This one on the other hand will be short, but for obvious reasons.
Japanese cars are smaller then most Western cars. To be specific, an American pick-up would be like a U-HAUL here, Mini Coopers should be named Regular and Smart cars are small, but more like a short person is short, not like the midgets they are in the West.
I don't know how they handle, so I'll just say what I've noticed. While smaller, they're top heavy, which comes from being more compact. They're easier to back up entirely because they have cameras on the back and a semi-decent screen to see this on, as well as sensors for when you're getting to close to something. The screen also doubles as a television, supplied by radio, more popular than the audio variety. It even triples as a not-GPS (or so I was told) GPS, which shows your current location on a pre-made map with all the usual features. And it quadruples and quintuples as other features you would imagine a car as having, though the dashboard is normal.
Japanese roads are smaller, have too many lights, especially where they should just have stop signs, are marked differently and are not on the wrong side of the road (Austrailia, Europe and at least Japan of Asia all use the left side, America (continent) is backwards). The roads are also covered in crosswalks, which while useful, must get annoying for drivers.
As for the flux capacitor, N-jammer canceller, all spark and fusion core, they're optional. I'd expand on this, but I've got nothing.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
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There's a whole cult of 'owners of Japanese cars' in Vancouver - they're generally called Japanoids and are a bit of a status symbol, not unlike the fixie-bike craze. There's the cheap price, the amazing gas mileage, and the inherent difficulty of driving with the wheel on the wrong side. But most of all they want everyone on the sidewalk to go "oooooh, look!"
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to bet that the North American trend will be towards Japanese-style cars in the next ten years. And if you want speed you can get nitro-injection, like Miyuki's patrol car in Taicho Shichauzo.
When I was in N.Z. I noticed that they were no old or junkie cars around. I was told that N.Z made a deal with Japan and imported a pile of good used Japanese cars and sold them for really cheap to get all of old N.Z. junkers off the road. Just some trivia info.
ReplyDeletemom
Yeah, you are right about them being top heavy. I saw an accident today and the car was easily knocked on it's side. Considering how close I was to it (2 meters to the right of me), I never want to witness that kind of demonstration again.
ReplyDelete