does anyone here know how the 1st gen is looked upon in Japan? Are they classics, rare or what? i kinda remember seeing something about good condition 1st gens being stolen stateside and exported back to Japan. Just wondering.

 

never herd of anyhting like that. try asking this in the far east/ japan section of the forum. its located in the same area the regonal forum area

 

I obviously can't say for sure, since I'm on the other side of the planet, but I think 1st gens and most older cars are oddities, semi-rare cars. The way the vehicle ispections and such go in Japan is cheaper for most people to buy a new car every few years than to keep around their old ones. So kids and younger people buy the used cars, even popular old cars like the AE86 are sometimes rare, just because of the cost of maintaining older cars over there.

So in short, I think they're much more rare than over here, but not impossible to find, I know its very rare to see cars like Rx-3's.

 

+1... not only agreeing but he is correct.

 

any car over 20 years old is rare over here. most people junk cars at the 10 year mark due to the increased maintenance costs.

most drivers over here average about 10~15K kilometers a year so the cars a so low mileage that they rarely require any serious work until they hit aobut 8~10 years old, that when they start junking them here. the biggest problem is that land is so expensive here that the junkyards crush cars as fast as they get them...so going to the local boneyard for parts is out of the question.

rare as they are, I have yet to see any stateside version 1st gens over here, importation to Japan is fairly strict and registering a car without the proper ownership trail is next to impossible here with locally produced cars, let alone ones brought from overseas.

now I could see them going to malaysia, tialand or a place like that though.

FWIW anybody with an older car like a 1st gen is generally considered eccentric... and that nicely sums me up

kenn

 

Cars in Japan are considered old after they are (5) in Japan I have seen many 1st gens overseas and they are looked upon the same way as they are here except the cars are better off remaining stock.There are more american muscle cars and oldie cars running the streets of Japan than I have ever seen in the U.S and their condition is kept immaculate they pay more for insurance and have large CC engine displacements but they are still addorned by the general public.

 

cool, a straight from Japan answer, we definately owe you one for this.

I like the thought of people with a 1st gen being thought of as eccentric, like how I would view some one who daily drives a model T Ford. Just people standing on the sidewalk, watching you drive past, thinking, "what a weirdo, thats a 20 year old car."

 

Hey kenn_chan, thanks for the info.

 

Another reason people in Japan didn't keep cars for more then ten years is because of the GOJ inspections laws. Today in Japan you have to get a GOJ inspection every 2 years and they are pretty costly but its not as bad as it used to be because the change in laws making it a little easier for people to pass inspections with aftermarket parts. Now back in the day it was hell getting your car to pass the inspection. Basically if your car wasn't stock it wasn't passing. If anything was wrong with it you had to fix get it fixed at a shop, no questions asked. It was nothing to spend over a 1000 bucks on passing the inspection. What makes things worse is that back then whenever your car hits ten years old you had to get the inspection every year. Thats why people got rid of cars after ten years, and its hard to find older cars in Japan.