. We’d had little Suzuki off-roaders on sale here since the seventies, and I remember thinking these ones were rather adventurously styled.

Mitsubishi Delica. Old-style passenger van with windows, seats, full of luxury gear and 4WD, but based on a mundane L300 delivery van.

Nissan Elgrand. Similar size and proportions, but unitary rather than built on a truck chassis, still RWD with V6 and IRS. No commercial versions of this one.

Honda SM-X Lowdown. Yes, that’s what they called it. Kind of a small people-mover, probably for small people.

And three little kei cars vehicles. What style of engineering do you want?

Honda’s N360. Transverse twin driving the front wheels.

Subaru’s odd little fifties hangover, engineered like a Japanese Fiat 500.

Trust Mazda, with a K360, to build a mid-engined three-wheeler with a pickup bed!

I think we’d better call it quits for now. There’s plenty more to see, though. I’ve held off on Nissan Z-cars, Celicas, Evos and WRXs, Civics, off-roaders, and most of the tuners. They’d be another six posts in themselves, at least.

Where will we go next? Somewhere we haven’t been before. Wait and see…