Takeshi Sato
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Show Review: La Festa Mille Miglia 2007
The Meiji Jingu Park became a paddock for cars and drivers to meet with friends and enthusiasts, and the abundance of Italian cars duly paid their respects to the race's origins. It was great to see so many well-kept models. Notably the Jaguar XK120 here looked terrific, with a really ...
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Show Review: La Festa Mille Miglia 2007
Those who arrived early for the Tokyo Motor Show may have had the chance to see Japan's take on the Mille Miglia, the 1000 mile race held between 1927 and 1957 in Italy. Never a nation to take their hobbies anything less than seriously, La Festa Mille Miglia is a ...
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Essay: Retrospection
In the wake of Mays' departure, Audi took another step towards its Auto Union heritage with the fabulous Rosemeyer concept of 2000. Of course, much of the surfacing came from the TT, but the overall shape of the Rosemeyer is unique and the front graphic has now been successfully translated ...
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Essay: Retrospection
Hommage, reinterpretation, retrofuturism, learning from the past. Whatever you call it, retrospection has been a defining movement of car design over the past two decades. Touted as forging identity, this trend has been criticized as unoriginal, yet the success of numerous models recently spawned by it contends the forward-looking principles ...
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Honda Interface Exhibition
Ginza, Tokyo - Honda recently had a small exhibition to show their progression of IP and binnacle design. Situated in the design gallery of Matsuya, one of Tokyo's premier department stores, it included a chronology of Honda dashboards from the first Civic to tomorrow's FCX. Opposite this was a grid ...
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Book Review: ‘Cars: Freedom, Style, Sex, Power, Motion, Colour, Everything’
The ‘59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz is best known in pink. Pink! Can you believe it? A symbol of hope and change, the color of lipstick. It would be like dressing Obama in chiffon for his inauguration: it was audacious. That was the dawn of microwaves and the space-race, ambition fuelled ...
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Show Review: Tokyo Auto Salon 2008
Even closer to female fashion was the Mazda Verisa, a small hatchback targeting businesswomen that now has Fendi-inspired seat trim on the options list. So while Japanese women seem to be benefiting, spare a thought for their husbands: as trunks are increasingly filled with batteries for hybrids and amps for ...
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Show Review: Tokyo Auto Salon 2008
Barely three months have elapsed since the 2007 Auto Show, and now Tokyo has just hosted the 2008 Auto Salon. Not to be confused with the international biennial show which focuses on advanced concepts, this annual salon is parallel to America's SEMA in featuring modified cars from a range of ...
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Essay: Looking Back in Wonder
Fast-forward to 2009, and the differences between small and large cars has become more extreme while the choice of bodystyles is staggering. Small efficient cars like the Smart or the Honda Fit share the road with behemoth SUVs like the Cadillac Escalade, and in between everything is possible - from ...
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Essay: Looking Back in Wonder
We live in a world of wondrous high technology, the globe has never been more connected and access to technology never easier. For the majority of consumers in developed markets as well as emerging countries, communication, leisure, mobility, safety and health has never been more affordable, even as the world ...
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Show Review: Tokyo Auto Salon 2009
Until then, there are always offerings such as the Mazda Rotas RV Special, or indeed any of the heavily modified Toyota Hiaces on display (Japan's most stolen vehicle). We saw Hiaces turned into karaoke rooms, and numerous versions sporting colored carbon-fiber trim - some of which deviated from the familiar ...
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Show Review: Tokyo Auto Salon 2009
It's back to Japan for the 2009 Auto Salon, Asia's answer to SEMA in the States. While the studios of Japan's Big Three, Nissan, Honda and Toyota busy themselves preparing concepts for the Tokyo Motor Show in October, aftermarket tuners have been equally occupied by the process of pumping, dropping ...
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Show Review: Tokyo Concours d'Elegance 2009
Before the wall divided Berlin there was Rometsch Carrosserie, and before the Mercedes-Benz CLS was the 1956 VW-Rometsch Beescow Cabriolet, also dubbed the ‘Banana car' of its day. As well as producing the Berlin Wall, the Third Reich provided the Beescow with its chassis: that of the VW Beetle, predictably ...
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Show Review: Tokyo Concours d'Elegance 2009
18 months since Japan's first Concours d'Elegance, organizer and enthusiast Paul Goldsmith has produced another occasion for fabulous cars in the heart of Tokyo. In 2007, the event coincided with the Tokyo Motor Show - and a typhoon. Avoiding the chance for such a misfortune to reoccur, this year's show ...
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Book Review: H-Point
The first thing you see on the cover of H-Point is a big-wheeled sports car that leaves little room for suspension and limited lock. Designers tend to judge a book by its cover, but you should look past that here as H-Point is a valuable guide to the fundamental requirements ...
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Tokyo Auto Salon 2010
Ironically, the quilted-seat trend common last year has since expanded to the exterior, leading to a pink Toyota Vellfire minivan covered in padding. Another material finding itself applied was of course carbon fiber, but rather than replacing panels, one company saw fit to simply put the weave on top of ...
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Tokyo Auto Salon 2010
Japan recently hosted the Tokyo Auto Salon, a popular three-day event showcasing the latest wares from the country's tuning scene. Filling the same space as last year's Motor Show, none of the cost-cutting that afflicted that was evident here. This may be because of timing, but more likely it is ...
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Essay: Wood in Cars
Thirty years later wooden cladding was still found on the Wagoneer's replacement, the Grand Cherokee, speaking more of nostalgia than style. Conservative customers have prolonged the use of wood beyond what many designers would prefer, but now it seems that things are changing. Having never had a coachbuilding tradition, wood ...
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Essay: Wood in Cars
In the past, many materials have frequently bettered wood: by concrete for buildings, steel for ships and plastic for chairs. So how is it still in use in cars? The first car, the Mercedes-Benz three-wheeler, used it for the floor before its use grew to include the running boards and ...
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Book Review: Cosmic Motors
It is the year 8966-B in Galaxion, a distant galaxy where Daniel Simon has spent the past two years creating visions for the Cosmic Motors brand. Beginning with the Camarudo ‘one-person motion device', the former VW designer puts aside gravity to find unique forms for future vehicles, accompanied by excellent ...
