Not much more than a box on tiiiiiiny wheels, the two Roox models do what all kei cars do best, fly under the regulator's radar. There are two models, the Roox and Roox E. We find ourselves wading into dangerous cultural and comedic waters, but we have to mention the oddness of one version having narrow, angular headlights and the other have big round headlights. A cornucopia of tasteless jokes stand by at the ready, all of them horrible.

But in any case, the cars come with power sliding doors, abnormally large interiors and a turbocharged intercooled 660cc micromotor developing 63 HP. They're also cute as a button.

At first glance, it looks like a small Datsun, an SP310 Fairlady for instance, but the details don’t add up. There is also this peculiar badge:

And a blurred model name on the quarter panel:

The badge would make you think Prince Motor Company, the guys who made the original Skyline which lives on as the Nissan GT–R, but—as far as I know—Prince never made a small roadster.

What makes the whole situation even more baffling is that I ran this photo by my friend Zsolt Csikós, who is a living and breathing encyclopedia of old Japanese cars, and even he came up blank. And when the guy who, roused from his sleep, can tell you year-by-year changes on fourty-year-old non-exotic cars comes up blank, you know you’re in trouble.

Unfortunately, the embedded metadata offers no clue:

SUZUKA, JAPAN - OCTOBER 04: Kazuki Nakajima of Japan and Williams rides in a vintage car during the drivers parade before the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit on October 4, 2009 in Suzuka, Japan. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

So it’s up to you now, expert morphologists of a bygone Japan: what the hell was Kazuki riding in before he brought his Williams home to a not particularly shiny 15th place?

Update: Jim–Bob and Graverobber to the rescue! It’s a Toyota Publica, pronounced paprika.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

If you live in the area, Tokyo Families Magazine has directions to the park, which looks like this from space:

You can see more photos of the place on Flickr.

Photo Credit: WrightFlyer/Panoramio

The 2-minute short, produced by Google’s Japanese subsidiary, focuses on a pet peeve common in Europe and apparently in Japan as well: the freaking out over published photographs of license plates. Google employs algorithms and humans to blur them out in European and Japanese cities depicted on Street View.

As you can see if you watch the video, this sometimes entails burning the midnight oil. Beware: the background music will stick in your head for the rest of the day.

We've got 40 years of Honda ads here, from North America, Japan, and Israel. Civics that love leaded gas, 600s that force towns to resize all their parking spaces, and NSXs marketed with Honda nameplates. Just click on the thumbnail to head straight for the original post.
When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite VW ads, then continue your car-advertising overdose with the Datsun, Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, and Chevrolet ads.

1984 City Turbo	1988 Cyber Sports CRX	1969 1300
1978 Civic	1978 Civic	1971 600
1994 VTEC	1991 NSX	2004 Civic
1988 Cyber Sports	1995 Civic	1986 CRX

As you saw in our Ten Things Your Kids Will Never Experience In A New Car and 25 Most Redundant Technologies posts, even the lowest of low-end cars intended for the North American market usually come standard with features once considered to be luxurious extras. Power windows. Keyless remotes. Air conditioning. If you're a super-cheapskate who doesn't want to pay for those bells and whistles, you're pretty much out of luck. How did it come to this?
Many of our illustrious commenters, most recently Skitter, bring up this brilliant essay penned by Jack Baruth (aka our own ViergangFuchs) over on Speed:Sport:Life. Here's an excerpt:

Why did power windows cost more than roll-up windows in 1973? It's easy to understand; it took a man, or a team of men, earning the aforementioned living wage, longer to build, assemble, and install power window components. In 2009, the whole deal is "subbed out" to a supplier who produces snap-in power window assemblies. It's usually cheaper to get 100,000 power window assemblies than it is to get 50,000 roll-up assemblies and 50,000 power assemblies, plus you don't have to train the $12/hour temps who (don't tell anyone!) actually do a lot of "low-skill" jobs on American assembly lines how to install two different kinds of window assemblies. The door can be made simpler because it doesn't have to accommodate two different kinds of controls, which leads to more volume discounts, and so on.

