Driving Backwards – Japanese

Car Design and Showa Nostalgia Stefano Piantino 12-02-2023, BC210510

DRIVING BACKWARDS – JAPANESE CAR DESIGN

AND SHOWA NOSTALGIA

0. Introduction

In this study, I will try to investigate the nature of two objects1, their historical and social

meaning, and the impact they might be having on Japanese society, specifically in terms of

consumption of goods and capitalistic market. The two objects I am referring to are two

types of motor vehicles: one taken into consideration as a product of direct

acquisition/consumption, the Japanese kei car, and the other as an object utilized to provide

a service, a specific type of taxi that can be seen in the metropolitan area of Tokyo, to which

I will refer as retro taxi. I premise that I never had any interest in cars, on the contrary, I must

admit that I have always felt a repulsion towards motor vehicles in general. I tend to find

cars per se a shallow matter, to which society tends to grant too much importance. I also think

they can become harmful objects when, from an individual perspective, they transit to a net

of social interaction, with a dangerous explosive charge, especially in terms of gender,

privilege, and social status. I am nevertheless inclined to believe that the objects we refuse to

analyze, criticize or look at due to their being unappealing are the most perilous ones, and

threaten to furtively pull the strings of our lives and control our desires and cravings. This is

why I will try to venture deeper into a matter I have never before taken into consideration,

and I hope the absence of previous background will not interfere.

I will try to prove that both these objects and their fortune might be partially linked to

their design and how this can trigger a specific type of emotion. I believe, in fact, that the

emotional responses of buyers to the aesthetics of these cars could be related to Showa

Nostalgia, «a cultural phenomenon emerging around the beginning of the twenty-first

1 Mainly aesthetically.
century due to the immense popularity of media and cultural products» (Hidaka 2017, 6). It

has been proven by numerous studies that object stimulate emotional responses in human

beings and that the production design of goods is often shaped by the response that they are

likely to cause in potential customers. Therefore, I would like to argue that the fortune of

some kei cars could also be due (beyond, as stated by many sources, to their «spaciousness

and overall performance» (Nunn 2005)) to their aesthetic rewriting of Showa design features,

and that the choice of the vehicles employed to deliver passenger services in big cities might

be influenced by the same elements2.

1. Kei cars: small and clumsy = harmless?

The kei car (or 軽自動車 – keijidōsha, "light car/vehicle") is the Japanese vehicle category

for the smallest passenger cars. It is also elsewhere called Japanese city car or Japanese microcar,

and «it is limited in length, width, engine size, and horsepower» (Garrett 2007). It could be

conceptually compared to a European A-segment car, or city car, and similar categories exist for

microvans (and kei trucks). Kei cars come in various types of shapes (figure 1), but, in this

paper, I will concentrate on a peculiarly looking type of kei car, one of the most diffused, the

box-like or cubic-looking ones, among which I will select the second generation of Honda

N-Box (ホンダ・N-BOX, Enubokkusu) as a representative example, mostly in order to give

a satisfying description in terms of appearance and aesthetics.

The original Honda N-Box was launched in 2011, while the second generation was

unveiled by Honda on the 25 of May 2017 and launched in Japan in the August of the same

year. It then went on sale approximately one month later. The dimensions of the vehicle are

339cm in length, 147cm in width, and 175cm in height. It can be bought in several different

colors, I will here refer to the ochre and the white models (figures 2; 3). The interior of the

2 Or, at least, that a choice of “persistence” in these canons might be influenced, even not deliberately, by

Showa Nostalgia.

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car is rather spacious, mostly due to its height, to the proportion between this and its width

and length, and to the lines of the body of the vehicle, which rather than being curved are

rigid and straight, with angles and junctions that resemble rounded right angles. It can fit up

to four people, the trunk does not have a considerable extension in terms of length, but can

still fit approximately two suitcases, and the rear seats can be folded down in order to obtain

more loading space (figure 7). The front area is rather ordinary, there is a digital screen to

control the GPS, audio, and other settings, but both the speedometer and the fuel gauge are

analog, the driving wheel is positioned on the right and there are several air-conditioning

vents, both on the side of the passenger and that of the driver (figures 4; 6; 8).

