Quiz Archive

About Quiz # 262: Toyota ! (UPDATE: more winners!)

The most important find of the new century is not a Hispano, not a Bugatti, not a Duesenberg, nor a SSK Merc. It is a plain family car in far from pristine condition. It has no history whatsoever, no chassis number and is missing it's radiator, bumpers original wheels, and not unimportant, it is missing the original engine and possibly has the steering wheel & wipers on the wrong side. So what the heck about this pile of scrap?
Anybody interested in automotive history and development will understand. Each of those will see why we claim that this car is surpassing the above mentioned names in importance. This object is "The Missing Link" from the Japanese car industry. The zero milestone of mega car builder Toyota. The oldest known Toyota. The first known survivor of the 100 million or so cars that followed... Try to grasp the impact of that idea before returning to the quiz.
(check wikipedia) In 1987, when Toyota celebrated their 50th birthday , they built a handfull of replica's in the series AA(first), AB (cabrio), AC (seriesII) like this (click) , based on a lot of educated guessing.
And now, twenty years later, out of the clear blue sky of East Siberia this car pops in through PreWarCar's network. So far the Toyota works in Japan have not yet concluded which exact type of car it is. The non existent windscreen divider (not on the AA model and very thick on the later AC), the wrong position of the wipers and many more details make it hard to say which exact model it is. As not even the factory dares to say so far.... all competitors who had the make correct will get the PreWarCar T-shirt. Our congratulations to winners: Gerard Lansink, Ced Pearce, David Miller, Jean-Marie Davis, Bryan Norfolk, George Cassidy, Raul San Giorgi, Fritz Hegemann, Gaurav Sawant & Luc Rijckart (also correct: jurymembers Kit Foster and Marc Fellman)
Finally one thing is sure, this is not the last that you have seen or read about this car. Currently it is in the hands of a large Toyota dealer, who avoids publicity. Like said before it is our opinion that the car should not be restored at all. It is the only tangible and 3D reference to the first products of the worlds largest automobile manufacturer. Most probably, the car will turn up in Tokyo not too long from now. This is not the kind of car to keep in a private collection.
There only can be one decent parking lot for this Scarfaced Warrior - or should we say Samurai: the Toyota Museum in (thank you Marc Fellman; the museum is NOT in Tokyo, but in in the town of Nagakute in Aichi prefecture near the large city of Nagoya and not far from the city of Toyota itself.) Flanked right and left with a replica. And finally-finally: let no man raise his hammer, spanner or worse a paintgun to destroy the appearance of the oldest of all Toyota's !
(these photos for editors available upon request)

Friday, 06 November 2009