[Speed:Sport:Life]

The Gawker Server Hamsters won't let me show you all 450 cars and trucks (actually more than 480 by now) at once- they go into an angry rodent frenzy that just isn't pretty when I try- but we'll get to all of them this way. Next up… maybe the trucks? The Detroit compacts? Who can say? For now, enjoy the Datsuns, Toyotas, Hondas, Mazdas, and Mitsubishis. I've included some Ford and Chrysler captive imports, such as the Plymouth Fire Arrow and the Ford Courier, since they're 100% Japanese designed and built.

1966 Datsun	1969 Datsun	1970 Datsun	1970 Datsun
1971 Datsun	1971 Datsun	1971 Datsun	1971 Toyota
1972 Datsun	1973 Datsun	1973 Datsun	1973 Ford
1974 Datsun	1975 Datsun	1975 Toyota	1976 Honda
1977 Honda	1977 Toyota	1977 Toyota	1978 Datsun
1978 Dodge	1978 Dodge	1979 Datsun	1979 Honda
1980 Plymouth	1980 Datsun	1980 Datsun	1980 Honda
1980 Plymouth	1981 Toyota	1981 Datsun	1981 Datsun
1981 Mazda	1982 Honda	1982 Datsun	1982 Mazda
1982 Toyota	1983 Honda	1983 Toyota	1983 Nissan
1983 Toyota	1984 Toyota	1984 Toyota	1984 Toyota
1984 Toyota	1984 Toyota	1985 Toyota	1985 Mazda
1985 Toyota	1985 Toyota	1985 Toyota	1986 Toyota
1986 Toyota	1986 Toyota	1986 Honda	1987 Honda
1987 Toyota	1987 Mitsubishi	1987 Subaru	1988 Mitsubishi
1989 Subaru

Itasha is what happens when you combine people obsessed with manga, anime and video games (referred to as otaku) with unsuspecting cars. Notice how almost all of the girls pictured are actually bizarre, full-sized dolls.

The trend has been around for a while and, recently, street festivals to celebrate the bizarre car fetish have started to occur. In this case, the festival was in Washimiya, Japan. Though typically the realm of Kei cars and tiny Japanese vans, there's at least one Lotus and one ALfa Romeo involved in this showing.

Please, American teenagers, DO NOT EMULATE!

All Photos Credit: Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images

These ads may not be quite as punishingly 80s as the legendary Cocaine Factory Duster commercial, but they're up there with the rest of the 80s Car Ad contenders. Check out the special scooter, designed to fit in the back of the City!

Because these aren't meant for your average R/C hobbyist, the starting price is over $6,000 for the base model and $15,000 for the full model equipped with an exterior. It may seem like a lot of change for a robotic car, but you get a pre-configured vehicle equipped with CCD stereo cameras, an image recognition module, WiFi, a gyro sensor, acceleration sensors, and a host of other equipment.

ZMP, the company behind the model, plans to sell 200 of these vehicles and claims to already have 100 orders for the creepy/friendly robots. We'd normally complain about this being the beginning of the end of human driving as we know it, but we think cell phones with QWERTY keyboards have already done enough to take human beings out of the driving experience. [Nikkei]

Excluding Kei cars, the Honda Insight and Honda Jazz (Fit) took the top two spots with 10,841 units and 9,443 units, respectively. The Insight is just starting to show up on dealer lots here in the U.S., so we'll soon see if the cheap and modern-looking ecorider does as well on this side of the Pacific. [AP]

I mentioned the must-have Nissan Cedric Brougham kit a while back, and that inspired Paul Y to do some more searching. It turns out that all manner of insanely detailed Dekotora kits may be obtained from The Land Of Insane Model Kits: Japan!
[1999.co.jp]

We get ads for the 1966 (410), 1967 (510), and 1971 (610) Bluebirds here. The last one, for the '71 Bluebird-U, is a masterpiece of bewildering Japanese salaciousness and makes me want to offer the owner of the DOTS 610 too many dollars for his car. Thanks to LTDScott for the tip!

The area in which Tomsk shot these cars is an old stomping ground of mine, from back in my college days. Yes, when my hobbies included siphoning gas from a '68 Mercury whilst clad in a Dark Angel shirt and generally lowering UC Irvine's property values. In fact, this yellow Corolla sure looks like the one my freshman-year girlfriend had Earl Scheib shoot in "Sun Yellow" for $59.95 (seatbelts, tires, tailpipe, and all), if you assume that 20 years of Southern California sunshine might take a fearsome toll on a cheap paint job. We've also got a first-gen RX-7, of the sort that's getting seriously rare on the street these days. Tomsk describes them thus:

This early first-gen RX-7 looks to be a genuine survivor, from the jewel-like wheels to the badge one the rear proudly proclaiming the powerplant as 100% piston-free. Sure, the right front fender has seen a little action, but on the whole, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a nicer example that doesn't live in a climate-controlled garage.