The exterior is probably the element presenting the features that are most crucial in this

analysis, and it determines a lot in terms of aesthetics. It might be stated that this kind of

model has a rather “clumsy” (and not really aerodynamic), unproportioned, funny shape for

our days. As I stated above, the straight, right lines and angles of this type of car are pretty

characteristic and peculiar, and the same goes for the proportions among its parts, which are

rather unusual. The bonnet section is extremely short compared to the rest of the car, and

the whole body, to the sight, results roughly divided into two main sections: a smaller,

shorter, and more compressed parallelepiped/cube (the front or bonnet section), and a bulky,

elongated, compact, unitary second box, dedicated to hosting the passenger seats and the

trunk (figures 2; 1; 6). The most significant vertical lines, if we look at the car by its profile,

consist of the trunk door, the bumper section, and, maybe most crucially, the windshield,

which is also the line that connects the two parallelepipeds or boxes that compose the overall

visual appearance of this object. What I want to point out here is that these three lines,

instead of being diagonal, or softly curved (gradually crescent or descendent), as it is more

common in modern-looking cars (figure 12), are steep and rather vertical, closer to a

perpendicular line than a diagonal. They fall or rise suddenly on other rather straight, non-

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soft lines, like that of the bonnet and that of the roof. All of this contributes to rendering a

rigid, squared profile, a general shape reducible or divisible in smaller, non-curvilinear, simple

polygons. It can also provide the impression of the presence of two different rectangular

bodies/boxes in terms of height, a longer one below, out of which, due to the “harsh” lines,

a second, shorter (in length) box seems to come out of or detach from (figure 2). Other

important features to point out are the shape and sizes of the windshield, which covers the

largest possible, rigorously rectangular section of the front, non-significantly curved in its

width and height (same goes for the rear window), and the side windows, large and regular

in shape, squared. Both the front and the taillights have a squared form, quite distant from

the elaborated, composite shapes of most cars that crowd European streets (figures 2; 3; 5).

Finally, the vertical junctions (i.e., between the body and the windows) are kept as thin and

invisible as possible, and there are not many metal-colored components to be spotted,

especially in the front bumper section, most of the components are kept in the same color

of the body or in black, even the grid in front of the radiator, that often does not display the

same color as the rest of the body (and is instead yellow here, figure 3).

2. Retro taxis: a ride to the past

The type of vehicle I am referring to in this paragraph is one of the models of taxis

mostly spread in Japan. I personally was able to witness the presence of huge numbers of

this type of car in the center of Tokyo and in Okinawa, mostly in Naha. The model is not

always the same, but I will try to give a description of the most significant shared features of

the vehicles that I am generally grouping under the name and category of Japanese retro taxi. I

will largely resort to the examples displayed in the pictures, but a specific model of car largely

used in Tokyo3 to provide this kind of service is the Toyota Crown Comfort or Toyota

3 And famously, since several series of models have been produced, i.e., the Tomica TLVN Toyota Crown

Tokyo Musen Taxi, in the two famous colors, green/yellow and black.

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Crown Sedan (figures 9; 10; 11). This type of vehicle presents a vintage-looking (mostly due

to the rigid, non-aerodynamic shape, not suitable for contemporary, sporty cars), elongated

body, divisible in three sections longitudinally. The first and the last are lower in height and

present straight lines, with pronounced, visible, and almost right angles. The bonnet section

is usually longer than the trunk section, and their similarly low and slightly descending shape

concurs in giving an even stronger impression of elongation. In the center, due to the always

pronounced, harsh angles and the non-curvilinear profiles and lines (especially those of

separation), a taller parallelepiped seems to come out, almost abruptly detached from the rest

of the body, since the connecting lines do not concur in forming a harmonious, smooth,

curved, or soft junction. The colors are often limited to black, white and the famous

green/yellow design (figure 10). Interestingly, the mirrors are often detached from the central

section and positioned on the bonnet (figures 9; 10), giving and even stronger retro look.

