Ken Hayashi Aka @CaptBradford - EP.115

Ever heard of Ken Hayashi? How about JDM Masters youtube channel? Or @CaptBradford on IG? This week Ken enlightens us on his past, the difference between Japanese and American car enthusiasts, and his insight on the Nissan/Honda merger and what they need to do to beat out Toyota? Listen along and learn from the wealth of knowledge that is Ken Hayashi!

Socials - @RHDGUYS - @CAPTBRADFORD


Merch & Old Episodes - http://RHDGUYS.COM

Transcript

0:00

Hey, and welcome back to the next episode of the right hand drive guys podcast the podcast for guys who like right hand drives I'm Bobby. This is Aaron. Yeah, go and this is episode 115 and we appreciate you listening along with us and if you're JDM heads like us then you're definitely gonna be excited about Who we have on this week and this man Some people know him some people have no clue who he is but a lot of people have seen his Instagram His name is Ken and his Instagram is at capped ca pt Bradford and What is he what is he know like what is he known for on Instagram? Basically just posting super technical specs to certain race cars and just behind the scenes type Type knowledge, I guess you could say Yeah, but he goes way beyond that I think yeah his knowledge is extremely vast and I got to meet him firsthand he lives in Japan And I got to meet him firsthand when he brought me in a group of my friends to the Nissan Heritage Collection Yeah, and instead of using the in this is funny instead of using the Nissan paid tour guide. Yeah, we said no, no, we're good. We have Ken And Ken took us around and literally I was mind blown the way that this man talks like The his intelligence level is like so high and and Same with his like memory retention like the amount of stuff that he knows is Is just mind blowing so after meeting him I might do we got to get him on the podcast We're kind of nervous to get him on the podcast to be honest. Yeah, because He can very easily talk over our heads and he's just knows so much. He knows so much that Scrolling his Instagram you see that too like holy cow like this guy read the captions dude, and it's like whoa Yeah, and So you know a brief low background on Ken Ken used to drive for the Mitsubishi Rally team Yeah, and he helped develop the evo 7 so he worked for Mitsubishi for quite a long time and I think You know probably his background in motorsports just kind of brought him down that road of knowing damn near everything Yeah, so yeah, let's get to it. Let's see what Ken has to say This is episode one 15 All right, and we're back with Ken. Hi, is she what's up Ken? Oh, I'm a fine. You doing guys inviting me absolutely here We I knew after our Nissan Heritage tour. I was like man there We have to get this guy on here. He is a wealth of knowledge and he loves to share it Thank you But so you know, I know who you are Aaron kind of knows who you are, but let's give the listeners just a little rundown You know who is Ken? So there's a lot of Ken's in the world a lot of Ken in Japan. It's a quite a common name But maybe viewers or listeners might have heard my voice before on this YouTube Well kind of now to front YouTube channel called JDM Masters, which I used to be the host of and of course I mainly talk about Japanese cars or what you call JDM review them and go to shops and I've been in the car industry for Wow, maybe more than 25 years 27 years or something and In the beginning I used to I used to work with its V-SIM Motors actually and I was involved in WRC as a as an engineer and then later on I did some competition and became a rally Radist, a rally driver, a specialist and later on moved on into doing motorsports engineering and logistics and logistics and all the while I was also a kind of journalist for some magazines internationally and I got to know quite a lot of people my my master was one of talking a lot of things in industry started to help me to get into the motorsports industry so I was a bit with super thank you and even things like WEC and and then I started to become a kind of like a media, especially so I started to organize events and do logistics for car companies like Matsuda and later on decided with the with a friend They encourage me to do YouTube channel and To talk about cars and review cars and because I love cars and I've been all many cars in my life as well So to just share knowledge with people outside of Japan who love Japanese company also the pointers to keep Japanese car culture and history Because as you know now we have internet and the internet is Who's not very accurate so that kind of got me thinking no we need to have accurate information English and so I hope that I can Share with people about you know the real car culture and history of Japanese cars Yeah, that's that's basically it. Yeah, and I agree You know with the internet things have become diluted as far as this knowledge You know there's specs of truth in there and it is nice to have somebody who truly cares about keeping it honest so to speak So yeah, I mean we're excited to hear what you have to say man so the the first thing I want to kind of talk about was you know Obviously we're kind of here in America. You're you're there in in Japan and Like the ownership of cars in Japan. I feel like through my experience It's kind of looked at a little bit differently than we do over here in America What would you what how could you elaborate on that? Ownership of cars in Japan first of all We have to consider that Unlike American where I think my get the impression Americans use cars in a very different way It's a basic mode of transport So I don't know like unless you live in New York City or some very built up area Everybody needs the car to travel around even to go to the shops. Am I right? Yeah, and of course that is the same in rule like more countryside or we call Inaka areas So basically where I live is quite near Hakone Even though it's in Kanagawa prefecture not too far from Yokohama But if we don't have a car we can't