50 years of Japanese Concept Cars

Pink Tentacle, a Japanophile focused blog, shows 50 years of concept cars from Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and others.

Some of these concept cars showed off features and designed that made it into later year models – the 1997 Nissan Hypermini looks very much like the Smart Car that made it into production in 2000, and even some of the wilder cars, like the 1999 Honda Fuya-Jo shows a boxy, tank-like design that brings to mind the Nissan Cube.

Even so, some of these concept cars are Jetsons-level out there, including the 1993 Mazda London Taxi (which looks like the car Homer Simpson designed), the 1987 Daihatsu TA-X80, and the 1969 Toyota EX-II (which also brings to mind the Smart Car… which makes me wonder if maybe these things have a 30-year or so time from concept to production…)