The junctions between the mirrors and the body are very thin, and often highlighted by

metal-colored particulars or lines, the windows themselves are big and rather squared. The

taillights and front lights are also rectangular, with a simple rather than composite shape. The

aperture and shape of the trunk are curious and not common, almost outdated, today, the

loading space extends in length rather than in height, and the door covers part of both the

horizontal and vertical sides, presenting a rounded, almost right angle. The most considerable

difference of the Okinawan variant of this type of taxi is the color: white, blue, or green, the

most diffused and famous version being a white and blue vehicle with a retro-looking

hibiscus flower printed on the sides (figure 9).

3. History, histories

Before reaching a conclusion, and trying to give an interpretation of the nature and

power of these objects, the messages they inadvertently deliver, and the control they can

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have on people, and in order to more effectively do so, I would like to take into consideration

the history and evolution of these objects.

It is important to highlight that the Kei car category was created by the Japanese

government in 1949, right after the end of the second world war and in the middle of the

Showa era, in a moment of national, political, and economic uncertainty, when most Japanese

could not afford a full-sized car, and many had just enough money to buy a motorcycle. This

type of car and legal standards originated to help the people and the economy, specifically,

to promote growth in the car industry, as well as to provide alternative delivery methods to

shop owners, small businesses, and entrepreneurs, and its “life” and diffusion covered the

span of the most intense economic growth period of Japan. There have been different

regulations establishing a maximum size, power output, and engine performance in order for

owners to benefit both in terms of taxes and insurance. Originally limited to only 150 ccs (or

100 ccs for two-stroke) before 1950, engine and size limitations were gradually softened

(1950-1955) to tempt more manufacturers to produce these models. The class of vehicle

became increasingly popular, arriving at one of its peaks in 1970 when 750,000 kei cars were

sold. In the 70s, the benefits were eroded by some legislations, and sales suffered to the

extent that many producers insisted that the government took action to make these models

more sellable again. This seemed to have worked as in the 1980s sales went over 700,000

models once again.

Furthermore, looking at the market it is easily understandable how much kei cars are a

specifically Japanese phenomenon: Isuzu is the only current Japanese automobile

manufacturer that has never offered a kei-sized model either for commercial or private

owners. Nearly all kei cars have been designed and manufactured in Japan. It is also fruitful

to compare the success kei cars had in Japan to their exportation attempts: «the genre is too

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specialised and too unprofitable for export markets» (Rees 1995, 79), and too small as well4.

It is not difficult to understand why some might regard them as part of a cultural identity

that is specifically Japanese.

In the case of the second category of vehicles, what I have called retro taxis, tracing a

history is a more difficult task, the category being less well defined. This is why I will limit

my considerations to the Toyota Crown Comfort case. On the website of Toyota Global, we

can read that, «launched in December 1995, the Crown Comfort sedan was primarily

developed for use as medium-sized taxis and driving school cars» (Toyota 2022). Its name

comes from the long-running, famous Toyota Crown, which started to be produced in Japan

right after WWII, in 1955. Very interestingly, even if it “sprouted out” of the Crown model,

after its launch the Crown Comfort did not follow the aesthetic evolution and modernization

process of the Crown, which in the eleventh and twelfth, and most effectively in the

thirteenth generation (1999, 2003, 2008 figures 17; 18; 19) already looked completely

different from a 1900s car, now presenting aerodynamic structure, smooth and curved lines,

and surfaces (windshield included) all around the body, seamless connections between those

that before could be called “boxes” or “parallelepipeds”, and bulkier junctions, resulting in

more rounded, smaller, sometimes trapezoidal windows. The appearance of the Crown

Comfort never changed significantly, and, instead, its retro-looking appearance granted huge

fortune. In 2008, the model won the Good Design Award in the long-life design award

category (Toyota 2022). In 2010, the Crown Comfort was given the “President Prize” by

Akio Toyoda (president of Toyota, corporate award): «the car itself is unspectacular5 but it is

very important to Toyota. This is why Morizo chose the car for the first “Morizo award”,

[…] the car can be driven over the years by everybody from beginners to experts. And this

4 Relevant exceptions exist, however, for example the Suzuki Alto and Daihatsu Cuore, which were

exported consistently from around 1980, probably managing to fit both inside this category and others.
5 I believe particular attention must be given to this particular passage.

