Empire in the East: The vibrant past, present and future of British cars in Japan

Tokyo—Perhaps no place is as representative of Japan's concentrated humanity as Shibuya Crossing in the heart of Japan's capital city. When the traffic lights go red, upwards of 3,000 pedestrians scramble through the intersection, a tidal mass of well-ordered people, ebbing and flowing based on the rhythm of highly organized public transit. But then the tarmac clears, and the lights go green.

Punch it.

The polite Japanese do not normally stare, but heads swivel now as a thundering dart stabs across the pavement, its rear flirting around with chirruping wheelspin. The front end of the Aston Martin Vantage might resemble something found on a slab at the nearby Tsukiji fish market, but it is a streamlined apex predator and draws eyeballs even in one of the city's wealthiest districts.

Because this is Tokyo, the Aston's rapid forward progress is soon slowed by traffic. And, because it's Japan, said traffic is a bunch of go-karts driven by people dressed up as Mario and Luigi and Pikachu.

Tokyo is weird and interesting and exhilarating and a terrible place to own a car. It's far easier and cheaper to get around by train than it is to drive, and it's fun to do so. If you get lost, just ask an Australian (for some reason there's always an Australian around), and each station has its own unique theme tune. If you join all the stations together, it plays a song. That's Japan for you.

A crowded city with bad traffic and limited parking seems a strange place to plant a flag, but Tokyo is the home of the largest Aston Martin dealership in the world. This season, the company will also be returning to Super GT, Japan's top-tier touring car racing series, with a Vantage GT3. Speaking at the facility's opening in 2017, CEO Andy Palmer told The Daily Kanban, “Japan doesn’t have a luxury car company, and I hope that Japan would adopt Aston Martin as its luxury car company.”

Before any Lexus fans get their knickers in a knot, Palmer was merely equating Aston with Rolls-Royce or McLaren, brands a few social orders higher than the average Mercedes-Benz or BMW. Further, Aston's British-born CEO would have a unique insight into the Japanese market, having worked for more than two decades for Nissan.

Cruising back through the well-heeled Aoyama district, passing the odd Rolls-Royce Phantom and Jaguar F-Pace, the Vantage feels perfectly fitted to its environment. Somehow, it's not a foreigner here, but then it wouldn't be. Granted, the Vantage is the product of an island nation, prowling around the teeming metropolis of another island nation, but the links go deeper than that.

Somerset in Yokohama

During the postwar period, occupying forces set about rebuilding and reforming Japan. By 1952, when American-led occupation ended, the rise of communism as a perceived threat in the East led the Allies to prioritize a strong Japanese economy over previous efforts to break up the zaibatsu, Japan's huge corporations.

Meanwhile, Britain was under its own duress owing to war debts and was looking to expand exports. Japanese passenger car production had been suspended during wartime and severely restricted during occupation up until 1949. Small British cars were theoretically an ideal fit for Japan's narrow roads and fuel shortages.

However, Japan had also been through a period in the 1920s and early 1930s when their domestic industry simply couldn't compete with products from Ford and GM. The zaibatsu used their political influence to set out conditions favorable to kickstarting Japan's auto industry: Foreign businesses would be required to partner with Japanese companies, imported parts and Japanese assembly were favored over importing completed cars, and the eventual goal was fully Japanese production.

All of which brings us here to Nissan's heritage garage, located in Kanagawa Prefecture, not far from the company's global Yokohama headquarters. It's a huge warehouse of a place, crammed with historic and important cars sitting cheek by jowl in long rows. At the far end of the hall, squadrons of Group C racing cars and winged Skyline GT-Rs show how fast and furious Nissan became.

At the other end, closer to the entrance, is a homely little sedan that looks like something Winnie The Pooh would drive. It's a 1953 Austin A40 Somerset, but it was not built in Longbridge, U.K. Instead, it is the very first Austin produced by Nissan in its nearby Tsurumi factory.

Austin and Nissan officially formed their agreement in 1952, with vehicle production beginning in May 1953. Austin had been chosen by Nissan as there were already 1,288 Austins on Japanese roads, because the engine had development potential and because Austin was the most popular European import brand in the U.S. Nissan's president and another executive flew to Longbridge to sign the contract and noted the hostility of the factory floor workers. Not so long ago, these two nations had been at war.

Between 1953 and 1959, Nissan produced some 20,883 Austins under license, ending with the A50 Cambridge. Along the way, the cars evolved from complete knock-down kits as more components began being manufactured in Japan -– the cars were 100 percent Japanese-built by 1956.

Although Nissan was forbidden from exporting cars to other markets, some Austin dealers began importing parts from Japan when they noticed that the Japanese-made components were made with much closer tolerances. Even Austin noticed the improvement, with one sales representative noting that the Tsurumi-built cars were “far superior to the original Longbridge build.”

Even more important was Nissan's license to use Austin designs in its own products. In 1955, a retired Willys-Overland engineer named Donald Stone flew to Japan to lecture Nissan's engineers on engine building. Stone was a hands-on engineer and couldn't wait to escape the classroom and get out on the factory floor.

At the time, Nissan's engineers were struggling to produce their own 1,000cc engine, wanting to add a smaller, thriftier car to their range. Stone pointed out that the 1,500cc Austin engine could be cheaply adapted by shortening the stroke. It took some time to convince the Japanese of such a simple, practical solution, but in the end it worked. Over the next decade and a half, Nissan went on to produce 2 million engines based on the Austin design, propelling them forward into the U.S. market and beyond.