go to the shops. However, the car ownership Problem with Japan is space still compared to America We don't have a lot of space so even though we need the car to go to the supermarket because in a countryside area the It probably transport is not really good a lot of people use bicycles of course and The car is the sole means of like you know to use to go in daily life But houses are still small. There's only car park space for one car if you're lucky You have two if you live in a in a kind of a apartment you have to rent the car park space Which is quite expensive so this limits people for like freely owning Multiple cars for example. I'm talking about like really basic, you know like normal people who are not car enthusiasts and To own a car in Japan. You need it's quite trouble through you need to get a Some what we call Shako Shome which is a permit from the police to verify your car park space and Before you own a car you need to get this and then you need to get the check shakkan which is like a yearly inspection in order to just own one car if you want to own a second car you need to prove you have space a lot of people rent a car park space and it varies in prices From as much as from as least it's five five thousand year where I live to 20 to even 40,000 in places like Yokohama and Tokyo so this is something like in Hong Kong for example where space is a premium So the idea of ownership of owning a car here is just like it's a very important tool and people also are very cautious about You know the maintenance of it and most normal people would send it to either the dealer or to a workshop people rarely rarely do Work but it is even guys who are our partners is the reasons because as I mentioned about the space There is basically no space to DIY. I mean can you imagine like there's some young guys in the past who would just like check out the car in the rented You know for four four meters by two and a half meters Change the tires This is this is really normal so a lot of people don't do DIY But I think from the outset this is the biggest difference in basic car ownership People trust the workshop or the dealer and it's of course very expensive to call a basic car Yeah, and I guess that makes sense as to why you know the shops are more plentiful because you do have You know this large population of people who as you said can't really do DIY you know That has basic maintenance and so they do need to kind of bring it to a shop I guess that because I always wondered you know like why does Japan have so many more known shops than us and I guess it makes sense There aren't guys in their garage just pulling the motor by themselves really So in America they're much less garages or shops Yeah, for sure. I mean Yeah, yeah, I mean of course there are some especially in highly populated areas, but I mean it's not like Japan especially like very notable shops Yeah, tuning shops especially like aftermarket type like sellers and stuff There are far and few between especially ones that have an actual garage and like a whole setup so But I guess that makes sense right because we could order a part and put it on our car right here Whereas if we were living in Japan we'd be having to buy even a parking space So what I'm seeing in the image in front of me the space you guys have I mean if we had that kind of space in Japan It's it's already five times more than a normal garage, you know, it's dream Yeah, so I can imagine you know the Japanese have really learned how to utilize their space correctly because it really isn't as plentiful Oh, yes, yes But when it comes to car enthusiasts guys a lot of the Guys, I think it's also changing My generation of car enthusiasts maybe we are one of the last Okay, maybe guys also in the 30s to actually try the best to do DIY where it's possible It's funny because I remember back then I was with some of my friends and we had I was living in a small apartment with the said rented space With everybody else and so we had no space to do even things like Change the air filter or spark plugs or something and we'll go to a multi-story car park that has lights or has good space Like the movie theater or on the rooftop of a of a mall and Basically do it there until the security got to the eight what you guys doing Or in the auto-max car park, you know, oh, yeah Yeah, I mean, yeah, we do But I mean that's part of the thing right like utilizing what you have Being efficient, you know, these are things that I personally correlate with Japanese people right like They're very efficient. They use what they have they don't generally overdo it, you know And so it makes sense. It's probably from culturally, you know, what they what they've gotten used to It's it's by necessity actually You know, do you remember when you guys come here and you go to some restaurant? Especially a rather small restaurant and when you go inside the washroom Have you noticed how small the wash basin is? Oh, yeah everything everything in there is small Sometimes it's on the back of the toilet. Yeah, that's what I was about to say the sink on the back side of the toilet That would always gets me like that's efficient. Oh That that's actually not a sink It's oh, no, it's not like a sink. Yeah, you can sort of rinse your fingers or your hands there for a while But you should still wash your hands properly and take it in the sink. It's like stage one stage two But you've probably seen how it's all the wash basin is and it's very efficiently designed to fit within that small cubicle space, right? Mm-hmm Yeah, they really are good at that, you know, just as far as making use of what they have I I do appreciate that And so we can also come to the conclusion about the design of cars themselves Which is why we have a lot of K car I think many many visitors to Japan especially those who love JDM are probably quite shocked To see more K car What we call light vehicle in Japan more than everything else in fact, it's you you can see on the road that's more than 60% Of yellow