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is the proof that the car is the symbol of Toyota's quality, durability and reliability» (Koh

2011). It is easy to see how this model has been turned into a symbol and has been awarded

basically for representing a shared element in the lives of the “common people” of Japan

from the previous century on. In this kind of tone and dialectic, it is not difficult to spot a

nostalgic inclination and the tendency to recognize, present, and see this model of car, and

in a semantically wider sense, the Crown Comfort taxi or retro taxi as a topical and identarian

component of culture and city life6.

4. Conclusion: corporate design(s) and the collective, imperative “we”

Kansei is a Japanese word that can be translated as «feelings, images, emotions, affection,

sense or impression» (Sutono, et al. 2016, 1). Kansei Engineering defines a methodology

«which unites Kansei with the engineering discipline, a field where the development of

products that bring happiness and satisfaction to human beings is performed technologically

by analyzing human emotions and incorporating them into the product design» (Sutono, et

al. 2016, 1). The main aim of this process is to offer a prediction (using models obtained

from the relationship between consumers’ kansei and product form features) bound to

generate an optimal design solution for a final product (Desmet, et al. 2021; Sutono, et al.

2016; P. M. Desmet 2003; Warell 2008).

It is possible to evince from numerous studies that the design of the appearance of a car

in a car company is, in Japan, a long and carefully studied process, in which many different

paths are evaluated (Eguchi e Okada 2010). In addition to this, «in terms of Kansei/affective

engineering, it has been proven that research in Japan» was present since «the 1970s on [the]

integration of affective values into products», and «mainly referred to as emotional

engineering». Then, «in the 1980s the method spread rapidly in the Japanese car industry and

6 And that, as such, ought to be recognized and praised in the same way by any truly Japanese person or

any individual that has lived in the last decades of the 20th century.

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in 1986, Yamamoto, the president of Mazda, coined the technique “Kansei engineering”

when he gave lectures about “car culture” at Michigan University. At this lecture he suggested

to apply Kansei engineering in car design (Lee 1992). Under this term the methodology

spread to Western industry» (Dahlgaard, Schutte e Ayas 2008, 301). It is not misleading, then,

to state that producers are not unaware of the images, implicit cues and meanings inbuilt or

embedded in objects. Sometimes the references are not concealed at all: the N of Honda N-

Box was previously used for the late 1960s and 1970s Honda N360 (figure 14), one of the

most iconic and famous kei cars of the Showa period (crucially famous, and released on a very

peculiar year, 1968).

If we analyze the aesthetic appearance and design of the cars of the Showa period, we

will be able to recognize a great number of features that were present in the descriptions I

have made above7: the body visibly divided into separate sections not harmoniously

connected, a central taller “box” emerging from a shorter cubic form, the straight, steep,

non-curved lines, the almost right, rounded angles, the wide uncurved windshield, squared

as the windows, the thin junctions, the rectangular lights8 (figures 13; 14; 15; 16). In a big

number of these cars (as in the retro taxis), the shape was incredibly elongated, and this

impression was strongly rendered by the “disproportion” of a short (in length) and taller

central parallelepiped, placed between two short, considerably long ends. All these elements

are foreign to the turns taken in car design (especially in Europe and in the USA) since the

last years of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. These changes are mostly due to

aerodynamics and to the attempt to render a younger, sportier, futuristic look, that often

refuses harsh lines and opts for more composite solutions (figure 13).

7 Even if, in general, «Japanese car designers prefer the “decelerating” curve like a parabola». And «Italian
car designers prefer the “accelerating” curve as a C curve consisting of a straight-line of “gradient” -1» (Harada,
Yoshimoto e Moriyama 1999).
8 It must be noted how, as far as modern kei cars are concerned, the similitudes ought to be found especially

in the Showa correspondents, the Showa kei cars.

