We Could All Learn From Japan’s Car Culture

In the century and a half or so that it’s existed, different countries have embraced cars in different ways. In Britain, they’re mainly status symbols, while in America they may as well be an extension of the human body. France and Italy treat them as simple but essential utilities; in Germany, they’re a tool for business. Switzerland would rather they didn’t exist at all, while in rural Australia, they’re literal lifelines.

In Japan, though, the car is none of these things. Instead, it’s the ultimate expression of the self: of tastes, personality, interests, lifestyle, everything.

This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about cars, but it’s hard to appreciate the scale and diversity of the country’s car scene until you’ve seen it first-hand. We spent almost a week in Japan with Hyundai during 2024’s season-closing WRC round, an event bound to bring some fascinating stuff out of the woodwork. We had one eye trained on the roads the entire time, and we’ve rounded up some of the highlights here, accompanied by the best hastily-grabbed phone shots we can offer.

It’s always a good sign when one of the very first things you see on arrival in Tokyo is a smartly dressed chap in a suit and tie, striding out of an office building towards an AE86 Toyota Sprinter Trueno, in the obligatory white-and-black two-tone colour scheme.

The capital city is, naturally, the focal point for a lot of Japan’s car culture, and there are plenty of the JDM icons you hope and expect to see. The highlight here was arguably the gorgeous white FD Mazda RX-7 we encountered sitting kerbside a short distance from the famous Shibuya Scramble crossing at night, with the neighbourhood at its neon-soaked best.

Stopped a short distance away at the crossing itself, as an ocean of people filed across it, phones held high to film the glorious chaos, was one of 150 Alpine A110 Tour de Corse 75 editions.

This neatly sums up how broad the love for cars here is – not just the country’s own output, but European stuff, American stuff, modern cars, classics, off-roaders (represented in Tokyo by some stunning original Mercedes G-Wagens and a wood-panelled Jeep Wagoneer), sports cars, fast estates (an achingly cool dark green Alpina B3 Touring, again scything through the crossing at Shibuya). Everything’s represented, more so than anywhere else we’ve ever been.

Obviously, to a first-time visitor, even the everyday stuff is fascinating. It’s not uncommon in Tokyo to see a Toyota Century, the chauffeur-driven ride of choice for Japan’s old-school elite. It’s still a thrill to spot one, though, especially when it’s an older one powered by Japan’s only domestically-built V12. And of course, you can’t really tire of the dozens of cute, boxy kei cars – so different to anything on sale in Europe.

Ginza – a swanky shopping district mentioned again and again online as a carspotting hotspot – ended up disappointing a little. Perhaps we went at the wrong time of the week, but it was more posh SUVs than the swathes of supercars we were expecting. That said, the Nissan exhibition overlooking the main drag of Route 15, and displaying a box-fresh 350Z and Silvia, was a welcome diversion.

And for sheer exotica, you can always peer through the window of famed high-end showroom Bingo Sports. There, we found a Ferrari F40, Pagani Zonda F, McLaren P1, one of three Japan-exclusive Koenigsegg Agera RSRs, and a Lamborghini Miura converted to racy SVJ spec. It’s probably not the sort of place you can wander into without an appointment, but you can gaze through its big glass windows, mentally populating your lottery-win garage.

Then there’s the forbidden fruit. A Toyota GR Corolla, a new Nissan Z, and a Honda S660. Not all that special here in Japan, but nevertheless exciting – and jealousy-inducing – to spot through a European lens.

These were all out in the autumnal hills above Nagoya, where the rally was taking place. This, naturally, brings out car enthusiasts of all ilks, with nearly every layby on the road sections occupied by something interesting.

In transit between stages, we encountered massive convoys of classics, getting enthusiastic waves from the throngs lining the streets in towns. There was pretty much everything imaginable among them: esoteric Japanese classics like a Honda Z and a Toyota Sports 800, French and Italian machinery including no fewer than three Alfa Romeo Junior Zagatos, and naturally, plenty of rally-bred stuff – Imprezas, Evos, Delta Integrales, Celica GT-Fours.

They were all travelling together – no tribalism, no sense of ‘I don’t like what you like so you’re wrong’; just people out and about, indulging in their shared passion in some crisp late autumn weather.

The best finds, though, are the ones you don’t really expect. Case in point: in a car park, in an unassuming little mountain town, a Mazda MX-5 Coupe. Yep, one of the circa 180 built only for Japan in the early 2000s, a car we only thought we’d ever see grainy pictures of on the internet.

All this was without visiting the predictable automotive hotspots – the mountain turnpikes outside Tokyo, or the Daikoku Parking Area in Tokyo Bay, the de facto Japanese meeting place for car enthusiasts the world over. Even then, we’ve never experienced anywhere else with such a shared, unbridled love for the car.

As car culture seems to get more splintered and tribal around the world – something no doubt influenced by our ever more online lifestyles, and the ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ mindset that puts us in – we could all learn a lot from the Japanese way. And if you have any means whatsoever of getting out there and seeing it for yourself, you simply must do it.