Aside from a full-tilt-boogie AE86, this Malaise Era Toyota Corolla 2-door is about as far removed from today's Maytag-esque Corolla as a car with the same name can get. Evidence: P*ssy magnet yellow paint, abundance of surfing-related stickers in the windows, and badges that proudly read "Deluxe" and "5 speed."

Thanks to Myke Toman, Nick Pon, Zerin Dube and Speed:Sport:Life, Anna C of Bikini Racer, the Norwegian Slaabs, Saabs Gone Wild, Prison Break Racing, Team Beermer, LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman, Jackson Williams, and others for their fine photographs.

That's right, discerning (and well-heeled) Japanese car shoppers could buy an AMG-ified Mitsubishi Debonair. Of course, we love the Debonair on general principle- the name alone is enough to win our hearts!- so front-wheel-driveness of the Royal AMG doesn't scare us away, nor does the untouched-by-AMG 200-horse V6. Of course, what we really want is a Hyundai Grandeur dressed up with the AMG gear from its Debonair sibling! Sadly, the AMG modifications were limited to dress-up stuff, but pay no mind to that minor detail. Japanese Nostalgic Car has a good writeup on the AMG Debonair, as does 7Tune, and you can head to Japan for some more after that.

Ross Brawn is back! If you’ll recall, the man who made Schumacher the Superman of Formula 1 racing left Ferrari at the end of the 2006 season and ended up at Honda after a one-year sabbatical. Honda was particularly hard hit by the Carpocalypse and decided last December to abandon its F1 efforts. An agreement has now been reached to preserve the team, with Brawn as its new owner and namesake.

Brawn GP will swap its Honda engines for Mercedes V8’s and immediately hit the track at Barcelona on Monday. Honda drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will remain with the team as they take to their first season on March 29 at the Australian Grand Prix.

This is absolutely wonderful news. As for why, you only need to call to mind last year’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

It was a motley ballet of a race, with the recurring gag of a hapless Fernando Alonso spinning his car at every corner and a bunny speeding across the rain-soaked track. Lewis Hamilton massacred the field, but the most remarkable part of the race happened on lap 40.

This was when Ross Brawn, in anticipation of more rain, decided to put Rubens Barrichello on extreme wet tires as opposed to the intermediates on every other car. Then the rain came. Barrichello’s Honda, a hopeless non-contender througout the season, went through the field like butter, outpacing everyone by nine seconds a lap. He ended up at third place, by far the best result for Honda in the entire season.

Yeah yeah yeah, you put on wets when you see the clouds, but if the rain doesn’t come, wet tires slow your car down like molasses. It was a brilliant hustle, but one built on a foundation of data, which Brawn reputedly has an infinite capacity to spot patterns in.

Not evident on most Formula 1 newscasts due to its invisibility to the naked eye is the extremely large outboard brain attached to Ross Brawn’s cerebrum. A picture of which we have obtained with Jalopnik’s imaging satellite parked above the Japanese Home Islands. It really is one bad mother of a brain.

Expect fun things to happen in F1, and expect Brawn to step on Hamilton’s toes at every chance he gets. We at Jalopnik HQ couldn’t be more happier and we hereby celebrate with a six-pack of Brawndo:

Photo Credit: p_c_w, rallycarter, Source: BBC Sport

The super-awesome-number-one-best automaker from the land of the rising sun's now asking the Japanese government for a bailout for its car financing unit. Local media reports say it had applied for a 200bn-yen ($2bn; £1.45bn) loan. However, Toyota said no details had been decided.

While at not as huge as that asked for by Toyota's US brethren, it does make us ask the question — we wonder what Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennissan) and Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabayota) have to say about this news? Perhaps that Toyota should build the cars Americans wanted to buy? No. How about that Government should stay out of helping their home-grown businesses? Nah, probably won't say that either. Hmm. Wethinks perhaps they'll say not a damn word, because if they do, they'll probably have to open it wide enough to fit their whole foot in. [via BBC]

Photo Credit: Ralph Orlowski / Getty Images News