December 31, 2019 • 53 mins
In this episode of CarStuff, Ben provides us with firsthand information of his recent trip to Japan, including his visit to the Toyota Automobile Museum in Nagakute, a neighboring city of Nagoya, Japan. Viewing an impressive collection of cars from around the world (not just Toyota-built vehicles) and spanning the entire 20th century (including a few years before, and a few years after), made it a day worth sharing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio's
How Stuff Works. Hi, and Welcome to Car Stuff. I'm
one of your host Scott Benjamin, and I'm another one
of your hosts, Kirk Garon. I'm Ben Bullin also here
for some reason. How are you guys doing, doing good?
Doing well? Thank you and he's going great. Hey. You
know what we've we've had many many discussions on the
(00:22):
show in the past about museums that you know, one
or both of us have traveled to, or just museums
in general and collections and all that, and uh, you know,
we've got our favorites, and we've talked about some good,
some bad, some esteem. They didn't make it to that
microcar museum. Yeah, let's missed opportunity to hear about that one.
Curt was here in Georgia. Yeah, I was in um
(00:43):
Oh gosh, what town was Madison? Yeah, you're right, Madison, Madison, Georgia.
It was Bruce Weener's microcar Museum. And the collection was unbelievable.
It was just remarkable. You can still catch it online.
I mean, the whole collection is is preserved an online form.
You look at every our respect you know a little
detail about each vehicle and everything, but to see it
(01:03):
in person was was pretty impressive. I was there on
the last weekend they were open, maybe even the last
day before they held the auction, and it's pretty impressive
as it is a cool thing. But we've seen so
many museums, automobile museums, motorcycle museums, whatever, the racing museums.
But when you mentioned one that you traveled to very recently,
I was more than impressed. One by the location, of course,
(01:25):
I mean it's something that we need to investigate a
little bit further. I got questions about just where you
were and why and all that, but also the museum itself.
I've been kind of poking around with some photos of
this museum that we're going to talk about, and it
looks beautiful. The collection looks amazing, the building looks amazing,
you know, the facilities look really really interesting. Um, I've
(01:45):
got a ton of questions. I know Kurt's got some
questions as well that he wants to hit you up with.
So first question is, well, maybe a statement. We're talking
about a museum that is in Japan. It's the Toyota
Automobile Museum. Yeah, that's right. Scott. Earlier this year, I
went to Japan for the first time. My girlfriend Brandy
(02:09):
and I went there, and a lot of people when
they go to Japan, they fly into the Tokyo Airport.
Tokyo is, of course the most populous city in Japan.
I think it's unfair to even call it a city.
It's like twenty three different cities awards all smashed together
in that airport is very crowded, so we were able
(02:30):
to fly instead of to Tokyo, we flew to a
town called Nagoya, which might not be as familiar to
a lot of people. It's a smaller area, it's more industrial.
It is also famously a Toyota town. And we had
planned to land in Japan at the Nagoya Airport uh
(02:56):
and spend a few days in Nagoya and then sort
of ease our into Tokyo via the Shinkansen, which I
finally rode, Yeah, which we've talked about for years. Man.
And while we were in Nagoya, which has a ton
of history, I learned of the well going towards there,
(03:16):
I learned of the Automotive Museum. And you know how
it is when you travel with your significant other, it's
it's a negotiation and very much of the mind that
most relationships are kind of like the Cold War, you
know what I mean. And uh So, so we had
our list of things that you know, we're like Ben's
(03:38):
definite must do, so you know, we're trade off and
we would figure out. Uh we just prioritized the stuff
that we individually wanted to do and what we wanted
to like go and my priority, uh my number one
priority was to check out this museum. And I didn't
know I was getting into. I didn't really want to
spoil it because well, because it is a little bit
(04:00):
of a gamble, you know what I mean. It is
a little bit out of the way for us, and
I definitely did not want to have to spend the
rest of the trip thinking that I was the one
who took us to a stinker museum and knew about it.
You know, I could see that happening where it eats
up most of your day, right, and then you can
blame like, well, how often are we going to be
(04:21):
in Japan? Oh god? Or worse, you get the list
of things we could have been doing. You know, we've
all been in that situation. So I wanted to avoid that.
But when I got there, I was amazed. It's like
nine bucks a person, first off, and it has hundreds
of cars, like over a hundred and sixty. And they're
not all they're not all Toyotas. That that's the most
(04:45):
astonishing thing. They are from all these different eras. There's
a replica of a steam uh, steam driven car, and
they're really they're really more so interested in instead of
studying the rise of Toyota. Don't get me wrong, guys,
it's a very Toyota heavy museum. They are studying the
(05:09):
rise of the automobile in general and the rise of
the automobile in Japan. The exhibits and you guys have
had a chance to look at these are much much older.
I mean, this is a building with history. This is
a building with some truly priceless automobiles in there. All right.
You know, I got a little bit confused when I
was looking this up. So I hope I'm looking at
(05:30):
the right one here, Ben, because I know there's a
commemorative museum. Yeah, that's also in the same area Toyota.
It's got the Toyota label on it. However, that one
is more skewed to um focus on the industrial revolution
and the idea of the power loom. And I think
there's some you know, old machinery in that building. It's
the old factory where they would produce textiles or type
of thing. And they've got a small car collection in
(05:53):
that building, but it's nothing like the collection that you saw, right, Yeah,
the Toyota Auto Museum. And again I still can't believe
it's like nine bucks a pop. They're not paying me
just say that. It's just that's crazy. Yeah, super steep,
that's very expensive. It's it's dedicated entirely to the automobile,
you know, uh they have they even have well maybe
(06:15):
it's not so much the automobile, it's definitely heavy on that.
I do remember there was a rickshaw one of the exhibits.
UM to me, it almost seems without having been there,
but seeing the list of cars that's there, because you
can look at the exhibits online. You can go to
their website and find that it looks like they're maybe
maybe I read this somewhere, but it seems like they're
(06:36):
focused on like the style of the cars and the
advancements that have been made along the way, and like
kind of like these mildstones, you know, to say like, hey,
look what we were doing in the early nineteen hundreds,
and here's what we did between nineteen thirty and that.
And not just we Toyota, but we because Toyota wasn't
around until what nineteen thirty seven, I believe as the
very first, uh, you know, the founding of Toyota. But
(06:59):
you know, in eras before that and after that, they're
focusing on a you know, the automotive as you said,
automotive industry as a whole, and the advancements that have
been made into how we got from where we started
to where we are now. And I find that pretty
fascinating to to build a collection in that way. You know,
these significant makes and models for some reason, you know,
style or war technology. Also shout out to our old
(07:22):
Toyota episode where we explore the origin story of the company. Yeah,
the way that the cars are displayed, when their position
next to Toyotas are even in the same building as toyotas,
it kind of tells you the story of why Toyota
designed certain cars a certain way. When you see cars
from America, like say from the late fifties, like a
(07:44):
big Cadillac, and you see the European like compact car,
and then you see the Toyota of the same time period.
All the other cars are there to kind of tell
Toyota's story in a way. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely an
emphasis on that, But there's also emphasis on the evolution
of automotive manufacturing. As we had talked about in in
(08:07):
some previous episodes, starting your own homegrown car company is
one of the most difficult things a country can do,
and that's the reason why a relatively small number of
large auto manufacturers dominate the global industry. So what Japan
does is historic and impressive. Now if you think back
(08:31):
what shape the country was in in terms of infrastructure
the close of World War Two. To have come from
that to a place where Japanese vehicles and you know,
including Toyota, are often regarded as some of the most
consistent in the on the planet nowadays, that that is
nothing short of amazing. One thing that stood out to
(08:54):
me that I thought you guys would appreciate surmise texting
is texting some of these pictures, uh, is that they
also have a lot of weird cars, weird one offs.
You know, it's kind of like when you go into
a museum for another big idea, like the Coke Museum
here in Atlanta, and you see all this stuff that
didn't work, you know, like that. So one example, there's this, uh,
(09:21):
there's this microcar. Going back to our earlier thing. It's
a three wheel car, the Fuji Cabin Model five A.
It looks like it's from a Pixar film. It has
a you know, the face of the vehicle as one's
tyclops like headlight, and it has you know, the the
(09:41):
air intake at the front looks like a dumb open
mouth and it almost looks like the size of a
wheelbarrel with the wheels of a wheelbarrel in the back. Yeah, exactly.
Tadpole design. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, it's the Tadpole
design and it's it's it's an interesting vehicle, I mean,
but but cars like that. I love to see cars
(10:02):
like that among all the other stuff. You know that
that it's kind of an ordinary car. It's not necessarily
anything flashy or anything. It's it's unusual now, of course,
but at the time, you know, it was just a
commuter car. It was a car just to get around
as a daily ride. For somebody clearly. And uh, and
it's very simple, very very I don't know, in a
way it's classy that it's simple, but it's also very
(10:24):
very plain, you know, very plain looking. I mean, it's
not something that would draw your attention other than it's
kind of a standout among others in this museum, because
I know there's some fantastic cars in the museum too,
and not just like you said, cars from Japan. But
there's you know, there's a Tucker there. Yes, you mentioned
there's a steam car there. I'm not sure is that
a Stanley car. I don't remember exactly who made that one.
(10:44):
There's Cadillacs, poos, There's all kinds of rules, Royce Lincoln's,
there's you know, stuts, bear cats that that you can
see there. Um, there's some incredible vehicles. I'm looking right
now at the website, which is a Toyota dot c
o JP dot JP and you can and you can
find an English Japanese version if you search. If you do,
(11:06):
you know, a quick Google search will will turn up
the same thing. And then when you get to the website,
if you go to believe it's the exhibits tab, if
you under the exhibits. You can look at the list
of vehicles on display, that necessarily the automobile gallery, because
I will show you more of you know, just kind
of aesthetics of the building itself and displays. But but
go to the exhibits, the automobiles on display, and you
(11:28):
can get a real sense for what's there and the
diversity of what's there, because that's always that's always the
impressive part to me, and even more so it's maybe
I get the feeling Ben and I have to ask
you this because again, I've never been to Japan. I've
never been to this museum. Obviously, UM have a lot
of questions about the museum itself because I've been to
good I've been to some bad ones. Some stand out
(11:49):
to me because of the way that they're displayed, the
way that the building is laid out, the way that
they're um, the way that the cars are lit. You know,
the distance between the cars, how close you can get
to the cars. You know, there's there's a lot to
making a good museum versus just you know, throwing a
bunch of cars in the same room together. You know,
door to the door to door knows to knows, you know,
(12:09):
and I've seen places like that, and it's not that
they're horrible, and they've got great cars. It's just that
you don't necessarily get all the views, all the impressions
of that car that you necessarily want, or you are
you are trying to get. You don't feel like you've
got the fulfilling experience. And it looks to me like
this one. You get a pretty good view of each car.
It looks like the building itself is well done. You know,
(12:30):
it's classy. It looks like it's a calm place to visit.
I don't anticipate there's any music playing or anything like that.
Is thrash metal the entire time. It's a Japanese they're screaming.
It just looks like it looks like a peaceful place
to stroll around. Look at the cars, you know, kind
of get lost in yourself a little bit, you lost
in your your memories or you know whatever, you know,
(12:52):
just the maybe the vision of yourself behind the wheel
or whatever. I mean, it looks like a pleasant place
to visit. Is is that the general feeling of the place. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
uh there when we went, it was not especially crowded,
of course, you know, we were also there toward the
weekday afternoon I believe, so. Yeah, And there there weren't
(13:18):
any field trips. There a couple of people there with
their kids. There were a couple of older people. Uh.
