My first car in Japan was a Nissan Skyline.
The Skyline is a nice car!
So, it was a nice surprise when I went to the shopping mall today with my family (in the car we have now, a Toyota) and I saw that they had vintage Nissan Skyline cars from the 1950s to the 1990s on display!
Here are a few photos I took:
1957 Nissan Skyline:
1962 Nissan Skyline:
1965 Nissan Skyline:
Mine wasn’t this old. I had a 1986 Nissan Skyline Turbo years ago.
Eiji Toyoda, former president of Toyota Corp., died today at the age of exactly 100.
The Toyota company started in the early 1930’s by Eiji Toyoda’s father and the company’s name was originally “Toyoda” but was changed a few years later to the current トヨタ (Toyota) because it’s sounds nicer in spoken Japanese and looks nicer in written Japanese.
Eiji Toyoda, R.I.P., 1913 September 13 – 2013 September 17
First of all, I participated in the big Fukugawa-Hachiman Festival in Tokyo again last weekend.
I wrote about that festival when I participated in it last time.
Click here to read it and see pictures and videos.
I’ll write a post with photos from this year’s festival soon. I wrote the post about the 2012 festival.
In the meantime …
I was thinking that the different cultures around the world would mean that popular colors for cars would be different in different countries.
Living in Japan, I can’t help but notice that “white” is the most popular color for cars here … and it has been for many years.
But what colors are popular for car buyers in other countries, I wondered.
Well, I checked the Dupont website — it seems that that company makes most car paint and therefore keeps track of which colors are popular in which countries.
And it seems that white isn’t only the most popular car color in Japan.
It’s the most most popular color for cars in most countries around the world.
Silver and black are also popular … in fact, black is most popular in most of Europe.
I have never had a white car … but I have had a black one and a silver one.
What color is your car? Is white a popular color for cars in your country?
I saw a TV commercial yesterday for a 「シボレー」 (“Chrevolet“) car.
It was a car called the 「シボレー・ソニック」 (“Chrevolet Sonic“).
This may seem like nothing unusual to you…especially if you live in America, where TV commercials for American cars are quite common.
But I realized, after seeing that commercial, that I don’t recall having seen an ad for any foreign (ie: not Japanese) cars, until now, since I came to Japan in 1990.
I realized that every advertisement I’ve seen in Japan for automobiles or electronics (Japan’s two biggest industries) have all been for Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and other Japanese companies.
Almost every car and motorcycle on the road in Japan is Japanese. Sometimes wealthy people buy a foreign car as a kind of “status symbol”…normally it’ll be an Italian or German car that they choose.
Also, close to every single electronic product sold in Japan is made by a Japanese company. Products made by American companies such as Kodak, Polaroid or Zenith aren’t normally found in Japan. Do those companies even exist anymore?
Here’s the commercial for the 「シボレー・ソニック」 (“Chevrolet Sonic“) that I saw on TV:
Do you see many TV commercials for foreign companies in your country? Are American products popular in your country? Have you ever seen a Chevy “Sonic”?
Tokyo Five 
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