On Sept. 8, 1986, Nissan chairman Kume Yutaka stepped forward to officially open the Nissan factory in Sunderland, a port city in Northern England. During the Austin agreement, he had been the engineer responsible for progressively switching parts manufacturing over to full Japanese production. Oddly mirroring those early days, Nissan would now turn to full U.K. production to fulfill trade agreements.

Today, Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK produces the Qashqai, the Juke and the Leaf, as well as two Infiniti models. Currently, a depressed European diesel market and concerns over Brexit have shaken confidence in the factory's long-term prospects. However, at peak, the factory produces roughly half a million British-built Nissans per year.

The Immortal Mini

Takuya Kunishima arrives to meet me in the parking lot of a Lawson Station, a ubiquitous Japanese convenience store chain, in the center of Osaka. I've never met him in person, but there's no difficulty recognizing him because of his car. It's a heavily modified original Mini, fitted with a Honda B16 engine and all wheel flares and exposed headers.

Kunishima-san, a product planner with Daihatsu, has kindly offered to show me around Osaka for the day. If Tokyo's bustling metropolis is analogous to New York, then Osaka is Detroit. There's a little more blue-collar industry. Its inhabitants are a little more open and friendly.

Opening the door of Kunishima's roll-caged Mini, I spot a slight problem: There's no passenger's seat. Like any project car, there's always something in process, and the shotgun position is still on the to-do list. Still, Kunishima's British car priorities are still clearly in order, as he hasn't forgotten to bring along a full toolbox.

Our first stop is a combination parts shop and cafe called Mini Cafe Countryman. Part eatery, part mail-order catalog come to life, the place is crammed with hop-up parts for original Coopers, Mini memorabilia and safety bits to help older cars squeak through the rigorous shaken safety inspections. Parked up front are two rare Mini-based specials, a 1-of-75 Unipower GT and a 1-of-69 Ogle SX1000.

Afterward, Kunishima's Mini blats out of town and into the narrow touge mountain roads just outside Osaka. I'm perched in the back seat like some Lilliputian dignitary. The roads are ideal for a little car like this, serpentine and narrow as a single, coiled ramen noodle.

Everything about the original Mini is perfect for Japan. It is corpuscle-sized for capillary-scale roads. Its cutesy demeanor appeals to Japanese kawaii culture. And it is endlessly modifiable, perfect for a people who love to adorn their cars with at least 37 pieces of flair.

All generations of the Mini were popular in Japan, particularly the last Rover Mini, built from 1990 until 2000. Japanese-spec Minis were built in Longbridge but are slightly different than their U.K. cousins. Most notably, later models were available with automatic transmissions and air conditioning, the latter a must-have in the humid Japanese summers.

After darting around the hills thwacking the B16 into VTEC, we end up at the Imperials workshop, which overflows with original Minis. Two more Minis pull in behind us, the last of them a flawless 1967 Mini Traveller complete with wood-framed exterior. It's a time capsule, yet underneath the hood is a modern fuel-injected 1,275cc engine with an automatic and A/C. The owner is a middle-aged mother who daily-drives it.

There are battered vintage racing machines here, engines bored out to 1,400cc and above, flawless restorations, and no-holds-barred builds with patina'd exteriors and taped-over headlights. Truly, Mini culture is alive and well in Japan.

Or at least it is for now. Kunishima-san's Honda swap wouldn't raise too many eyebrows among modified car fans, but as he walks me through the endless paperwork required to make the car road legal, I find my own eyebrows lifting. Japan seems to be constantly at war with its automotive enthusiasts.

Empire under seige

Daikoku parking area sits at the bottom of a spiralling off-ramp of the Metropolitan Bayshore toll road, on an island in Tokyo Bay. The only way to get here is to drive, then drop down the three-story loop, arriving at a broad area ringed with vending machines selling everything from hot cans of coffee to hamburgers.

At night, particularly on the weekends, neon-lit Lamborghinis cruise this place, bellowing as they ascend to motorway speeds. Sunday morning brings a slightly older crowd, classic Japanese steel like the hakosuka Skyline, Toyota Supra and Mitsubishi GTO. Hang on, is that a mid-'90s MG RV8?

Slowly the cars trickle in. Slammed Lotus Europas. An Esprit. Minis and MGs. A Rolls-Royce Corniche.

Their owners nod and smile in a friendly manner, but mostly there's a language barrier. Yet some things need no translation. Each owner has paid exorbitant road tax and tolls to be here today, and most of them are also taking a considerable risk. Insurance for collector vehicles is severely lacking in Japan, and any crash would result in a pittance for payout.

Even so, they drive. Perhaps this is the most British thing about the whole affair: Stifled by a bureaucracy that would like nothing better than a homogeneous, well-mannered, monochrome population, Japanese car enthusiasts retire to their sheds to lick their wounds, then show up with sweetly tuned side-draft carburettors and ride heights that give a flicked-V to the regulations.

The Miata, Japan's haiku to the British roadster experience, has just turned 30. The Civic Type R, a manga-styled dose of pure Japanese insanity, is built in Swindon, U.K. Everywhere you care to look, there are endless links between these two nations.

But perhaps that shouldn't come as a surprise. Britain, too, was a nation of train schedules and orderly behavior, but its people craved more. They wanted to beat those trains in their Bentleys, set landspeed records on the beaches, repurpose airfields into racetracks.

In Japan and England both, the high nail is supposed to get battered down. Form the queue. Wait your turn. Mustn't complain.

And yet there is still room for individualism in either sea of humanity. Eight cylinders or four. City streets or mountain passes. Excalibur or a well-wielded katana. When a light goes green, nothing gets lost in translation. Just drop the hammer.

Source: Read Full Article