There was probably one non Japanese, one non Japanese group
other than us. UH. What stood out to me the
most was, first off, I was not expecting a Tucker
all the way out in Nagoya, Japan, which shows how
much I know. Uh. And and that Tucker, by the way,
(13:42):
is drivable. They didn't let me drive it, but of
course it works, is what I'm saying. They had very
little in the way of barriers, right. And for some
of the vehicles, especially the more stately you know, pre
nineteen third ease like proper carriage type things, they would
(14:02):
have steps up and you would stand on I don't know,
like the fancy version of a step ladder, essentially so
that shorter people could see inside. Occasionally you would see
something like the gold wing doors would be open, or
you could one Okay. One thing I did, which may
have been pushing the line a little bit, was was
(14:24):
to to describe the way the cars laid laid out.
There's space between them so you can generally see in
every vehicle, you can see at least three four of
it right now. There may be some part of it
where the back corner is tucked against something so you
can't really get behind it. But the only boundary between
(14:46):
you and these vehicles is going to be a a
small like plastic string, probably about maybe maybe a foot
off the floor. So I wouldn't have expected that. It's
not Fort Knox, is what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm not
I'm not I'm not proposing that we conduct the hoist.
(15:10):
I'm just saying it would be you know, it wouldn't
be hard, to be a lot easier than some of
the other places. But you know what you're You're mentioning
something that I found like really intriguing about other places
that I've been. I've been to the Lane Museum outside
of Nashville, and you could walk completely around the cars.
There were no there were no barriers, and and I
think there might have been around a couple of cars
(15:31):
that were there at the boy I'm stretching my memory
now to remember as years ago, but I feel like
you could get right up to them and peer in
as long as you didn't touch them as you didn't
touch the car, you're okay, But you could get right
up next to the car. And I found that fascinating
because I had never seen that before in another museum.
Usually you're kept back with you know, the big thick
velvet ropes and they're you know, waist high and in
(15:51):
a significant distance away, you know where you know, you're
not allowed to get anywhere near. You can't he can't
lean in and smell what that car smells like, which
is a part of the experience. You know, you can
you can lean and smell the you know, the the
old leather and the you know, the maybe the wood
that's got oil soaked into it, that kind of thing.
I love that there were some cars where you could
get the whole walk around like if um, like the
(16:14):
rules Royce the Silver Ghost, which which it was red
and gold though it was, you can walk around that vehicle.
I quickly figured out that you can do what I
call the lane. Everybody's everybody has had to be in
a museum where you want to touch the stuff. You
know about the lean. We all know about the lane.
(16:35):
It's like dark It's like the same rules as playing darts.
As long as your foot is behind the line. You're okay,
But I did learn um when person working at the
museum was a little bit concerned because I got down
on the ground. I was trying to look at the
undercarriage of a couple of things. And they were very
polite and they came up and they said, I can
(16:56):
I help you? And of course it's very embarrassed that
you're having a medical immer agency down there on the floor.
I think they knew exactly what I was doing. You know,
I wonder if you just thinking about this, you know,
I know the lean that you're talking about, right, trying
to get a better look. So I wonder if if
this would be a good strategy. And now I'm an
idea guy, you know that, right, I'm not much about implementing.
(17:16):
But but let's say this, like the Curt the curt.
Let's that you're tall, right, You're pretty tall, so you'd
be able to lean a significant distance over a vehicle.
But there's a point where you lose your balance, right,
I mean it's not very far over. What if you
were to wear like weighted pants, you know, like like
something like lead pants, you know, and that's practically I mean,
I know that's extremely practical for everybody to wear left
pants around, you know. But what how about ankle weights
(17:39):
or a welt like a weight belt. Maybe that would
keep your weight, you know, like more the center of
gravity would be much lower and behind you. I wonder
if that would work if you could lean like a
lot farther. Yeah, if I were there with you guys,
I could have ropes tied to my shirt and each
of you all could grab one and just let me
go in. You know, I can basically get on you know,
(18:02):
I can get inside the window with my head. That's
equally feasible. I think, you know, to to my lead
pant's ideas, what about, almost like judstorm, about a chess
mounted kickstand that you could you know, deploy under the grounds.
You could you could get the full lean in your
whole body back. You look like you look like, you know, um,
a ski jumper in the air. You know skis like
(18:26):
that for the big ski jumps. Yeah, exactly, you would
look like that, only leaning over into the window of
a museum piece. So the biggest question about that, again,
no judgment in brainstorming. It's not saying no to any
of these. The biggest question I have is when to
deploy these brilliant techniques and devices. I think there are,
like if I call correctly, they're thirteen zones, zones that
(18:50):
I remember. Yeah, so it goes from the dawn of
the automobile to the advancement to the acceptance. Uh and
then probably guys, I mean probably two of my A
couple of my favorite zones. There were pretty early on
the Salon vehicles that was zoned four and that's you know,
(19:15):
kind of the nineteen twenties, nineteen twenties, just like egregiously luxurious.
I'm looking at them right now. There's an Essex coach.
There's a Morgan Arrow, Um gosh, what else? Bughatti Type
thirty five B, which is pretty nice, Model A of course.
Uh oh yeah, Dusenberg Model J that looks nice. There's
(19:36):
there's some incredible cards. You can click on any one
of these links on their web page and see photo, photograph,
and paragraph describing each one in Japanese and in English.
And then they have a lot of deep cuts that
I think would surprise anybody who especially who enjoys older vehicles,
(19:58):
like they have a stuts. Yeah. I mentioned that earlier
because that's one that stands out to me. The Stuts Bearcat.
I always find that as a funny car because I
think Mr Burns on The Simpsons, on the Studs, and
I remember being in an episode early early on, like
the the Lazy Chief Police Wigham. Right, He's kind of
kicked back in his car eating probably a donut if
I had to guess, and Burns is making his escape
(20:20):
and he's in a Stuts Bearcat, right, and they reported
as a Red Stuts Bearcat, I think, or so I'm
gonna mix this up at like a Red Stuts Bearcat
in nineteen fourteen or whatever, and the police Chief season
goes by and says, ah, that's more of a Burgundy
and just let it go. Hilarious to me, I mean,
it's it's funny because you know, just it's such an
(20:41):
unusual vehicle. And of course Mr Burns, some a character
like that would own a vehicle like that. But you know,
these cars, these kind of one off the specials that
you see when you walk around the corner, you know,
and don't expect that. That to me is what really
turns me on about certain museums versus other museums where
you kind of you kind of know what's going to
be there. Um, you're a little bit surprise. But sometimes, man,
(21:01):
they really catch you off guard, don't they. I think
that's what happened when I dragged my girlfriend along too,
because she actually enjoyed it, which surprised me a little
because I think she thought maybe it was just gonna
be all Toyota's probably more of an emphasis on the
eighties or something, you know, like all great museum dedicated
(21:24):
to the Prius. Finally, and I'm sure that you know what,
there probably was a Prius there, right, I mean, I'm
sure they've got the current product line there. You know
a lot of them. Anyway, I'm gonna be honest with
you guys. Uh. This may be an a function of
attention span, or it may be a function of just
like worrying about time spent wisely. But when I go
(21:46):
to museums like this, uh, especially any any museum that
focuses on the history of something that's fascinating, I end
up taking forever in the beginning and then get kind
of inundated with information. So by the time by the
time I had made it too uh, let's say the eighties.
(22:12):
By the time I made it to the nineteen eighties,
I started thinking, I've seen a Toyota to walk through
at that point, right, I'm walking around, Yeah, and I'm
stopping for I'm stopping for vehicles because there were some
vehicles that I had not seen up close, like the
UNS Roadster. Uh. I had not seen one of those
(22:34):
up close, and that was weird to me because it's
a Master of Miyata. Yeah, it's a Masda Miata, but
being called the Units Roadster made it new in fascinating.
And yeah, because in the early auto history of Japan,
their first vehicles they were making were licensed rather than
(22:58):
completely domestically create ate It and Toyota lad the charge
on creating vehicles in Japan for the Japanese market from
Japanese parts. So so for them to take that step
is impressive. But it also means, you know, this is
(23:19):
something that we have talked about in the past. It
also means there are a lot of things just sold
under different names, you know, which is always has always
fascinating me and still fascinates me today. You know what,
I'm gonna be honest, it still confuses me today because
there are I'm sure everybody listening. We have a couple
of different examples of stuff that we just thought of,
(23:41):
you know, and sold in Europe as one name or
in Australia as one name, and then sold in the
US for some reason as another name. I don't know
the logic behind that, or even very similar cars that
are sold here under different brands, like you know, the
Subaru car, the b RZ and the what was the
other one that the Science I'm gonna I'm gonna forget
it now. I think, oh, the the Toyo. It's a Toyota,
(24:05):
I believe right. I was just thinking of an example
that that. You know, it's a pretty easy one for
everyone to pick out on the roads today, even you
know Super who sells that b r Z car. And
then there's a Scion or at least it was a
signounced Toyota, I think, Um, but it's the it's exact
same vehicle, you know, the and I think it's the
eight six Curta. Is that what we said it was.
It's now called the eighty six. Um, but yeah, it's
(24:27):
it's different car companies essentially the same vehicle, different badging,
could a few different you know options, you know, engines,
things like that are available, but it's just an interesting
thing that you know that they do, that they share
these platforms and it's it's it's always kind of strange.
You know what. One thing, Kurt, I'm gonna I'm gonna
put you on the spot here just for a second
if you don't mind. So we haven't you haven't really
(24:49):
heard of any like car museums that you've gone to
that you really like or dislike or you big car
museum frequent er. Do you go there and check things
out or not necessarily? I've been a lot, right, Yeah,
that's true. That's true for various reasons. I went to
the Corvette Museum a long time ago. Oh yeah, I've
(25:09):
been bowling Green Tucky. Yeah, Um, I said, I think
I said, frequenter. That's a terrible that's that's making up
my own words. Are you? Are you there? Often? Is
what I meant? And I guess I guess not. But
what so you were there, um at the Corvette Museum
pre sinkhole, I would guess. Yeah, it was just back
in the nineties, right after I was built. You narrowly
missed being just swallowed up by the earth. Yeah, I
(25:31):
didn't know that danger was brewing beneath who did, and
who would know, right, But uh, that's one place that
I have never stopped. I've even I've even stayed in
the hotel across the street from it, because it's like
I couldn't make it. No, it's it because it just
didn't fit into the stupid schedule that you know what
I mean? Yeah, yeah, And it's a good stop for
her point on my way up to Michigan. So you know,
(25:53):
if I or if i'm actually it's if I'm going
to stop in Indiana first to visit family and wow
actually and and then onto Michigan or you know whatever,
it's a good it's a good point for me to
drive to after work here one day on like a Friday,
end up there, and then early the next morning leaves,
so you know, I'm not there during museum hours. Can't
even can't even make a token appearance there, you know,
(26:14):
for an hour. It's just I'm tired from the day
and and the road and you have to get up
the next morning at six am. We get on the
road or something that it's frustrating, but I'll get there.
And they have a motorsports park across the road that
I also like to go to and check out, and
of course the factory which they offer tours for and
oh man, they're gonna start building that rear engine VET
(26:35):
there soon. And I'm really jacked about that. I really am.
