Japan doesn't keep its best cars in one place. On the same ginkgo avenue in Tokyo we found a black Lamborghini Countach one green Sunday and a purple Revuelto one bare winter afternoon; elsewhere, a Murciélago squeezed between a bus and a lorry, a D1 Lights Silvia on the main straight at Tsukuba and a Toyota Chaser asleep in a Nagasaki garage. This is Japan car spotting the way we like it: no plan, just a camera and a lot of walking.
Meiji Jingu Gaien: Revuelto and Countach under the ginkgo trees
The ginkgo avenue at Meiji Jingu Gaien is Tokyo's informal Sunday car show: no tickets, no organiser, owners park along the kerb and everyone else walks the line. In winter: bare trees, a café terrace, and a Lamborghini Revuelto in a purple that shifts towards blue as you walk past, on bronze wheels with red calipers. The Revuelto is Lamborghini's V12 plug-in hybrid, launched in 2023 with 1,015 CV, and it already has a habit of turning up in Tokyo: we found a green one at the kerb in Nine From the Tokyo Archive, and the same story has a Countach in Mid Night stickers from Nostalgic 2days.
The black Countach
On a green Sunday the same avenue is a different place. The morning we filmed, there were two Lamborghini Countachs and about twenty other Lamborghinis along the kerb, by our count. Our phone caught six seconds of one: a black Countach easing out past a red car and a white Toyota Alphard, all hard edges, big rear wing, wide arches and yellow fog lamps in the nose, then gone down the avenue towards the office towers.
Which Countach it is, we can't tell you. The wing and the flared arches belong to the later cars, from the LP400 S onwards, but the exact version needs a closer look at the badges than six seconds gave us, so we won't guess. What isn't in doubt is why it still stops a street: Marcello Gandini drew it at Bertone, Lamborghini built it from 1974 to 1990, a V12 behind the seats, scissor doors and the poster on a generation's bedroom walls. Fifty years on, on an avenue where a brand-new Revuelto barely gets a second look, the old one still turns every head.
A Murciélago with a wing, and a Ferrari 812
A grey Lamborghini Murciélago, nose out, parked in an expressway parking area between a red tour bus and an aluminium-box truck, under a lilac evening sky. It wears a fixed rear wing and a script banner across the windscreen, and behind it sits a blue Honda S2000. Japanese parking areas are like this: the most exotic car in the country next to whatever is hauling vegetables tonight.
On a wide Tokyo avenue by an old stone wall, a dark blue Ferrari 812 with a body kit, louvres over the rear deck and polished mesh wheels, sharing a lane with a Mercedes S-Class and a Nissan kei car.
Ginza and Ebisu: Phantom and Alphard
A white eighth-generation Rolls-Royce Phantom waits in a Ginza side street while a man in a suit opens the door. Near Ebisu, a black third-generation Toyota Alphard (AH30) on green commercial plates, the hire car of choice in Tokyo, parked next to a bright red public toilet. Yes, a toilet: The Tokyo Toilet project put seventeen designer public toilets around Shibuya, and they're worth a detour.
Lotus with a GT wing
Doorless, roofless, with separate cycle-style front wings and an exposed rear end, this looks to us like a Lotus 340R, the Elise-based roadster of 2000. This one added a tall carbon GT wing with a Defi sticker and an exhaust that exits through the back. It's the least practical car in this story and we'd take it first.
D1 Lights at Tsukuba Circuit
Under the Tsukuba Circuit Course 2000 gantry, a black and red Nissan Silvia S13 with a D1 Lights windscreen banner, REAL CARS livery and Valino stickers, number 80 in its rear side window, with two more drift cars behind. D1 Lights is the development series of the D1 Grand Prix; for the top class at full commitment, see our D1GP story from Ebisu. Tsukuba is also where the AutoBahn carbon Soarer set its time.
A Chaser in Nagasaki
The last frame is the quietest and maybe our favourite. A dark blue Toyota Chaser JZX100 Tourer V, on Nagasaki plates, tucked into a concrete garage under a block of flats. The Tourer V is the one with the 1JZ-GTE turbo straight six and the one every drifter wants. This one, judging by the factory badges and plain rear end, is still somebody's daily. Down in Kyushu we also found the Alitalia Lancia Stratos.
Photos and video: One Breath Pictures.
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