I continued on my walk and crossed the street, and was surprised when I saw the little blue car waiting at another light! I quickly grabbed one more shot before it took off out of my life for good. There wasn't even a name or logo to help me identify it.
I am very excited to be back in Japan for the week. Unlike last time, this time I had an extra weekend to visit a bit. I saw the cities of Osaka and Kyoto, and even if it was raining all day, I very much enjoyed both cities. Of course no visit to a foreign country would be complete for me without copious amounts of car spotting. The most interesting and exciting by far was this lovely little retro blue thing I saw shortly after leaving the Kyoto train station: You can see in the photo that the driver was turning left, and unfortunately the light turned green before I could snap a shot of the front. The little 3-door hatchback had a very original shape, and I especially loved the ribbed body panels. The rear glass opens up and the tailgate opens down, making this a useful little car. The top is a large canvas piece that reminded me of the French Renault 4L and Citroen 2CV. It had so many great details, like the three 'stoplight' rear lights, roof rails, and hinges on the doors. I continued on my walk and crossed the street, and was surprised when I saw the little blue car waiting at another light! I quickly grabbed one more shot before it took off out of my life for good. There wasn't even a name or logo to help me identify it. At the end of the day when I returned to the hotel, I did a Google search for random old retro Japanese cars, and was about to give up when I somehow stumbled across this page: Turns out this little blue car is the Nissan Pao, and was only built in 1989. With a tiny 1.0L engine and a whopping 52 horsepower, it clearly wouldn't appeal to everyone, but has the kind of oddball appeal that I love. After my first visit in Japan I knew that I would have no problem living there, automotively speaking, thanks to all the cool modern Kei cars like this Suzuki Lupin I wrote about before: Now I have to rethink that. Why get something new and modern that you find in every parking lot when you can have a great retro toy like this? Lets just say that this trip to Japan was a very pao-sitive experience, and that I want to get back again as soon as possible to go hunting for more strange old cars!
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AuthorWelcome! My name is Paul, and I am an old-fashioned, low-pressure, low-buck car fan with lots of automotive stories to tell! Archives
February 2020
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