1960's Japanese Vehicles

[meallen]

Hi folks...

I am building an HO scale diorama...and I need to find some cars/trucks that would have been on the streets in mid-60's Tokyo. It seems like Futura made some 60's Japanese cars. I'm not real familiar with all the manufacturers...so if someone could recommend some...or some good retail sites to visit to acquire said vehicles...I would greatly appeciate the help.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[UP2CSX]

Boy, you've picked tough era and country to model. Tamyia made a 1964 Nissan 900 convertible but it's discontinued. I can't find any evidence that a Futura company making model cars still exists. There are many modern Japanese cars available in HO scale but almost none from the 60's, when the the Japanese car industry was still in its infancy. The best I can suggest is to check Yahoo Groups and see if there's one that's devoted to collecting early Japanese car models. You may be able to get some leads there.

 

[meallen]

Sorry...a misspelling on my part...I meant Furuta. I guess they had little cars inside of eggs or something like that.

Thanks for the info.

Mike

 

[UP2CSX]

Well, I found Furuta's web site and I think you can pretty well forget them as a source of HO Japanese cars. In fact, don't even go there if you have any little kids around the computer.

 

[DirtyD79]

I think some company BUB made a lot of them too. I've seen some of their stuff at Greenberg Shows. Furuta stuff does show up on eBay but sadly most of those weisenheimers want way too much for it.

 

[meallen]

Boy, you've picked tough era and country to model. Tamyia made a 1964 Nissan 900 convertible but it's discontinued. I can't find any evidence that a Futura company making model cars still exists. There are many modern Japanese cars available in HO scale but almost none from the 60's, when the the Japanese car industry was still in its infancy. The best I can suggest is to check Yahoo Groups and see if there's one that's devoted to collecting early Japanese car models. You may be able to get some leads there.

Jim...you mentioned the Japanese car industry being in it's infancy in the mid-60's. Would you know what kind of vehicles would have been prevalent in Japan back then? US made? Or cars from other countries?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[OldGettysk]

I would like to see a 1970 Datson pick-up truck . That is what I used to move into my current house back in 1974 .

 

[UP2CSX]

Mike, the first thing to remember is that cars weren't all that common in 1960's Japan. There were way more motorcyles and mopeds than cars. Even bicycles were still common. About the only American cars that would be seen belonged to diplomats or the military. They were far out of the price range of the average Japanese citizen. Almost all the cars (and trucks) that were in Japan were made in Japan, with Datsun and Toyota being the major manufacturers. There were many other small car companies then, like Mazda and Honda, that became big and successful later, and others, like HAKOSUKA, that faded away. The cars were uniformly tiny to make them affordable and to let them squeeze down the narrow old streets of Japaneses cities.

Here are a few web sites that give you some idea of early Japanese cars:

http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Pit/3823/fairlady.html
http://www.earlydatsun.com/index.html
http://www.japaneseclassiccarshow.com/
http://toyotageek.com/

 

[Larry]

EKO is a good line for Japanese vehicles. Walthers use to handle them.

Larry

 

[UP2CSX]

Larry, EKO is a Spanish manufacturer that makes a lot military models and European prototype vehicles. They've made a few American vehicles as well but I don't remember any Japanese vehicle ever made by them. A search of their current product line doesn't show any kind of 60's Japanese vehicles.