50 Years of Mirai: Japan’s Forgotten Concept Cars

Toyota EX-7, 1972

Mirai is the Japanese word for “future,” and the nation has a hard-earned reputation for building some of the world’s most advanced electronics and machinery. But it all had to start somewhere, didn’t it?

Driven by the likes of Harley Earl, Giugiaro, Bertone and Motorama, the Americans and Europeans have garnered a reputation for impossibly sleek, daringly futuristic postwar concept cars. The Americans built them to show off their brave new optimism; the Europeans built them to give hope to a war-ravaged populace. But here’s a fact that may have been whitewashed by the annals of automotive time: the Japanese have been building concept cars for much of the same reasons outlined above, and for just as long to boot.

Who says the Japanese don't build beautiful cars?

Does this come as a surprise? From a country whose first cars were cheap, tawdry replicas of Chrysler Airflows, or rickety 500cc runabouts spurred together by Allied forces, then perhaps. “Made in Japan” was once a pejorative, a cheap insult later reserved for the Koreans and now almost exclusively targeted at the Chinese. There’s no way they could have built a Disco Volante, a Firebird III, or even anything skimmed from an Italian’s cheese grater. Or could they?

Check out the austerely-named Toyota Concept of 1966: a sleek, spiked missile with a speared mohawk running down the center, fresh from its rendezvous with Discovery One. Or the breadboxed Nissan 270X, with a Europa-shaped rear trunk reminiscent of a toaster oven – albeit a brown and beautifully-trimmed oven, with redline tires. From a time when Isuzu was still in business built passenger cars, the Bellett MX1600 (the latter alphanumeric to distinguish it from the more plebeian variety), designed by Ghia.

How about the Toyota RV2, which is what Giugiaro’s gullwinged Taipro concept would have been if it came with a pop-top camper and sleeping arrangements? Or the EV-II, also from Toyota, resembling the unholy combination of an AMC Pacer and a blancmange? Or the Mazda London Taxi of 1993, which if produced would have the Queen choking on her spotted “Richard?” And there’s the 2005 Nissan Zaroot, which is notable only because it’s named “Zaroot.”

We dare you to say it 10 times fast and not giggle.

Here, then, is a list traversing 50 wild, wacky, glorious years of Japanese concept cars, starting from the Jetsons-themed Toyota Proto of 1957 all the way to 9 or 10 unproduced Isuzu renderings, many involving the moon and possibly fender-mounted guns. If you thought the Nissan Pivo was weird, then you certainly ain’t seen nothing yet. Who says Japan doesn’t live in the future? Oh wait, they already are.

Pink Tentacle: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars

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