plate compact cars with 660 cc engines of various different designs And that's the majority and the history of the K car itself explains this very compact, you know, the need to brutalize space Uh in in in Japan. So this is The reason why K cars Because of this low taxes is sort of the main modes of transport for most people who don't really Want to own a carbon at no choice, but just need basic transport Yeah, well, I can say that when we got off the plane our first time in Japan, you know, of course what we expected to see was just you know evos in r34's and you know Hey, we we expect to be a drift Yes, exactly. Yeah, but in reality it was Alphards K cars, you know that type of thing and it really took us quite a while to see our first like hero car So to speak and and we were kind of freaking out because all of a sudden there is one, you know, and it happened to be a Autek r33 GTR. Yeah, so so it was a cool sight to see, but yeah, I agree, you know, I think the general perception is probably you guys just have the most amazing cars running around everywhere But in reality they're cars that are economical and efficient for you know the general Japanese citizen Isn't it isn't it like making some cities in America, but cool that it's just EVs and test laws right? They pay yeah exactly right that makes sense um So moving on So over in Japan, right like we as Americans I feel like have kind of idolized You know the Japanese tuning culture those of us who were into it have idolized it for a long time and You know, I just was hoping we could kind of talk about the Approach that the Japanese take to the customization and tuning and everything in the different genres, you know like for example The drift guys the VIP guys the soul dress up guys You know and the difference in the attitude of their vehicles and builds and the interaction with the community so to speak How was it like in America currently with this um, so I mean in America, you know, there's there's drift. There's big power straight line. There's muscle. Yeah, there's drift there's Stance cars. What's up? What is the what is the perception of Americans? Japanese cartoon because I guess you guys watch worse motoring and see option magazine Or whatever maybe you know, yeah, and that's really what it was right especially before the internet was the magazines and the DVDs That's like that was our perception of Japan tuning. Yeah, we're were those, you know, and then of course once the internet came Everything kind of blew up and I feel like the people And the holidays that are into that type of stuff that are into the you know the best motoring the options and all that are kind of like the The JDM nerds. I guess you could say it, you know They're the ones that are really into and really into the style aspect of it In a that like time period Whereas kind of the shallow the new fans they go off Instagram reels and YouTube shorts and they kind of see it for the The face of it instead of like the depth that it really has they see for the hype I guess you'd say Oh, yes, it's it's one of my most unfavorable words the full letter word isn't it? Yeah, Hyp I Overused and when it's over done it becomes a problem, right? Yeah, then it makes it look like oh Um, I would say you guys and you know, we're I think we're all the same. We've been kind of yes for a long time And those who are really into cars look at it from the aspect of The technical performance and the history the motorsport history and you know, maybe in sports cars as what we would say But in reality in Japan, I would say The things that you've mentioned before the especially nearly the dress up guys and the VIP guys called Vibbub for Bibbub which comes from A style that originally imitates the kind of Yakuza from the 80s and this is this itself has a long history of Actually preparing the car to look in a certain way so every genre of this including what we call it asha the anime Decorated stickers on To be honest when that became very popular maybe in like late 2000s Um, I was like oh my goodness. What's going on here with a new trend You know, but that these guys started to really improve the of course with technology is with them you know Large format then that can't what you call that large format a wrap printing. I'm not sure yeah And the details the design started to become even more intricate and then as you know you you start to see Uh, it does show our anime car design started to appear on real race car like in split gt And even spatikyu Then it's it becomes official. So let's go back a little bit further further back into the 80s. Of course you know Dori Dori aka drifter king aka tss the highly revered and respected and most famous racing driver personality In gdmo, which happened his car culture He's also known as the person who influenced heavily the drift culture But you look at the drift culture behind that where he started racing drivers like also What would they do with any good? No, no, none the best He was these guys were from the generation of really street drifters and This is also the point that field and inspired initial d the whole drifting thing that these this was a very clear cut from um, okay, so you have Paul gay Which I think this word is also quite misunderstood in western culture The word Paul gay basically means mountain pass and not every mountain road is a toge The toge is only a toge if there is a height elevation Where you actually have a very clear uphill to downhill and it's quite windy and it transverses a certain distance and there are roads named Something something toge in japan if you go that going you can see also on a toge me kuni toge and A winding road is just simply a road that goes left and right and has hairpins and a lot of corners So the drift culture Uh, was was very present in a lot of these toge roads because they could turn uphill and come down in the downhill Now if you look in the internet now you can see like the old nanamagari which is also part of the uh roads in hakonen used to be