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 «Emotions involve appraisals or evaluations», and «people are emotional beings and

products can address [their] emotions in multiple ways» (Noor e Hashim 2020, 6). These

ways include, consciously or not, images, values, and emotions coming from past experience:

as proved by the Schematic Model Of Aesthetic Experience by Leder, Belke, Oeberst and Augustin

(Leder, et al. 2004), the observer of a work of art starts the perceptual analysis of the work,

comparing it to previous encounters of the same kind. Just after this moves onto a

classification of the work into a meaningful category, to subsequently interpret and evaluate

the work, concluding with the acquisition of an aesthetic judgment and an aesthetic emotion

(Noor e Hashim 2020, 7). To strengthen all of this, emotions evoked by car design are closely

linked to human values also because there is a highly visceral resemblance and relationship

between bodies of people and bodies of cars, which can force us to acknowledge the

“humanity” of cars. (Noor e Hashim 2020, 6).

Cars have certainly been a crucial component of the Showa period and a great symbol

of its economic growth, it is written in the very history of kei cars, and in the reason for the

creation of this legal class of vehicles. It is easy to see them as mirroring the rise of an era

(especially the post-WWII Showa) in which people were able to rebuild their lives and their

economy starting from a point in which they were so poor that they could just buy a

motorcycle, or a kei car, and the redemption, the payback of building so much from there,

step by step. As stated by Katsuyuki Hidaka, «collective nostalgia often appears after major

social changes […] because people desire a sense of continuity with the time before the

change happened» (2017, 7). This definition is certainly adequate for contemporary Japan,

and its existential and economic uncertainty: the economic stagnation dates back to the 90s,

the widening gap in income between rich and poor is alarming and serious, and Japan lost its

place to China as the world’s second economy in 2010. In such a situation a juxtaposition is

sometimes inescapable, «the [Showa] experiences of promoting rapid and miraculous

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economic growth after the Second World War are crucially important to many Japanese

people», «citizens […] have a nostalgic longing for their country’s economic heyday» (Hidaka

2017, 6-7). All of this is emphasized by a strong desire for community, the search for a

common identity, and for elements able to bind people together.

I understand the hopes linked to those days and the sense of redemption coming with

their memory, as well as the desire, the need, to mourn, to remember. They are implicit in

human nature, and fundamental. But the reluctance to move on from aesthetics that resemble

those of the Showa era vehicles can be liked with a tendency to resume the past, and to do

it, most importantly, subconsciously. The re-perpetuation of its forms and archetypes creates

myths and fetishes, the aesthetic and ideological components of which are then transferred

into the objects now on the market, and these furtively keep on delivering veiled meanings

and attraction. This needs to be recognized, perspectivized, and dialogisized. The risk, if we

fail to do so, is to perpetuate an epic, mythical narration of events that implies a cyclical time

and eternal recurrence. In a cyclical conception of time and space, there is no space for actual

progress, and the faults and flaws of the past are romanticized and excused, silenced, and

forgotten. Nationalism becomes rampant especially when nations are forced onto the

periphery in terms of political and economic relevance (Nairn 1977), and nostalgia certainly

plays a big role in this. Any process, or, in this case, any object, favoring these phenomena

silently and covertly, at least needs to be analyzed and decrypted.

I hope this is a step in this direction, even if the objects whose nature has yet to be

understood are many. Several studies have shown how aesthetics can be used to control,

direct and stimulate specific responses in whole environments, such as big events, cities

(urban order), railway cars, and stations (Wood e Abe 2011; Kido 2005), I, therefore, believe

it is important to keep working in this direction, trying to, at least conceptually, “defuse”

objects and make individuals critically conscious.

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 Figure 2 Credits: World Net Rent-a-car

Figure 3 Credits: Wikipedia

Figure 1 Credits: Twitter

Figure 4 Credits: World Net Rent-a-car Figure 5 Credits: Wikipedia

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Figure 6 Credits: World Net Rent-a-car

Figure 7 Credits: World Net Rent-a-car

Figure 8 Credits: World Net Rent-a-car Figure 9 Credits: Japan Web Magazine

Figure 10 Credits: Japan Today

Figure 11 Credits: Tsunagu Japan

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 Figure 13 Credits: Sabukaru
Figure 12 Credits: Autocar

Figure 14 Credits: Wikipedia

Figure 15 Credits: Japanese Nostalgic Car

Figure 16 Credits: Bingo

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Figure 17 Credits: Wikipedia

Figure 18 Credits: Wikipedia

Figure 19 Credits: Wikipedia

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