I want to do a full episode about that vets. Yeah,
I'm excited about it. That's a that's a cool thing
that we've you know, we've talked around the edge of
in the past because it was never really a thing
that was going to happen, and it was going to
but we never knew when. Now that it's here, man,
(26:57):
we should we should definitely delve into it. Yeah, for sure.
We've been waiting for that one for a while. Yeah, yeah,
you know what, I didn't mean to derail us that much.
It's perfect. I do that all the time. But but
but let's get back to this museum. I mean, you see,
do you think you spent like the whole day there?
Do you think you spent like, um, you know, eight
hours there, five hours there, two hours what were probably
(27:18):
probably about four hours, but wanted to spend a longer
amount of time there. You know it. We're because we're
in a country that's new to me. My girlfriend had
been there before, but neither of us have been to
this town before, so we wanted to be, you know,
conscious of how long it took to get from point
A to point B things like that, because now going
(27:41):
to the full details. One time we were in a
different country and we took a ski lift up. It
was supposed to be a romantic thing. We took a
ski lift to the top of this mountain and then
we had to we found out that you still had
to wait in line for the round trip, and the
line was like, uh, two hours long. And so I said,
(28:04):
you know, I had the bright idea. It's like, hey, alright,
you know, it can't be that bad. It's all downhill.
So we uh we it was that bad. Uh, And
it took about it took a long time to walk
down there, and then we were at the uh we
were at the Soul, South Korea's version of the Inner State,
(28:25):
outside of the city. And then I had to yeah,
I was so so we're very cautious. Sounds very romantic. Yeah, yeah,
real winter they're brought up. But so soon. To answer
your question, long story short, it was. It was four
four hours and change, but it could have been more
(28:47):
because there are two buildings. There's the main building, there's
kind of this annex thing. And they don't just have
odd or historically significant cars. They also have like real beasts,
like they had a Dino to g t s. They
have his room that's just like high end, kick ass
(29:08):
sports cars, exotics and things like that. You know, one
of my favorite cars that's there. It's it's kind of
a an I don't know. I would say it's not
nondescript by any means. I mean, I don't know if
I'm I'm using the right term for this, but it's
a little more simple, I guess in design. It's not
like a design like an exotic, but it has that
(29:28):
feel to me because it looks an awful lot like
a Jaguar E type. It is a oh here, it
is right here that the two thousand g T made
by Toyota model MF ten. It's a model, and I
believe that nineteen sixty seven model was the one that
they used in Um and James Bond film. I don't
(29:48):
remember which film it was now, but I saw that
car the first time I've ever seen that car in person,
at the Peterson Museum. It was also a white version
of this, but it was made into a convertible, which
I that was kind of cool. So a roadster version
of the same car. But it's beautiful and of course
there's very very few of these made. I don't remember
how many are were made, but it's like, you know,
(30:09):
in the low maybe two hundreds, I think at the most. Um,
it's just a beautiful looking car to me and has
that classic look, and it has something a feature that
that Kurt had pointed out that a lot of these cars, uh,
that you were a little bit confused about at first.
I think the mirrors on the hood, yeah, or on
the side of the yeah, the front fender mirrors, right,
(30:30):
And uh, I think that it's a cool look. Do
you like to look it's neat yeah, yeah, yeah, I
see you're still a little bit on the fence the wheel, yeah, yeah,
it's just a it's an interesting place to put them
my note. But it makes a lot of sense when
you're talking about a car that is like a sports car.
You know, this is definitely a sports car. This, uh,
this Twyota two thousand GT model. Um. But the fenders
(30:53):
are mounted way far in front of the in front
of the front glass, not in the usual position on
the driver door. Passenger or and the reason is so
that you know, to to get that rear view, all
you have to do is kind of avert your eyes
a little bit instead of turning your head left or
right in order to see that. So you know, the
driver can keep their focus forward and just kind of
you know, like darth or eyes left or right and
(31:14):
be able to catch what's going on behind them. And
now you get a restricted view. But typically these mirrors
will have a convex surface so that you get more
of a guess, it's sort of a fish eye view.
It's kind of in between. You know. I wonder why
that died out because you can look through you can
look through cars from the eighties and seventies, and you
can see other examples of that, like the at least
(31:37):
at this museum, for sure, the Toyota Soar had those
had had those side lamps that were hood mounted. We
also saw the Colts Gallants from seventy one had that,
even the Honda Civic had, and the ones on the
Honda Civic were way up there. Maybe we were right
behind the headlights. Well it had to be. That was
a small car, very small car, right, But I can yeah,
(32:00):
but I like this. I really like the design. I
think the sad answer to this is that it had
to be part of pedestrian safety. You know how they
took the hood ornaments off of cars and the front
ends are kind of smoothed out, and bumper heights are
standard now They're not like super low like he used
to be, or not super high like they used to be.
Although I'm seeing a trend in trucks where it's becoming
like a wall coming down the road, you know, normal
(32:22):
consumer pickup trucks. But but I think the side mirrors
like the size of a forearm. Yeah exactly, Yeah, but
I mean you you you see that, you know the
position of these where if if they were to hit
a pedestrian and they were to roll over the hood
of that vehicle, that would probably kill somebody, your significant
damage if nothing else. So I think I think it's
pedestrian safety. I could see that, But I would present
(32:44):
an alternative hypothesis. What's that? What if it is somehow
easier to park or drive in dense areas. Yeah, you
can't reach them to adjust. Oh that's why they change it.
I sure, I'm saying before like automated you know mirrors,
how many How many times have I brought this crime.
(33:05):
I had an MG that had these mirrors a long
time ago, had an MG Arkly. It was a kid car,
you know, it's made out of an MG midget and
I'll have to show you photos, Kurt, but it had
mirrors like this, and I do recall that adjusting those
things was difficult, and sometimes they would you know, shake
loose and you know, like adjust themselves, and it's frustrating
because you have to pull over to adjust them back
(33:26):
into position. But they were fantastic. I love the position
of them. I love being able to again just kind
of quickly dart your eyes over and see what's behind you.
Is is really nice and I thought that it's still overall,
I think it's a cool look. I really like the
look of those fender mirrors like that. I think it
really is just seems like they would be far away
to see, you know, it's really not. It's not uncomfortable. Now.
(33:46):
Of course, my car was very very small, so you know,
the distance is more like the Honda, more like the
Honda Civic that we're talking about, then this car, which
is a little bit farther away. But now you can
to your point Kurt, now that it's very common for
people to be to electronically adjust those side mirrors. There's
I wonder why they haven't come back. Maybe you're right,
Maybe it's pedestrian safety. It's gotta be It's gotta be
(34:09):
something nowadays. That's why it has That's what it has
to be. You get ripped off in every you know,
automated car wash that people take their cars through or something.
Maybe that's another issue. Do you guys remember having to
unscrew your antenna before you took it? I do, y. Yeah,
Kurt's way too young. Are you too young for that?
I'm just joking. You reach out of the window. Yeah, yeah,
(34:31):
I mean I guess they still do a version of
that where they put that little um uh sleeve over
the rear window wiper and they take it down sometimes. Yeah,
it's always frustrating if they take that down, you have
to get out and peel it stuff off. So there's
there's something else here. And I think it's a bigger
(34:52):
trend that we see when we look at museums like
this and the many fantastic auto museums throughout the US
and the world old at large. It's that we can
conduct our own kind of forensic analysis of these trends
that came and went. I don't know why, but walking
around or we saw the old school twenties the thirties
(35:16):
era cars like the Packard twelve where the packer told
the so called Roosevelt car, right, uh, Packer is one
of your favorites anyway, It's true, it's true. But one
of the things that hippie about it was walking around
and I was thinking, man, these cars were so expensive
at the time that the assumption was if you could
(35:38):
afford one, you could afford to pay somebody else to
drive you around in it. And that's why the cabins
were divided. And it's like because nobody, nobody was buying
one of the very few people were buying one of
these and saying like poof, I mean my daily driver
helped me get to work more quickly. They're like buying
(35:58):
it for parade stay processions. Your daily driver was actually
a person that had a name. The daily driver was
they just happened to be in a cata or in
a pack of twelve. Yeah, that's right, you know, can
I just make one cleanse in here? Is that I
also was looking into and I want to get back
to the museum and wrapped it up in a minute.
But the location of this place is perfect, right, I mean,
(36:20):
of course it's near the port where they ship most
of their product from. We find that, you know, the
Port of Nagoya is a it's an old port. In fact,
it pre dates Toyota. It goes back to nineteen o
seven when they opened this port. And it's enormous. It's
a huge place. And I tried to do something here
that I thought was clever at first, and then I
saw a couple of my errors along the way, and
I it kind of fell apart at some point. But
(36:42):
I'll tell you what I did. I tried to look
at the area in the in the city of Nagoya
and the port, actually the Port of Nagoya with the
water combined. And I don't know why I looked at
it with water combined, but I did. And the square,
the square meters, the square miles and all that. Right,
So the water area of the port is something like
and I'll do this both ways, I guess, but a
(37:04):
two just over a d two million square meters, which
is about thirty one point eight square miles of just
water in the ports, So that's a big port right
to This place has twenty one piers and two d
and ninety berths, so that means they can have as
many as nearly three hundred ships in the yard at
one time. And it's not just Toyota. There's a lot
of things that come in and out of Nicola. Of course,
(37:26):
they do something like two point one million containers every
year go in and out of that place. That's how
many are shipped in and out of that port every
single year. And those are containers that are the size
of the backs of semis. You know, when you see
the car containers on the back of semis, that's what
we're talking about. So when we see them stacked on
the back of the ships, you know, they're loaded up
with material. That's what's in them as cars. It's um uh,
(37:49):
you know, well it's not only automobiles, but it's you know,
other products that they're they're shipping out as well. Thirty
two thousand, four hundred vessels every year go in and
out of there. That's how many arrived in the every
single year. And that was a two thousand nine numbers,
so that's ten years old. That number that I found
so you know that the shipping has probably gone up. Now,
the land area that I've neglected to tell you up
(38:11):
into those points, which I forgot, is is about sixteen
point three square miles, So if you combine the two,
it's right around forty eight square miles. And I was
trying to think, Okay, well, how big is that really?
Forty eight square miles because it's a massive area. Um,
it's somewhere around the size of if you were to
take all of Boston, Massachusetts, that's roughly forty eight square miles.
(38:32):
If you were to take all of Peory, Illinois, or Salem, Oregon,
or I think Fargo, North Dakota, those areas are all
about forty eight square miles or nine somewhere around there.
So that's the size of the port area that we're
talking about. And that's just one little area here, but
that's all shipping and a lot again, most of Toyota's
product comes out of there from you know, from the
(38:54):
Asian production facilities that they put these cars together, and
of course we know we have they have plants all
over the world, but that's where most of their product originates.