where people would go In groups and they would occupy a certain number of corners. So you know go downhill To come back up again to do the drifting only on the uphill for example and because they did this uh it clashed with My type of guys we call the group guy sort of this group versus strip group is obviously just going from point A to point B as fast as possible Like in rally style. Yeah, so There was a very clear distinction between the enthusiasts who did grip and who did grip right I bet yeah Yeah, it was actually some kind of like big argument and so it uh in certain areas Oh, by the way back in those days in 80s and 90s Uh, there were really small little teams with silly names like um speed stars or whatever that appears in initially but even more silly names and they had the stickers and they're all that is really real um I have a friend who runs a workshop in Odawara and uh he's a bit older than me in his 50s And we were talking about all these and he said yeah, you know I missed all these when people while kids would come and they have their own cities teams and then they would you know just want to change his suspension and you know Air filter or or just or work they couldn't do themselves Um and do alignment because they couldn't do it at home. So I think if I can America, you know People would be doing it by themselves right because they have the space And so that created like as you said the culture where there's a lot of shops and a lot of opportunity for business And so this leads also into the whole classification of or rather uh organization of grouping into loyalty areas so you have the teams you have the The small garages behind it and these small gar- everyone starts small these small garages Then become more famous they become bigger they eventually get themselves into option magazine into hyper rev And that's where they make their name so then you have From you have area loyalty from Kanagawa from Saidama from even all the way to Orsaka Kansai And once they get rich enough, this is during the bubble period of the 80s where everyone had money And when the bubble period came down that the also industry still was maintaining but the uh technology behind Car makers and also the electronics industry everything help and the sort of what you call the golden age help to boost this kind of auto industry or the aftermarket industry so everything goes how they had Motor sports into the tuning industry that's connected the user base every guy young guy back then wanted to have a sports car I Growing up in Europe, I believe that it was something like you know your young guy you needed to have a sports car That was the guy the kind of like a cool thing to do you know you needed to get some At least you know a sports sedan or some hatchback a hot hatch. There was a lot of choice back then From European makers and Japanese makers And today every you know, that's like what I think what 25% of guys actually get a car licenses And of course, you know, we get mad they don't get manual And you ask them what kind of cars that they want does I'll just say some some crossover that the interest is You know really really died out and those are really into cars Split off into different genres like you have the guys who do the fifth Which is that is another completely different style they started to become even more and more serious With the way to lower the car They started to come up with different accessories To black tint the windows to put the chrome to put the big exhaust pipes the big antenna to the fact all It was in the stars, you know, and then things became even more and more detailed what they put in the car That fueled a business industry to create parts of like I think maybe you know the brand DAD with reverse Yeah, that cheese Yeah, yeah In Japan we call the kind of the genre of people who like such car yanki Very funny word What yanki which comes from the word yanki which obviously is like I'm not I don't know is The rugby term for American, you know, yeah like a northern American. Yeah So like we're yankis because we're from like the north part of America. So we're considered yankis. Yeah Right, right, right, but that's kind of related. I'm not wrong to like It was something historical and sports team or something like that. Yeah, there's the New York Yankees. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Why we have to work on yankis because the kids back then would use to dye their hair blonde. So it looks like America, you know But yanki kids were like kind of like lower education a bit delinquent style, you know The squatting smoking blonde hair, you know foul mouth, but really friendly So like DAD goes like Yeah Oh no Don't know today I was just talking with my girlfriend yesterday and she she owns a two s 210 crown Which is the two generations ago and it's black hybrid just normal And we were at auto box and we were looking for stuff and then we came to the section we auto box sells Dad accessories, right and and she was just going oh my gosh. This is so yanki. We're just laughing about Because even today there's the so-called VIP Yankee culture is dying to be honest Uh compared to the payday in the in the in the 90s if you look back at some old video on YouTube you can see um Daikoku Futo PA which I affectionately called tkf uh In those days that it was so bad when it started in 1989 because we gathered so much They were trying to get in until it created a line until the loop Can you believe it all the way up to the loop of the queen There was crowded in the middle lane people doing barbecue doing dance They brought their kids and just not there was a mix of vip mostly vip and other kind of things Everyone went that today what you see is really really controlled really Organize of course there's a lot of tourists foreign tourists ago there uh But Back then everyone started to collude into a very clear sort of culture So you had people who love tuning had drift and in out of all of those the guys who just tuned the car for