Small Car and Small Parking Space

You often find very small cars and small parking spaces in Japan, especially Tokyo. The new house had a notch in the entry space that could be used to park a kei-car, in this case a Honda N-One. It doesn't seem that there was much space left to get into the house, but I have seen tighter parking spaces in Tokyo.

Nikon D600 with Nikon 16-35mm f/4G ED VR II AF-S IF SWM @ 19 mm, f5.6, ISO 400, 1/15 sec.

History Garage

In Odaiba, there is a car museum run by Toyota called the History Garage. I visited recently with my kids, who were not as interested in looking at a bunch of old cars, especially if you couldn't sit in them or ride in them.

One of the more interesting vehicles was the Toyota Sports 800. The prototype for this car, the Toyota Publica Sports is on prominent display at the entrance to the museum (or perhaps it is near the exit, I may have gone the wrong way around). According to Wikipedia, the car's engine output was 21 kW (or 28 hp)! I'm sure this sounded more impressive in 1962 (although a 1962 Corvette was rated between 250 hp (190 kW) and 360 hp (270 kW) from an 327 cu in (5.4 L) small-block V8). At least the car sold for significantly less, about $1,652 USD in 1965 according to the Yotahachi North American Resource Page.

Nikon D600 with Nikon 16-35mm f/4G ED VR II AF-S IF SWM @ 16 mm, f5.6, ISO 125, 1/30 sec.

This is the 1965 production version, sometimes affectionately called the Yota-Hachi (ヨタハチ). The kanji on the license plate is a little unusual too. It actually has Tokyo (東京）. I'm not sure if this is how plates were issued back in the 1960's. Current, Tokyo plates are now issued with the local municipality, Adachi (足立), Hachiōji (八王子), Tama (多摩), Nerima (練馬) or Shinagawa (品川).

Nikon D600 with Nikon 16-35mm f/4G ED VR II AF-S IF SWM @ 20 mm, f4.0, ISO 400, 1/6 sec.

Miura

I've been going over some of the photos that I have taken through my years in Japan and wanted to start posting some of the interesting ones that I may have overlooked. Perhaps I will start posting old and new photos alternately.

In April 2010, the family was heading out for an afternoon at the iconic Tokyo Tower. Along the way, I spotted this rare Lamborghini Miura S parked out in the open along the street. I may have seen this same car several other times in Tokyo and dismissed it as common, but I took a photo of it that day. When I returned home and did some research, it seems we stumbled upon one very rare (from 1966 - 1972 only 764 Miura's were produced and of these 140 were 'S' versions) and expensive vintage car (recently expected to auction for over $700k USD).

Nikon D700 with Nikon 20mm f/2.8D AF @ f8, ISO 200,1/200 sec.