So it's a it's a huge, huge place and as
you can imagine, most of the people in the cities
in and around Nagoya are employed by either the shipping industry,
you know, the you know the the pier, I guess
(39:15):
the operations at the pier that you know somehow related
to that port, or automotive suppliers or automotive manufacturers, because
there's a many big factories that have strategically located themselves
right in that area as well, not just Toyota, but
other automotive manuser he's there, or they have an or
in d place there, spark plug makers, component creators, even
(39:38):
the railcar rolling stock manufacturers, sin Kansen manufacturers are there. Sure,
and we said that twice. Now that's high speed trains, right, yes, sorry, yeah,
bullet trains we call them. They are insane, you know
what I mean. They put our little train train network
here in Atlanta to shame. What do you know what
your top speed was just just off hand, roughly one
(40:02):
I was on I believe was going I mean next
easily an excess of two hundred. But it doesn't feel
like it, you know, until you look out the window. No, yeah,
look out the window. And the thing that's amazing is
how on time they are now quickly they stopped. And
(40:24):
also it's much more like being on a plane, you
know how before air travel became more affordable, Like we
saw this at the Hershey Museum in Pennsylvania, the Hershey
Automotive Museum. Before air travel became more affordable, most people
would travel long distances on charter buses. And the charter
(40:46):
buses was very much like going on a plane. You
had you had like flight attendance bus attendants. They would
cook stuff and serve it to you. They had uniforms,
had foot rest, there was overhead storage that was you know,
like would like shelving, and they had you know, really
nice plush seats. They were it was These coaches were beautiful.
I mean it was it was like pretty I mean,
(41:08):
more than acceptable way to get around. It was pretty
luxurious in a way. I mean I still know that,
you know, there were better ways to travel, but this
wasn't too bad really, I mean, lots of leg room,
lots of shoulder room. It was. It was definitely a
good way to get across the country if you had
to a little far than playing obviously little but but man,
they were cool looking, they really were. There was a
(41:29):
whole basement full of them, wasn't there, Yes, But we
went there and we were able to were able to
get on them and kind of sit in the sitting
the driver's seat and stuff. I think that was stuff
that they were letting us do, just do it because
we we were taking them behind the scenes tour. Yeah,
we also got to see where they were fixing up
a lot of those vehicles. Our friend Glenn Beck arranged
that for us. Yeah, that we still and we thank
(41:50):
him for that because that was quite an experience all around.
It was a lot of fun. Something I always remember
point this out. I was I was mistaken that Shinkansen
speedio is confusing my kilometers and my miles per hour.
I believe it was three kilometers an hour, which makes
about six That's still fast. That's you know what, that's
(42:10):
still two hundred miles an hour to me, that's quick.
I mean, fourteen miles an hour doesn't matter when you're
going a hundred and eighty six. I don't think you know. Well,
one thing that does really hit you about the speed
of that kind of transportation, which I'm sure you're familiar with, Scott,
is that if you go the wrong way or you
miss your stop, you don't. You don't have a lot
of time to recover from that one. Yeah, exactly, I would.
(42:33):
Uh yeah, I definitely I had, you know, the nerves.
I travel on a megleft, meg left train, but I
had the knowledge of knowing that there's only one train
on the track at the time, you know, and uh
and it's pretty easy to sit back and relax on
that one. Yeah, when there's like other trains that you're
worried about being switched onto your line, that would be
a whole lot more nerve racking, I think. And um,
(42:53):
not that that's necessarily happened a lot, but there have
been incidents here and there. It's very few and far
between though. But but man, that's really cool that you
got to do that something that we've been talking about.
And what a trip. I mean, overall, I'm sure you
didn't need to eat eat anything gross on the streets
out there or anything. You didn't need any gross street
food or anything. I know you because you're you're not
an adventurous eat here at all. You're very very you know,
(43:16):
meat and potatoes kind of guy. All Right, I'm gonna
tell you the weirdest thing day. Uh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
let me make sure I have a bucket nearby just
in case, because it might not be comfortable. I mean, really,
court he has extremely adventurous diet with a very winning
Rome attitude. I know this may not be super popular
with some of us listening, but I had to try
(43:37):
it at least once a horse a horse sashimi, which
means it was wrong. And uh, it's an interesting experience,
but I don't I don't see myself doing that again
in the future unless I have to to survive or something. Yeah,
but you know, um, you ate horse interesting and but okay,
(43:59):
all right, fast fascinating. I'm not going to take this
any direction that I shouldn't right now. But that's that's great,
that's great. I thought you would be happy. Good for you.
I didn't say seafood. I thought you were creatures of
the deep man. I thought you were gonna go with
you know, I ate a tarantula on a stick or
something like that. You know, I was gonna be I
thought it's gonna be just repulsed by this. But I
(44:20):
can kind of understand it if that's if that is
a uh, you know, I think some people are gonna
have trouble with that. I could see somebody getting upset.
But but what do you think? I mean? Okay, so
now I know somebody who's knowingly eating horse. Listen, I've
had some I've had some steaks. It's some bad places
(44:40):
that I assume our horses asked steak. It's no I've
actually labeled like, oh boy, this is the horse's ass
cut of steak. I can tell. But but but seriously,
like what was the texture? What was it like? Was
like red meat? Yeah? Yeah, it was like red meat.
It was It had a a surprising kind of sweet
(45:06):
note to it. Um. There was this sauce. The weirdest
thing in the way they served it to us. Oh wait, wait,
I've had this before at Arby's. There's Horsey sauce. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's in a packet. It's now that you mentioned it.
I was at an Arby's. It's a very high end restaurant.
I understand, now understand. Uh, Well, the weird thing was
(45:27):
when they served this. Um, when they served this to us, Uh,
you know, we were we were in an Okay restaurant.
We were in like a nice date restaurant. You know
what I mean. It wouldn't be a super super expensive restaurant,
but just a nicer place, fancy pants. Yeah, I mean
it's Arby's. Yeah, right, so I had a tie on
the roast beef. Uh. Well, anyway, this place, which was
(45:50):
technically not in Arby's, but don't let that everyone the story. Uh.
The weird thing was when we ordered it, at first,
they didn't believe it, and I thought, well, you know,
neither of us are fluent in Japanese. Maybe this is
a different translation, maybe this is some kind of cut
of beef or something I'm not aware of. And I'm
checked with the with the staff there, and they're like, yeah,
(46:14):
that's the worse. Do you want some more, because we'll
give it to you. And so I I always in
a situation where I said, well we have to, And
so we ordered some not not like a huge platter.
We weren't like just bringing the whole thing out, um
did you didn't have to go select it from a
pin of course or something like I'll have that one right. Uh.
(46:38):
But when we tried it. The strangest thing about it
is like there was like great ceremony with bringing this out,
except when they brought out the sauce because there was
this wide, shallow bowl and at the very bottom in
like uh an an indented circular area, I was where
(46:58):
the sauce lived. I don't know why the bowl was
so wide, nor why it was so shallow. It's like
a curved plate with a little dollarp of this admittedly
pretty tasty sauce. And I was thinking when they brought
this out, I was like, wow, do people do people
mainly just order this for the sauce? You know, like
(47:19):
how you have to order chips when you order a
caso dip because otherwise you look like, you know, like
you have a problem. Was it really there's something wrong
with you? Um? Is there? Um? Was it like really
intense flavor or was it like it really it was
a little it was like kind of smoky sweet. It wasn't.
I would not say it was super duper intense. It wasn't.
(47:41):
It wasn't bad. Um. You know, I learned that there
are some problems people have with that industry, like the
provenance of the of the horses themselves. But also, you know,
we have to admit here in the States we can
be a little bit hypocritical about what we consider edible
not edible, objectionable and fine. Sure, and you know, pigs
(48:03):
are quite intelligent, and that's never stopped me, uh from
getting a pulled pork barbecue sandwichard arbues. Yeah. Sure, there's
a sacred cows you know. Of course we've heard that.
But yeah, I understand, like it's it's just a different
region the world. They have different you know, norms, I guess.
And that's why I was saying controversial. I mean, I
and I. You'd have to look into how it's harvested,
(48:26):
I guess, and you know, the practices behind that. I
can't believe. It's interesting. That's it's it's it's you've got
good travel stories. I'm sorry that I derailed us so
much here, but you know, I'm I'm also just gonna
point out, Okay, I was a vegetarian years back for
a few years. I feel like I've put my time in,
(48:47):
you know what I mean, I'm still catching up with everybody. Yeah,
I get you. He didn't derail us, man, that's a
trip to Japan deserves at least an episode of talking
about what you saw, what you did, and uh, and
the food, of course, it's part of it, you know,
just the culture and you know, everything around that trip.
So I'm fascinated to hear about you know, when anybody travels, Kurt,
if you traveling we're in the future, or have traveled
(49:09):
anywhere that you want to talk about, Let's let's have
at it here on this show, because there's always something
fascinating to discover about new places. For you know, we
have our questions and I'm sure listeners other questions. Maybe
some of them are overlapping, and we'll you know, answer
some of them for them out there. You know, guys,
let's go, let's go on an adventure together. The only
way the Goya Museum could have been cooler is if
(49:32):
you guys were there too. Oh shucks, that's nice. Maybe
not at the Romantic Horse Museum or not horse museum restaurant. Yeah,
was it a horse restaurant? No, No, they just had
it on the menu. It was called Roy Rogers Triggers.
(49:52):
Is that the they had it, They had it on
the menu, and I felt like we just we we
had to do it. Was it my proudest moment? No? Uh,
do I regret it? Not really? Um, but but also
on the very last note, this is something that I
think a lot of a lot of people in the
(50:14):
audience who have traveled will also notice, Uh, every time
I'm in a different country, man, I'm so weird it
out by which cars are common and which are considered
fancy or you know, um, what's considered obscure. You go
to some places and it's just Fiats everywhere. Yeah, why
wouldn't you have a Fiat? Sure? And uh, you go
(50:37):
to other places and like, you know, it's weird. It's
weird how Mercedes are not impressive cars in some country.
And I keep wondering, I'm like, are they just super cheap? Here?
Are we getting? Are we the ones getting ripped off?
It's interesting, isn't it? Like just to find out what's
what's the norm there versus the norm here? And you know,
(50:59):
the odd alls are the ones that always intrigued me.
Like you said, like when you know there's a certain
region and you find out that, hey, just about everybody
has a three wheel car here. You know, it's it's
pretty rare where we are, but you know, it's it's
something that's commonly seen there. You see it on the
on the you know, side of the road all the time.
They're rented to tourists they're rented. You know, the people
that do find them different or unique or exciting in
(51:21):
some way, and they know that you all right, so
they kind of prey on that. But yeah, good for them.
It's it's fun. It's always interesting to travel. I love
doing it, and you get good stories like the Nigoya
Toyota Museum. I don't have the name exactly right there.
I know that the Toyota Autobile Museum of Nigoya, I
think is what it's called. If you want to search
for it and and check out what Ben has already
seen in the past. And I'm a bit jealous, but
(51:43):
I'm a little jelly. As the kids say, well of
you being able to go there and and do that.
But I know it also it takes a lot of
hard work to be able to get to do something
like that, so good for you. And that's a good
experience experience. And we were fortunate not to have to
walk down the mountain that time. Yeah, I didn't get
kicked out of the country, which I take as a
(52:03):
solid wind given my past, so or the museum or
the museum which I got close. I wish I had
known about you guys techniques earlier. If I had that
kickstand some weighted pants. Yeah, well you know what they say, man,
dog slids don't have a review mirrors. That was perfect.
Well yeah, I mean that's why it works. It works,
(52:25):
and it all comes around right, full circle, full circle exactly.
