The best car in this set hasn't moved in years. A BMW 525i, the E34 generation, sits under a Tokyo apartment block wearing a coat of dust so thick it has turned the paint the colour of the concrete around it, with a neighbour's bicycle parked against its bumper. That's the thing about Tokyo car spotting in winter: the city hands you a Ferrari on one corner and a time capsule on the next.
These fifteen frames are the third batch from our winter in Tokyo, after eleven frames of Tokyo and nine from the Tokyo archive. Nothing here repeats either of them.
The E34 that time forgot
The badge on the boot still reads 525i, and the BMW roundel is the only clean thing on it. The E34 5 Series ran from 1988 to 1996, and in Japan it was the import that told the neighbours you'd made it. Somebody still pays for this space. We'd love to know why it stopped.
One parking bay, two very different cars
Same bay, same blue neon arches, same "Rikamu 5" sign, different nights. First, a deep red 1950s Bentley saloon with a winged-B mascot, a tall chrome grille and fog lamps under the headlights. Then a silver Ferrari 550 Maranello, the front-engined V12 that brought Ferrari's grand tourer back to the front in 1996. Both wear Shinagawa plates. Tokyo street parking has a better collection than most museums.
Movement after dark
A white Porsche 911 of the 964 generation slid past on Cup-style wheels. Near Shibuya's MAGNET building, a yellow wide-body Nissan Silvia S15 with a Night Kids banner rolled up next to a yellow Lamborghini Aventador S, matching paint and all. And on another street, the high stop-light wing and the chrome Silvia script of a white S15, the last Silvia Nissan built.
Cars you only find in Japan
From a footbridge: a red Mitsuoka, the small Japanese maker that rebodies everyday cars in retro clothes. With its long bonnet and round lamps we believe this is the Le-Seyde, which was built on the S15 Silvia. Below a block of flats, a green Honda CR-X del Sol in VXi trim, the targa-top Honda of the 1990s, tucked in behind a traffic cone.
The expensive end
A white Maserati MC20 parked under trees wrapped in winter lights, and a pair of yellow Ferrari 296s in a showroom, a screen behind them playing a driving game. Tokyo doesn't do subtle in December.
The city around the cars
A hand-painted Panasonic sign for a car-electronics workshop (navigation, audio, batteries, air conditioning), with a red mid-engined sports car drawn across it. Scooters and a Super Cub lined up outside the Good Speed motorcycle shop. An expressway on-ramp glowing under a green "motor vehicles only" sign. Fuji over the city at dusk. And a bonsai pine under the winter lights, which is the most Tokyo way to end anything.
Verdict
None of these cars were at a show. They were parked, driving past or gathering dust where their owners left them, and that is why Tokyo car spotting never gets old. Photos: One Breath Pictures.
Photos: One Breath Pictures
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