pure performance Not a lot of flashy body kit on the outside Were the origins of original American JDM Looking back at super street um san mi tani at the age when he started to do all these uh A coverage of guys who would notice the style in Japan But really what it was was just JDM car parts so people who tried to use EK9 civic type of parts that e g6 car parts the the lens the whatever from spoon sports the pure How do you say? Normal tuning look of purpose built of only you know for running on circuit into American cars You know to imitate that so that was the base of real JDM and then that word started to change Uh, but the approach of how we did in Japan is like I said going back to what I said earlier about Going to the shop. We don't have space to tune our car so we trust our local tuna or then Everyone wants to go to these famous tuners now obviously when you go to a famous tuner they start to get a lot of um, you know become very full and get a lot of You know business until they can't keep up that's where sometimes shops start to break off sped off as a business opportunity so then it creates these loyalty groups Japanese are very loyal to a brand So it is very possible that you know the Odisan down the street Who is maybe now in his sixties and if you go and talk to him He has only owned either Toyota or Nissan cars for most of his life Reason is because when he was young he went to a car dealer introduced by a friend It's a local Toyota car dealer And the in Japan relationship is very important the trust between Uh the salesman who takes care of you he will come to your house and you year Give you gifts and we have a cultural exchange in gifts as you know or Miyagi but also Uh a business gift where you Keep the relationship between the customer whether it's insurance especially with cars With your phone contract with anything your house builder and this relationship of that trust is very very important This trust also goes to your car tuner so That's the good side of it. Maybe what you see is oh wow. There's this relationship of people actually Giving business to the local small Raman shop for example And while this is of course very very good In another way and this is where I Or what I see I see both cultures western style and Japanese style Sometimes to be completely honest. It's not good because they get Japanese. We're very Uh prone to obligation Uh, yeah, I could see that yeah Yeah, you become obligated to the salesman guy. So it's like they pressure you with very nice words to buy a new car every three years And you What will come out? So this oldie sundown the road is probably bought every single crown or corolla for the past 20 years Oh That's what each the auto industry going and so his old ground gets sold off to the auctions and gets recycled into the into the use market and gets exported That's why we have had such a very strong export Business which you see the auctions now back 20 years ago JDM cars were very cheap and remember back in uk Uh in the 90s the reason to buy JDM cars was not because it was attractive and desirable like today We're not talking about sports cars. We're talking about regular cars, you know Models that you couldn't get off course JDM the other reason to get them is because they were cheaper than official imports Wow, and there was no log and stat at that time there was no log in uh yeah my my sensei my mentor Susuki san He was the first to export us started to GTR to uk and also the Hong Kong wow That's pretty crazy. It's cool Yeah, yeah, and um he started He was one of the pioneers in the gray import export from her export business and in uk He was also there importing and I was over that time was of seeing all these JDM cars coming in in the sport Europe Reality is there are a lot of normal car models that maybe enthusiasts don't really care about And they get exported Simply because it's cheaper more economical to buy and they also have better specifications But people must remember that also a lot of the specifications don't suit america especially like radio frequency For example Disprecipification headlights and many various things right okay. Sorry going on off tangent But coming back to my topic about The attitude towards this so because people renew the cars all the time because they're sucked into this obligation business We're in a relationship with their salesman Then you get the same thing happening with the tuners with the with the workshop guys They trust completely whatever the tuner says now. It's a good thing if they're famous and they're reputable They actually have skill my reality is a lot of them don't really have based sort of skills right so it's a huge competition There's a lot of shops these shops in order to gain Um credibility start to push further further really talent that once Then start to make a name for themselves. They go to amateur racing. They go to track days and then they start going up into like grass roots Uh and in the 80s this was also so we look back at some history books which I think I should Uh make some documents about that We can probably see in my instagram. I sometimes talk about this uh Freshman days and then you go up into Type you into n1 a lot of small shops start to become more famous and when they become more famous they create Even larger loyalty group of course in reality a lot of people start to you know want to become more individual But back in those days it was really like I want to go to the shop and everyone else is like Consider rival they get sucked into this group mentality. This relates to something in japanese uh structural uh Community where when you're in junior high school A lot of people will join some club because we'll cut the It's like a what you call eca in the uk uh baseball Basketball at the softball on whatever right all these sports and You start with a photography club even and everyone is a very close pack community. It's it's a teamwork thing You know in japan Business decisions or group decisions are always made