So oh gosh, and we exhausted the Nagoya Toy Museum
yet I think we've done okay jobs just sketching out
some of the high notes of the museum. Thank you
so much for listening, folks. We want to hear your
stories of your favorite auto museums here in the US
(52:47):
or anywhere in the world, open or closed, and what
you like about them. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on Instagram. You can find us
on Twitter. We your car stuff or some derivation thereof,
and thanks for listening. One Car Stuff is a production
of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from
(53:07):
my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio's
How Stuff Works. Hi, and Welcome to Car Stuff. I'm
one of your host Scott Benjamin, and I'm another one
of your hosts, Kirk Garon. I'm Ben Bullin also here
for some reason. How are you guys doing, doing good?
Doing well? Thank you and he's going great. Hey. You
know what we've we've had many many discussions on the
(00:22):
show in the past about museums that you know, one
or both of us have traveled to, or just museums
in general and collections and all that, and uh, you know,
we've got our favorites, and we've talked about some good,
some bad, some esteem. They didn't make it to that
microcar museum. Yeah, let's missed opportunity to hear about that one.
Curt was here in Georgia. Yeah, I was in um
(00:43):
Oh gosh, what town was Madison? Yeah, you're right, Madison, Madison, Georgia.
It was Bruce Weener's microcar Museum. And the collection was unbelievable.
It was just remarkable. You can still catch it online.
I mean, the whole collection is is preserved an online form.
You look at every our respect you know a little
detail about each vehicle and everything, but to see it
(01:03):
in person was was pretty impressive. I was there on
the last weekend they were open, maybe even the last
day before they held the auction, and it's pretty impressive
as it is a cool thing. But we've seen so
many museums, automobile museums, motorcycle museums, whatever, the racing museums.
But when you mentioned one that you traveled to very recently,
I was more than impressed. One by the location, of course,
(01:25):
I mean it's something that we need to investigate a
little bit further. I got questions about just where you
were and why and all that, but also the museum itself.
I've been kind of poking around with some photos of
this museum that we're going to talk about, and it
looks beautiful. The collection looks amazing, the building looks amazing,
you know, the facilities look really really interesting. Um, I've
(01:45):
got a ton of questions. I know Kurt's got some
questions as well that he wants to hit you up with.
So first question is, well, maybe a statement. We're talking
about a museum that is in Japan. It's the Toyota
Automobile Museum. Yeah, that's right. Scott. Earlier this year, I
went to Japan for the first time. My girlfriend Brandy
(02:09):
and I went there, and a lot of people when
they go to Japan, they fly into the Tokyo Airport.
Tokyo is, of course the most populous city in Japan.
I think it's unfair to even call it a city.
It's like twenty three different cities awards all smashed together
in that airport is very crowded, so we were able
(02:30):
to fly instead of to Tokyo, we flew to a
town called Nagoya, which might not be as familiar to
a lot of people. It's a smaller area, it's more industrial.
It is also famously a Toyota town. And we had
planned to land in Japan at the Nagoya Airport uh
(02:56):
and spend a few days in Nagoya and then sort
of ease our into Tokyo via the Shinkansen, which I
finally rode, Yeah, which we've talked about for years. Man.
And while we were in Nagoya, which has a ton
of history, I learned of the well going towards there,
(03:16):
I learned of the Automotive Museum. And you know how
it is when you travel with your significant other, it's
it's a negotiation and very much of the mind that
most relationships are kind of like the Cold War, you
know what I mean. And uh So, so we had
our list of things that you know, we're like Ben's
(03:38):
definite must do, so you know, we're trade off and
we would figure out. Uh we just prioritized the stuff
that we individually wanted to do and what we wanted
to like go and my priority, uh my number one
priority was to check out this museum. And I didn't
know I was getting into. I didn't really want to
spoil it because well, because it is a little bit
(04:00):
of a gamble, you know what I mean. It is
a little bit out of the way for us, and
I definitely did not want to have to spend the
rest of the trip thinking that I was the one
who took us to a stinker museum and knew about it.
You know, I could see that happening where it eats
up most of your day, right, and then you can
blame like, well, how often are we going to be
(04:21):
in Japan? Oh god? Or worse, you get the list
of things we could have been doing. You know, we've
all been in that situation. So I wanted to avoid that.
But when I got there, I was amazed. It's like
nine bucks a person, first off, and it has hundreds
of cars, like over a hundred and sixty. And they're
not all they're not all Toyotas. That that's the most
(04:45):
astonishing thing. They are from all these different eras. There's
a replica of a steam uh, steam driven car, and
they're really they're really more so interested in instead of
studying the rise of Toyota. Don't get me wrong, guys,
it's a very Toyota heavy museum. They are studying the
(05:09):
rise of the automobile in general and the rise of
the automobile in Japan. The exhibits and you guys have
had a chance to look at these are much much older.
I mean, this is a building with history. This is
a building with some truly priceless automobiles in there. All right.
You know, I got a little bit confused when I
was looking this up. So I hope I'm looking at
(05:30):
the right one here, Ben, because I know there's a
commemorative museum. Yeah, that's also in the same area Toyota.
It's got the Toyota label on it. However, that one
is more skewed to um focus on the industrial revolution
and the idea of the power loom. And I think
there's some you know, old machinery in that building. It's
the old factory where they would produce textiles or type
of thing. And they've got a small car collection in
(05:53):
that building, but it's nothing like the collection that you saw, right, Yeah,
the Toyota Auto Museum. And again I still can't believe
it's like nine bucks a pop. They're not paying me
just say that. It's just that's crazy. Yeah, super steep,
that's very expensive. It's it's dedicated entirely to the automobile,
you know, uh they have they even have well maybe
(06:15):
it's not so much the automobile, it's definitely heavy on that.
I do remember there was a rickshaw one of the exhibits.
UM to me, it almost seems without having been there,
but seeing the list of cars that's there, because you
can look at the exhibits online. You can go to
their website and find that it looks like they're maybe
maybe I read this somewhere, but it seems like they're
(06:36):
focused on like the style of the cars and the
advancements that have been made along the way, and like
kind of like these mildstones, you know, to say like, hey,
look what we were doing in the early nineteen hundreds,
and here's what we did between nineteen thirty and that.
And not just we Toyota, but we because Toyota wasn't
around until what nineteen thirty seven, I believe as the
very first, uh, you know, the founding of Toyota. But
(06:59):
you know, in eras before that and after that, they're
focusing on a you know, the automotive as you said,
automotive industry as a whole, and the advancements that have
been made into how we got from where we started
to where we are now. And I find that pretty
fascinating to to build a collection in that way. You know,
these significant makes and models for some reason, you know,
style or war technology. Also shout out to our old
(07:22):
Toyota episode where we explore the origin story of the company. Yeah,
the way that the cars are displayed, when their position
next to Toyotas are even in the same building as toyotas,
it kind of tells you the story of why Toyota
designed certain cars a certain way. When you see cars
from America, like say from the late fifties, like a
(07:44):
big Cadillac, and you see the European like compact car,
and then you see the Toyota of the same time period.
All the other cars are there to kind of tell
Toyota's story in a way. Yeah, yeah, there's definitely an
emphasis on that, But there's also emphasis on the evolution
of automotive manufacturing. As we had talked about in in
(08:07):
some previous episodes, starting your own homegrown car company is
one of the most difficult things a country can do,
and that's the reason why a relatively small number of
large auto manufacturers dominate the global industry. So what Japan
does is historic and impressive. Now if you think back
(08:31):
what shape the country was in in terms of infrastructure
the close of World War Two. To have come from
that to a place where Japanese vehicles and you know,
including Toyota, are often regarded as some of the most
consistent in the on the planet nowadays, that that is
nothing short of amazing. One thing that stood out to
(08:54):
me that I thought you guys would appreciate surmise texting
is texting some of these pictures, uh, is that they
also have a lot of weird cars, weird one offs.
You know, it's kind of like when you go into
a museum for another big idea, like the Coke Museum
here in Atlanta, and you see all this stuff that
didn't work, you know, like that. So one example, there's this, uh,
(09:21):
there's this microcar. Going back to our earlier thing. It's
a three wheel car, the Fuji Cabin Model five A.
It looks like it's from a Pixar film. It has
a you know, the face of the vehicle as one's
tyclops like headlight, and it has you know, the the
(09:41):
air intake at the front looks like a dumb open
mouth and it almost looks like the size of a
wheelbarrel with the wheels of a wheelbarrel in the back. Yeah, exactly.
Tadpole design. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, it's the Tadpole
design and it's it's it's an interesting vehicle, I mean,
but but cars like that. I love to see cars
(10:02):
like that among all the other stuff. You know that
that it's kind of an ordinary car. It's not necessarily
anything flashy or anything. It's it's unusual now, of course,
but at the time, you know, it was just a
commuter car. It was a car just to get around
as a daily ride. For somebody clearly. And uh, and
it's very simple, very very I don't know, in a
way it's classy that it's simple, but it's also very
(10:24):
very plain, you know, very plain looking. I mean, it's
not something that would draw your attention other than it's
kind of a standout among others in this museum, because
I know there's some fantastic cars in the museum too,
and not just like you said, cars from Japan. But
there's you know, there's a Tucker there. Yes, you mentioned
there's a steam car there. I'm not sure is that
a Stanley car. I don't remember exactly who made that one.
(10:44):
There's Cadillacs, poos, There's all kinds of rules, Royce Lincoln's,
there's you know, stuts, bear cats that that you can
see there. Um, there's some incredible vehicles. I'm looking right
now at the website, which is a Toyota dot c
o JP dot JP and you can and you can
find an English Japanese version if you search. If you do,
(11:06):
you know, a quick Google search will will turn up
the same thing. And then when you get to the website,
if you go to believe it's the exhibits tab, if
you under the exhibits. You can look at the list
of vehicles on display, that necessarily the automobile gallery, because
I will show you more of you know, just kind
of aesthetics of the building itself and displays. But but
go to the exhibits, the automobiles on display, and you
(11:28):
can get a real sense for what's there and the
diversity of what's there, because that's always that's always the
impressive part to me, and even more so it's maybe
I get the feeling Ben and I have to ask
you this because again, I've never been to Japan. I've
never been to this museum. Obviously, UM have a lot
of questions about the museum itself because I've been to
good I've been to some bad ones. Some stand out
(11:49):
to me because of the way that they're displayed, the
way that the building is laid out, the way that
they're um, the way that the cars are lit. You know,
the distance between the cars, how close you can get
to the cars. You know, there's there's a lot to
making a good museum versus just you know, throwing a
bunch of cars in the same room together. You know,
door to the door to door knows to knows, you know,
(12:09):
and I've seen places like that, and it's not that
they're horrible, and they've got great cars. It's just that
you don't necessarily get all the views, all the impressions
of that car that you necessarily want, or you are
you are trying to get. You don't feel like you've
got the fulfilling experience. And it looks to me like
this one. You get a pretty good view of each car.
It looks like the building itself is well done. You know,
(12:30):
it's classy. It looks like it's a calm place to visit.
I don't anticipate there's any music playing or anything like that.
Is thrash metal the entire time. It's a Japanese they're screaming.
It just looks like it looks like a peaceful place
to stroll around. Look at the cars, you know, kind
of get lost in yourself a little bit, you lost
in your your memories or you know whatever, you know,
(12:52):
just the maybe the vision of yourself behind the wheel
or whatever. I mean, it looks like a pleasant place
to visit. Is is that the general feeling of the place. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
uh there when we went, it was not especially crowded,
of course, you know, we were also there toward the
weekday afternoon I believe, so. Yeah, And there there weren't
(13:18):
any field trips. There a couple of people there with
their kids. There were a couple of older people. Uh.
There was probably one non Japanese, one non Japanese group
other than us. UH. What stood out to me the
most was, first off, I was not expecting a Tucker
all the way out in Nagoya, Japan, which shows how
much I know. Uh. And and that Tucker, by the way,
(13:42):
is drivable. They didn't let me drive it, but of
course it works, is what I'm saying. They had very
little in the way of barriers, right. And for some
of the vehicles, especially the more stately you know, pre
nineteen third ease like proper carriage type things, they would
(14:02):
have steps up and you would stand on I don't know,
like the fancy version of a step ladder, essentially so
that shorter people could see inside. Occasionally you would see
something like the gold wing doors would be open, or
you could one Okay. One thing I did, which may
have been pushing the line a little bit, was was
(14:24):
to to describe the way the cars laid laid out.
There's space between them so you can generally see in
every vehicle, you can see at least three four of
it right now. There may be some part of it
where the back corner is tucked against something so you
can't really get behind it. But the only boundary between
(14:46):
you and these vehicles is going to be a a
small like plastic string, probably about maybe maybe a foot
off the floor. So I wouldn't have expected that. It's
not Fort Knox, is what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm not
I'm not I'm not proposing that we conduct the hoist.
(15:10):
I'm just saying it would be you know, it wouldn't
be hard, to be a lot easier than some of
the other places. But you know what you're You're mentioning
something that I found like really intriguing about other places
that I've been. I've been to the Lane Museum outside
of Nashville, and you could walk completely around the cars.
There were no there were no barriers, and and I
think there might have been around a couple of cars
(15:31):
that were there at the boy I'm stretching my memory
now to remember as years ago, but I feel like
you could get right up to them and peer in
as long as you didn't touch them as you didn't
touch the car, you're okay, But you could get right
up next to the car. And I found that fascinating
because I had never seen that before in another museum.
Usually you're kept back with you know, the big thick
velvet ropes and they're you know, waist high and in
(15:51):
a significant distance away, you know where you know, you're
not allowed to get anywhere near. You can't he can't
lean in and smell what that car smells like, which
is a part of the experience. You know, you can
you can lean and smell the you know, the the
old leather and the you know, the maybe the wood
that's got oil soaked into it, that kind of thing.
I love that there were some cars where you could
get the whole walk around like if um, like the
(16:14):
rules Royce the Silver Ghost, which which it was red
and gold though it was, you can walk around that vehicle.
I quickly figured out that you can do what I
call the lane. Everybody's everybody has had to be in
a museum where you want to touch the stuff. You
know about the lean. We all know about the lane.
(16:35):
It's like dark It's like the same rules as playing darts.
As long as your foot is behind the line. You're okay,
But I did learn um when person working at the
museum was a little bit concerned because I got down
on the ground. I was trying to look at the
undercarriage of a couple of things. And they were very
polite and they came up and they said, I can
(16:56):
I help you? And of course it's very embarrassed that
you're having a medical immer agency down there on the floor.
I think they knew exactly what I was doing. You know,
I wonder if you just thinking about this, you know,
I know the lean that you're talking about, right, trying
to get a better look. So I wonder if if
this would be a good strategy. And now I'm an
idea guy, you know that, right, I'm not much about implementing.
(17:16):
But but let's say this, like the Curt the curt.
Let's that you're tall, right, You're pretty tall, so you'd
be able to lean a significant distance over a vehicle.
But there's a point where you lose your balance, right,
I mean it's not very far over. What if you
were to wear like weighted pants, you know, like like
something like lead pants, you know, and that's practically I mean,
I know that's extremely practical for everybody to wear left
pants around, you know. But what how about ankle weights
(17:39):
or a welt like a weight belt. Maybe that would
keep your weight, you know, like more the center of
gravity would be much lower and behind you. I wonder
if that would work if you could lean like a
lot farther. Yeah, if I were there with you guys,
I could have ropes tied to my shirt and each
of you all could grab one and just let me
go in. You know, I can basically get on you know,
(18:02):
I can get inside the window with my head. That's
equally feasible. I think, you know, to to my lead
pant's ideas, what about, almost like judstorm, about a chess
mounted kickstand that you could you know, deploy under the grounds.
You could you could get the full lean in your
whole body back. You look like you look like, you know, um,
a ski jumper in the air. You know skis like
(18:26):
that for the big ski jumps. Yeah, exactly, you would
look like that, only leaning over into the window of
a museum piece. So the biggest question about that, again,
no judgment in brainstorming. It's not saying no to any
of these. The biggest question I have is when to
deploy these brilliant techniques and devices. I think there are,
like if I call correctly, they're thirteen zones, zones that
(18:50):
I remember. Yeah, so it goes from the dawn of
the automobile to the advancement to the acceptance. Uh and
then probably guys, I mean probably two of my A
couple of my favorite zones. There were pretty early on
the Salon vehicles that was zoned four and that's you know,
(19:15):
kind of the nineteen twenties, nineteen twenties, just like egregiously luxurious.
I'm looking at them right now. There's an Essex coach.
There's a Morgan Arrow, Um gosh, what else? Bughatti Type
thirty five B, which is pretty nice, Model A of course.
Uh oh yeah, Dusenberg Model J that looks nice. There's
(19:36):
there's some incredible cards. You can click on any one
of these links on their web page and see photo, photograph,
and paragraph describing each one in Japanese and in English.
And then they have a lot of deep cuts that
I think would surprise anybody who especially who enjoys older vehicles,
(19:58):
like they have a stuts. Yeah. I mentioned that earlier
because that's one that stands out to me. The Stuts Bearcat.
I always find that as a funny car because I
think Mr Burns on The Simpsons, on the Studs, and
I remember being in an episode early early on, like
the the Lazy Chief Police Wigham. Right, He's kind of
kicked back in his car eating probably a donut if
I had to guess, and Burns is making his escape
(20:20):
and he's in a Stuts Bearcat, right, and they reported
as a Red Stuts Bearcat, I think, or so I'm
gonna mix this up at like a Red Stuts Bearcat
in nineteen fourteen or whatever, and the police Chief season
goes by and says, ah, that's more of a Burgundy
and just let it go. Hilarious to me, I mean,
it's it's funny because you know, just it's such an
(20:41):
unusual vehicle. And of course Mr Burns, some a character
like that would own a vehicle like that. But you know,
these cars, these kind of one off the specials that
you see when you walk around the corner, you know,
and don't expect that. That to me is what really
turns me on about certain museums versus other museums where
you kind of you kind of know what's going to
be there. Um, you're a little bit surprise. But sometimes, man,
(21:01):
they really catch you off guard, don't they. I think
that's what happened when I dragged my girlfriend along too,
because she actually enjoyed it, which surprised me a little
because I think she thought maybe it was just gonna
be all Toyota's probably more of an emphasis on the
eighties or something, you know, like all great museum dedicated
(21:24):
to the Prius. Finally, and I'm sure that you know what,
there probably was a Prius there, right, I mean, I'm
sure they've got the current product line there. You know
a lot of them. Anyway, I'm gonna be honest with
you guys. Uh. This may be an a function of
attention span, or it may be a function of just
like worrying about time spent wisely. But when I go
(21:46):
to museums like this, uh, especially any any museum that
focuses on the history of something that's fascinating, I end
up taking forever in the beginning and then get kind
of inundated with information. So by the time by the
time I had made it too uh, let's say the eighties.
(22:12):
By the time I made it to the nineteen eighties,
I started thinking, I've seen a Toyota to walk through
at that point, right, I'm walking around, Yeah, and I'm
stopping for I'm stopping for vehicles because there were some
vehicles that I had not seen up close, like the
UNS Roadster. Uh. I had not seen one of those
(22:34):
up close, and that was weird to me because it's
a Master of Miyata. Yeah, it's a Masda Miata, but
being called the Units Roadster made it new in fascinating.
And yeah, because in the early auto history of Japan,
their first vehicles they were making were licensed rather than
(22:58):
completely domestically create ate It and Toyota lad the charge
on creating vehicles in Japan for the Japanese market from
Japanese parts. So so for them to take that step
is impressive. But it also means, you know, this is
(23:19):
something that we have talked about in the past. It
also means there are a lot of things just sold
under different names, you know, which is always has always
fascinating me and still fascinates me today. You know what,
I'm gonna be honest, it still confuses me today because
there are I'm sure everybody listening. We have a couple
of different examples of stuff that we just thought of,
(23:41):
you know, and sold in Europe as one name or
in Australia as one name, and then sold in the
US for some reason as another name. I don't know
the logic behind that, or even very similar cars that
are sold here under different brands, like you know, the
Subaru car, the b RZ and the what was the
other one that the Science I'm gonna I'm gonna forget
it now. I think, oh, the the Toyo. It's a Toyota,
(24:05):
I believe right. I was just thinking of an example
that that. You know, it's a pretty easy one for
everyone to pick out on the roads today, even you
know Super who sells that b r Z car. And
then there's a Scion or at least it was a
signounced Toyota, I think, Um, but it's the it's exact
same vehicle, you know, the and I think it's the
eight six Curta. Is that what we said it was.
It's now called the eighty six. Um, but yeah, it's
(24:27):
it's different car companies essentially the same vehicle, different badging,
could a few different you know options, you know, engines,
things like that are available, but it's just an interesting
thing that you know that they do, that they share
these platforms and it's it's it's always kind of strange.
You know what. One thing, Kurt, I'm gonna I'm gonna
put you on the spot here just for a second
if you don't mind. So we haven't you haven't really
(24:49):
heard of any like car museums that you've gone to
that you really like or dislike or you big car
museum frequent er. Do you go there and check things
out or not necessarily? I've been a lot, right, Yeah,
that's true. That's true for various reasons. I went to
the Corvette Museum a long time ago. Oh yeah, I've
(25:09):
been bowling Green Tucky. Yeah, Um, I said, I think
I said, frequenter. That's a terrible that's that's making up
my own words. Are you? Are you there? Often? Is
what I meant? And I guess I guess not. But
what so you were there, um at the Corvette Museum
pre sinkhole, I would guess. Yeah, it was just back
in the nineties, right after I was built. You narrowly
missed being just swallowed up by the earth. Yeah, I
(25:31):
didn't know that danger was brewing beneath who did, and
who would know, right, But uh, that's one place that
I have never stopped. I've even I've even stayed in
the hotel across the street from it, because it's like
I couldn't make it. No, it's it because it just
didn't fit into the stupid schedule that you know what
I mean? Yeah, yeah, And it's a good stop for
her point on my way up to Michigan. So you know,
(25:53):
if I or if i'm actually it's if I'm going
to stop in Indiana first to visit family and wow
actually and and then onto Michigan or you know whatever,
it's a good it's a good point for me to
drive to after work here one day on like a Friday,
end up there, and then early the next morning leaves,
so you know, I'm not there during museum hours. Can't
even can't even make a token appearance there, you know,
(26:14):
for an hour. It's just I'm tired from the day
and and the road and you have to get up
the next morning at six am. We get on the
road or something that it's frustrating, but I'll get there.
And they have a motorsports park across the road that
I also like to go to and check out, and
of course the factory which they offer tours for and
oh man, they're gonna start building that rear engine VET
(26:35):
there soon. And I'm really jacked about that. I really am.
I want to do a full episode about that vets. Yeah,
I'm excited about it. That's a that's a cool thing
that we've you know, we've talked around the edge of
in the past because it was never really a thing
that was going to happen, and it was going to
but we never knew when. Now that it's here, man,
(26:57):
we should we should definitely delve into it. Yeah, for sure.
We've been waiting for that one for a while. Yeah, yeah,
you know what, I didn't mean to derail us that much.
It's perfect. I do that all the time. But but
but let's get back to this museum. I mean, you see,
do you think you spent like the whole day there?
Do you think you spent like, um, you know, eight
hours there, five hours there, two hours what were probably
(27:18):
probably about four hours, but wanted to spend a longer
amount of time there. You know it. We're because we're
in a country that's new to me. My girlfriend had
been there before, but neither of us have been to
this town before, so we wanted to be, you know,
conscious of how long it took to get from point
A to point B things like that, because now going
(27:41):
to the full details. One time we were in a
different country and we took a ski lift up. It
was supposed to be a romantic thing. We took a
ski lift to the top of this mountain and then
we had to we found out that you still had
to wait in line for the round trip, and the
line was like, uh, two hours long. And so I said,
(28:04):
you know, I had the bright idea. It's like, hey, alright,
you know, it can't be that bad. It's all downhill.
So we uh we it was that bad. Uh, And
it took about it took a long time to walk
down there, and then we were at the uh we
were at the Soul, South Korea's version of the Inner State,
(28:25):
outside of the city. And then I had to yeah,
I was so so we're very cautious. Sounds very romantic. Yeah, yeah,
real winter they're brought up. But so soon. To answer
your question, long story short, it was. It was four
four hours and change, but it could have been more
(28:47):
because there are two buildings. There's the main building, there's
kind of this annex thing. And they don't just have
odd or historically significant cars. They also have like real beasts,
like they had a Dino to g t s. They
have his room that's just like high end, kick ass
(29:08):
sports cars, exotics and things like that. You know, one
of my favorite cars that's there. It's it's kind of
a an I don't know. I would say it's not
nondescript by any means. I mean, I don't know if
I'm I'm using the right term for this, but it's
a little more simple, I guess in design. It's not
like a design like an exotic, but it has that
(29:28):
feel to me because it looks an awful lot like
a Jaguar E type. It is a oh here, it
is right here that the two thousand g T made
by Toyota model MF ten. It's a model, and I
believe that nineteen sixty seven model was the one that
they used in Um and James Bond film. I don't
(29:48):
remember which film it was now, but I saw that
car the first time I've ever seen that car in person,
at the Peterson Museum. It was also a white version
of this, but it was made into a convertible, which
I that was kind of cool. So a roadster version
of the same car. But it's beautiful and of course
there's very very few of these made. I don't remember
how many are were made, but it's like, you know,
(30:09):
in the low maybe two hundreds, I think at the most. Um,
it's just a beautiful looking car to me and has
that classic look, and it has something a feature that
that Kurt had pointed out that a lot of these cars, uh,
that you were a little bit confused about at first.
I think the mirrors on the hood, yeah, or on
the side of the yeah, the front fender mirrors, right,
(30:30):
And uh, I think that it's a cool look. Do
you like to look it's neat yeah, yeah, yeah, I
see you're still a little bit on the fence the wheel, yeah, yeah,
it's just a it's an interesting place to put them
my note. But it makes a lot of sense when
you're talking about a car that is like a sports car.
You know, this is definitely a sports car. This, uh,
this Twyota two thousand GT model. Um. But the fenders
(30:53):
are mounted way far in front of the in front
of the front glass, not in the usual position on
the driver door. Passenger or and the reason is so
that you know, to to get that rear view, all
you have to do is kind of avert your eyes
a little bit instead of turning your head left or
right in order to see that. So you know, the
driver can keep their focus forward and just kind of
you know, like darth or eyes left or right and
(31:14):
be able to catch what's going on behind them. And
now you get a restricted view. But typically these mirrors
will have a convex surface so that you get more
of a guess, it's sort of a fish eye view.
It's kind of in between. You know. I wonder why
that died out because you can look through you can
look through cars from the eighties and seventies, and you
can see other examples of that, like the at least
(31:37):
at this museum, for sure, the Toyota Soar had those
had had those side lamps that were hood mounted. We
also saw the Colts Gallants from seventy one had that,
even the Honda Civic had, and the ones on the
Honda Civic were way up there. Maybe we were right
behind the headlights. Well it had to be. That was
a small car, very small car, right, But I can yeah,
(32:00):
but I like this. I really like the design. I
think the sad answer to this is that it had
to be part of pedestrian safety. You know how they
took the hood ornaments off of cars and the front
ends are kind of smoothed out, and bumper heights are
standard now They're not like super low like he used
to be, or not super high like they used to be.
Although I'm seeing a trend in trucks where it's becoming
like a wall coming down the road, you know, normal
(32:22):
consumer pickup trucks. But but I think the side mirrors
like the size of a forearm. Yeah exactly, Yeah, but
I mean you you you see that, you know the
position of these where if if they were to hit
a pedestrian and they were to roll over the hood
of that vehicle, that would probably kill somebody, your significant
damage if nothing else. So I think I think it's
pedestrian safety. I could see that, But I would present
(32:44):
an alternative hypothesis. What's that? What if it is somehow
easier to park or drive in dense areas. Yeah, you
can't reach them to adjust. Oh that's why they change it.
I sure, I'm saying before like automated you know mirrors,
how many How many times have I brought this crime.
(33:05):
I had an MG that had these mirrors a long
time ago, had an MG Arkly. It was a kid car,
you know, it's made out of an MG midget and
I'll have to show you photos, Kurt, but it had
mirrors like this, and I do recall that adjusting those
things was difficult, and sometimes they would you know, shake
loose and you know, like adjust themselves, and it's frustrating
because you have to pull over to adjust them back
(33:26):
into position. But they were fantastic. I love the position
of them. I love being able to again just kind
of quickly dart your eyes over and see what's behind you.
Is is really nice and I thought that it's still overall,
I think it's a cool look. I really like the
look of those fender mirrors like that. I think it
really is just seems like they would be far away
to see, you know, it's really not. It's not uncomfortable. Now.
(33:46):
Of course, my car was very very small, so you know,
the distance is more like the Honda, more like the
Honda Civic that we're talking about, then this car, which
is a little bit farther away. But now you can
to your point Kurt, now that it's very common for
people to be to electronically adjust those side mirrors. There's
I wonder why they haven't come back. Maybe you're right,
Maybe it's pedestrian safety. It's gotta be It's gotta be
(34:09):
something nowadays. That's why it has That's what it has
to be. You get ripped off in every you know,
automated car wash that people take their cars through or something.
Maybe that's another issue. Do you guys remember having to
unscrew your antenna before you took it? I do, y. Yeah,
Kurt's way too young. Are you too young for that?
I'm just joking. You reach out of the window. Yeah, yeah,
(34:31):
I mean I guess they still do a version of
that where they put that little um uh sleeve over
the rear window wiper and they take it down sometimes. Yeah,
it's always frustrating if they take that down, you have
to get out and peel it stuff off. So there's
there's something else here. And I think it's a bigger
(34:52):
trend that we see when we look at museums like
this and the many fantastic auto museums throughout the US
and the world old at large. It's that we can
conduct our own kind of forensic analysis of these trends
that came and went. I don't know why, but walking
around or we saw the old school twenties the thirties
(35:16):
era cars like the Packard twelve where the packer told
the so called Roosevelt car, right, uh, Packer is one
of your favorites anyway, It's true, it's true. But one
of the things that hippie about it was walking around
and I was thinking, man, these cars were so expensive
at the time that the assumption was if you could
(35:38):
afford one, you could afford to pay somebody else to
drive you around in it. And that's why the cabins
were divided. And it's like because nobody, nobody was buying
one of the very few people were buying one of
these and saying like poof, I mean my daily driver
helped me get to work more quickly. They're like buying
(35:58):
it for parade stay processions. Your daily driver was actually
a person that had a name. The daily driver was
they just happened to be in a cata or in
a pack of twelve. Yeah, that's right, you know, can
I just make one cleanse in here? Is that I
also was looking into and I want to get back
to the museum and wrapped it up in a minute.
But the location of this place is perfect, right, I mean,
(36:20):
of course it's near the port where they ship most
of their product from. We find that, you know, the
Port of Nagoya is a it's an old port. In fact,
it pre dates Toyota. It goes back to nineteen o
seven when they opened this port. And it's enormous. It's
a huge place. And I tried to do something here
that I thought was clever at first, and then I
saw a couple of my errors along the way, and
I it kind of fell apart at some point. But
(36:42):
I'll tell you what I did. I tried to look
at the area in the in the city of Nagoya
and the port, actually the Port of Nagoya with the
water combined. And I don't know why I looked at
it with water combined, but I did. And the square,
the square meters, the square miles and all that. Right,
So the water area of the port is something like
and I'll do this both ways, I guess, but a
(37:04):
two just over a d two million square meters, which
is about thirty one point eight square miles of just
water in the ports, So that's a big port right
to This place has twenty one piers and two d
and ninety berths, so that means they can have as
many as nearly three hundred ships in the yard at
one time. And it's not just Toyota. There's a lot
of things that come in and out of Nicola. Of course,
(37:26):
they do something like two point one million containers every
year go in and out of that place. That's how
many are shipped in and out of that port every
single year. And those are containers that are the size
of the backs of semis. You know, when you see
the car containers on the back of semis, that's what
we're talking about. So when we see them stacked on
the back of the ships, you know, they're loaded up
with material. That's what's in them as cars. It's um uh,
(37:49):
you know, well it's not only automobiles, but it's you know,
other products that they're they're shipping out as well. Thirty
two thousand, four hundred vessels every year go in and
out of there. That's how many arrived in the every
single year. And that was a two thousand nine numbers,
so that's ten years old. That number that I found
so you know that the shipping has probably gone up. Now,
the land area that I've neglected to tell you up
(38:11):
into those points, which I forgot, is is about sixteen
point three square miles, So if you combine the two,
it's right around forty eight square miles. And I was
trying to think, Okay, well, how big is that really?
Forty eight square miles because it's a massive area. Um,
it's somewhere around the size of if you were to
take all of Boston, Massachusetts, that's roughly forty eight square miles.
(38:32):
If you were to take all of Peory, Illinois, or Salem, Oregon,
or I think Fargo, North Dakota, those areas are all
about forty eight square miles or nine somewhere around there.
So that's the size of the port area that we're
talking about. And that's just one little area here, but
that's all shipping and a lot again, most of Toyota's
product comes out of there from you know, from the
(38:54):
Asian production facilities that they put these cars together, and
of course we know we have they have plants all
over the world, but that's where most of their product originates.
So it's a it's a huge, huge place and as
you can imagine, most of the people in the cities
in and around Nagoya are employed by either the shipping industry,
you know, the you know the the pier, I guess
(39:15):
the operations at the pier that you know somehow related
to that port, or automotive suppliers or automotive manufacturers, because
there's a many big factories that have strategically located themselves
right in that area as well, not just Toyota, but
other automotive manuser he's there, or they have an or
in d place there, spark plug makers, component creators, even
(39:38):
the railcar rolling stock manufacturers, sin Kansen manufacturers are there. Sure,
and we said that twice. Now that's high speed trains, right, yes, sorry, yeah,
bullet trains we call them. They are insane, you know
what I mean. They put our little train train network
here in Atlanta to shame. What do you know what
your top speed was just just off hand, roughly one
(40:02):
I was on I believe was going I mean next
easily an excess of two hundred. But it doesn't feel
like it, you know, until you look out the window. No, yeah,
look out the window. And the thing that's amazing is
how on time they are now quickly they stopped. And
(40:24):
also it's much more like being on a plane, you
know how before air travel became more affordable, Like we
saw this at the Hershey Museum in Pennsylvania, the Hershey
Automotive Museum. Before air travel became more affordable, most people
would travel long distances on charter buses. And the charter
(40:46):
buses was very much like going on a plane. You
had you had like flight attendance bus attendants. They would
cook stuff and serve it to you. They had uniforms,
had foot rest, there was overhead storage that was you know,
like would like shelving, and they had you know, really
nice plush seats. They were it was These coaches were beautiful.
I mean it was it was like pretty I mean,
(41:08):
more than acceptable way to get around. It was pretty
luxurious in a way. I mean I still know that,
you know, there were better ways to travel, but this
wasn't too bad really, I mean, lots of leg room,
lots of shoulder room. It was. It was definitely a
good way to get across the country if you had
to a little far than playing obviously little but but man,
they were cool looking, they really were. There was a
(41:29):
whole basement full of them, wasn't there, Yes, But we
went there and we were able to were able to
get on them and kind of sit in the sitting
the driver's seat and stuff. I think that was stuff
that they were letting us do, just do it because
we we were taking them behind the scenes tour. Yeah,
we also got to see where they were fixing up
a lot of those vehicles. Our friend Glenn Beck arranged
that for us. Yeah, that we still and we thank
(41:50):
him for that because that was quite an experience all around.
It was a lot of fun. Something I always remember
point this out. I was I was mistaken that Shinkansen
speedio is confusing my kilometers and my miles per hour.
I believe it was three kilometers an hour, which makes
about six That's still fast. That's you know what, that's
(42:10):
still two hundred miles an hour to me, that's quick.
I mean, fourteen miles an hour doesn't matter when you're
going a hundred and eighty six. I don't think you know. Well,
one thing that does really hit you about the speed
of that kind of transportation, which I'm sure you're familiar with, Scott,
is that if you go the wrong way or you
miss your stop, you don't. You don't have a lot
of time to recover from that one. Yeah, exactly, I would.
(42:33):
Uh yeah, I definitely I had, you know, the nerves.
I travel on a megleft, meg left train, but I
had the knowledge of knowing that there's only one train
on the track at the time, you know, and uh
and it's pretty easy to sit back and relax on
that one. Yeah, when there's like other trains that you're
worried about being switched onto your line, that would be
a whole lot more nerve racking, I think. And um,
(42:53):
not that that's necessarily happened a lot, but there have
been incidents here and there. It's very few and far
between though. But but man, that's really cool that you
got to do that something that we've been talking about.
And what a trip. I mean, overall, I'm sure you
didn't need to eat eat anything gross on the streets
out there or anything. You didn't need any gross street
food or anything. I know you because you're you're not
an adventurous eat here at all. You're very very you know,
(43:16):
meat and potatoes kind of guy. All Right, I'm gonna
tell you the weirdest thing day. Uh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
let me make sure I have a bucket nearby just
in case, because it might not be comfortable. I mean, really,
court he has extremely adventurous diet with a very winning
Rome attitude. I know this may not be super popular
with some of us listening, but I had to try
(43:37):
it at least once a horse a horse sashimi, which
means it was wrong. And uh, it's an interesting experience,
but I don't I don't see myself doing that again
in the future unless I have to to survive or something. Yeah,
but you know, um, you ate horse interesting and but okay,
(43:59):
all right, fast fascinating. I'm not going to take this
any direction that I shouldn't right now. But that's that's great,
that's great. I thought you would be happy. Good for you.
I didn't say seafood. I thought you were creatures of
the deep man. I thought you were gonna go with
you know, I ate a tarantula on a stick or
something like that. You know, I was gonna be I
thought it's gonna be just repulsed by this. But I
(44:20):
can kind of understand it if that's if that is
a uh, you know, I think some people are gonna
have trouble with that. I could see somebody getting upset.
But but what do you think? I mean? Okay, so
now I know somebody who's knowingly eating horse. Listen, I've
had some I've had some steaks. It's some bad places
(44:40):
that I assume our horses asked steak. It's no I've
actually labeled like, oh boy, this is the horse's ass
cut of steak. I can tell. But but but seriously,
like what was the texture? What was it like? Was
like red meat? Yeah? Yeah, it was like red meat.
It was It had a a surprising kind of sweet
(45:06):
note to it. Um. There was this sauce. The weirdest
thing in the way they served it to us. Oh wait, wait,
I've had this before at Arby's. There's Horsey sauce. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's in a packet. It's now that you mentioned it.
I was at an Arby's. It's a very high end restaurant.
I understand, now understand. Uh, Well, the weird thing was
(45:27):
when they served this. Um, when they served this to us, Uh,
you know, we were we were in an Okay restaurant.
We were in like a nice date restaurant. You know
what I mean. It wouldn't be a super super expensive restaurant,
but just a nicer place, fancy pants. Yeah, I mean
it's Arby's. Yeah, right, so I had a tie on
the roast beef. Uh. Well, anyway, this place, which was
(45:50):
technically not in Arby's, but don't let that everyone the story. Uh.
The weird thing was when we ordered it, at first,
they didn't believe it, and I thought, well, you know,
neither of us are fluent in Japanese. Maybe this is
a different translation, maybe this is some kind of cut
of beef or something I'm not aware of. And I'm
checked with the with the staff there, and they're like, yeah,
(46:14):
that's the worse. Do you want some more, because we'll
give it to you. And so I I always in
a situation where I said, well we have to, And
so we ordered some not not like a huge platter.
We weren't like just bringing the whole thing out, um
did you didn't have to go select it from a
pin of course or something like I'll have that one right. Uh.
(46:38):
But when we tried it. The strangest thing about it
is like there was like great ceremony with bringing this out,
except when they brought out the sauce because there was
this wide, shallow bowl and at the very bottom in
like uh an an indented circular area, I was where
(46:58):
the sauce lived. I don't know why the bowl was
so wide, nor why it was so shallow. It's like
a curved plate with a little dollarp of this admittedly
pretty tasty sauce. And I was thinking when they brought
this out, I was like, wow, do people do people
mainly just order this for the sauce? You know, like
(47:19):
how you have to order chips when you order a
caso dip because otherwise you look like, you know, like
you have a problem. Was it really there's something wrong
with you? Um? Is there? Um? Was it like really
intense flavor or was it like it really it was
a little it was like kind of smoky sweet. It wasn't.
I would not say it was super duper intense. It wasn't.
(47:41):
It wasn't bad. Um. You know, I learned that there
are some problems people have with that industry, like the
provenance of the of the horses themselves. But also, you know,
we have to admit here in the States we can
be a little bit hypocritical about what we consider edible
not edible, objectionable and fine. Sure, and you know, pigs
(48:03):
are quite intelligent, and that's never stopped me, uh from
getting a pulled pork barbecue sandwichard arbues. Yeah. Sure, there's
a sacred cows you know. Of course we've heard that.
But yeah, I understand, like it's it's just a different
region the world. They have different you know, norms, I guess.
And that's why I was saying controversial. I mean, I
and I. You'd have to look into how it's harvested,
(48:26):
I guess, and you know, the practices behind that. I
can't believe. It's interesting. That's it's it's it's you've got
good travel stories. I'm sorry that I derailed us so
much here, but you know, I'm I'm also just gonna
point out, Okay, I was a vegetarian years back for
a few years. I feel like I've put my time in,
(48:47):
you know what I mean, I'm still catching up with everybody. Yeah,
I get you. He didn't derail us, man, that's a
trip to Japan deserves at least an episode of talking
about what you saw, what you did, and uh, and
the food, of course, it's part of it, you know,
just the culture and you know, everything around that trip.
So I'm fascinated to hear about you know, when anybody travels, Kurt,
if you traveling we're in the future, or have traveled
(49:09):
anywhere that you want to talk about, Let's let's have
at it here on this show, because there's always something
fascinating to discover about new places. For you know, we
have our questions and I'm sure listeners other questions. Maybe
some of them are overlapping, and we'll you know, answer
some of them for them out there. You know, guys,
let's go, let's go on an adventure together. The only
way the Goya Museum could have been cooler is if
(49:32):
you guys were there too. Oh shucks, that's nice. Maybe
not at the Romantic Horse Museum or not horse museum restaurant. Yeah,
was it a horse restaurant? No, No, they just had
it on the menu. It was called Roy Rogers Triggers.
(49:52):
Is that the they had it, They had it on
the menu, and I felt like we just we we
had to do it. Was it my proudest moment? No? Uh,
do I regret it? Not really? Um, but but also
on the very last note, this is something that I
think a lot of a lot of people in the
(50:14):
audience who have traveled will also notice, Uh, every time
I'm in a different country, man, I'm so weird it
out by which cars are common and which are considered
fancy or you know, um, what's considered obscure. You go
to some places and it's just Fiats everywhere. Yeah, why
wouldn't you have a Fiat? Sure? And uh, you go
(50:37):
to other places and like, you know, it's weird. It's
weird how Mercedes are not impressive cars in some country.
And I keep wondering, I'm like, are they just super cheap? Here?
Are we getting? Are we the ones getting ripped off?
It's interesting, isn't it? Like just to find out what's
what's the norm there versus the norm here? And you know,
(50:59):
the odd alls are the ones that always intrigued me.
Like you said, like when you know there's a certain
region and you find out that, hey, just about everybody
has a three wheel car here. You know, it's it's
pretty rare where we are, but you know, it's it's
something that's commonly seen there. You see it on the
on the you know, side of the road all the time.
They're rented to tourists they're rented. You know, the people
that do find them different or unique or exciting in
(51:21):
some way, and they know that you all right, so
they kind of prey on that. But yeah, good for them.
It's it's fun. It's always interesting to travel. I love
doing it, and you get good stories like the Nigoya
Toyota Museum. I don't have the name exactly right there.
I know that the Toyota Autobile Museum of Nigoya, I
think is what it's called. If you want to search
for it and and check out what Ben has already
seen in the past. And I'm a bit jealous, but
(51:43):
I'm a little jelly. As the kids say, well of
you being able to go there and and do that.
But I know it also it takes a lot of
hard work to be able to get to do something
like that, so good for you. And that's a good
experience experience. And we were fortunate not to have to
walk down the mountain that time. Yeah, I didn't get
kicked out of the country, which I take as a
(52:03):
solid wind given my past, so or the museum or
the museum which I got close. I wish I had
known about you guys techniques earlier. If I had that
kickstand some weighted pants. Yeah, well you know what they say, man,
dog slids don't have a review mirrors. That was perfect.
Well yeah, I mean that's why it works. It works,
(52:25):
and it all comes around right, full circle, full circle exactly.
So oh gosh, and we exhausted the Nagoya Toy Museum
yet I think we've done okay jobs just sketching out
some of the high notes of the museum. Thank you
so much for listening, folks. We want to hear your
stories of your favorite auto museums here in the US
(52:47):
or anywhere in the world, open or closed, and what
you like about them. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on Instagram. You can find us
on Twitter. We your car stuff or some derivation thereof,
and thanks for listening. One Car Stuff is a production
of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from
(53:07):
my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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