as a group on census not as an individual like in western culture so This very same mentality when they carry on the graduate from university and by the way in japanese university when you graduate You're almost definitely guaranteed a job in a in a company already the moment you graduate this work seminars to help from the year three and most of them are guaranteed a job and when they leave they go and join big companies. Let's say if you can join some political group uh and You know then you Join a different community a lot of them go from sports. So you know like all thani san It was very famous in american out of baseball player you know He's from the you know he joined some company because he was very good in baseball from since high school And uh but in like reality like he's different but a lot of baseball players who played And all in leads but they're still working if they're attached to this company, but they don't actually work there but they're Sponsored by Simidoma So you're doing whatever you know that's their company base even like um Yuzu han you you know The these kind of famous athletes So when you look at that and then you see that these community groups Exist because of the idea that When you choose a brand when you choose a A tuner when you choose a shop then you're loyal to it That is why when you see a lot of guys put stickers on their cars And a lot of them do the formula type of tuner you see a lot of replica a lot of them want to do Like mind style for examples boon style yeah top secret style And you start to see a lot of these replicas right and then you think well there's not so much originality uh, but we like to follow what is like a set formula That's why you have the idea of complete car from manufacturer My needs more STI Because people like to buy something that has been professionally designed and packaged they have that kind of unseen this in japan is that security feeling That it is certified to work so Many people do not sell their car on uh newspaper or classification of Facebook nobody sells car on Facebook in Japan Wow That's like where everybody sells their car here Yeah Yeah We don't do that However a lot of cars do appear on Yahoo auction uh, but the reality is that is a very small percentage to most people We just go to the car like use car dealer Uh, and if they import the car and it's not very old They go to a Toyota car use car that we just conveniently always located right next to the dealer on the side You have the new car and the use car The same salesman will introduce them to the use car side and say hey He want to sell the car now use And we go start the week which like uh or you go buy in and then They buy and shifted to the use car and then they buy a new car Those were the good old days now people keep the car so longer because economy is bad We have no money and you know Uh, people tend to keep the car longer So you have that Then you also have this this this secondary uh Kind of like a thinking where Uh, they buy the use car and then they want to restore it and they want the day to do So they start to look for what we call in japanese pro shop Pro shop is also the word used for not only tuner But any company that specializes in uh Maintaining or doing accessories for a certain type of company can be vip it can be 4x4 Now there's a huge trend on even mini van tuning. I could you not uh if you look books in books. No, yeah There is a whole magazines dedicated only to alfado For example Those are cool Um, the genre now is getting so wide that every young person now actually desires to have a mini van so um My my my partner, she's she's a single mom and she's got a daughter who is like uh just finished graded She just graduated from university And she's gonna work in the car industry actually um they both love cars by the way and and and i asked her like what's your What's your dream car and you know how answer was? I want a new alfado like what And you want a box It's like oh no, no, it's not a box. The inside is luxurious. I have a lot of space. You know, I can go with my friends Uh, it's comfortable. Yeah, I know but like freaking refrigerator box Yeah, that's because you like But that's because you like uh you like sports cars and the model play done To me it's a car is a nice sedan. You know, so that's why she bought a crown, right? So um Everyone's changing, but then they're really into that type of car Whatever the shape is and you have enthusiasts for like I don't know cx5 or Every kind of crossover and surprisingly there's a huge community which may surprise American people A lot of guys you love American muscle car. Oh, yeah, you've probably seen that yeah, we saw it For sure. Yeah, I mean, so a few muscle cars and a few low riders. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some yeah some On hydraulics and flipping their switches and that whole yeah And a lot of these and you probably know how into the whole culture they are right like they don't just buy the car They live the culture guys look like American culture They probably do hip hop they wear the cap sideways. They wear baggy pants. They try to walk like they've got a limb You know Yeah, they eat only American hamburgers. They only hang out with their own group and it's all about embracing the whole culture behind the Like what it represents. So this is something that goes back to the culture of Japanese groups in sports in school where There's an old thing in Japanese where that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down you don't want to be seen as a outcast type of Individuals all there are people that even people who are seen as kind of outcast In a way where it's different from the normal generic group Still have a group to follow they all follow sort of formula Whereas maybe in America or I don't know in in in in Europe or Other Asian country people want to do their own individualism But I think in reality there's no more difference. There is still a kind of group or How do you say like a genre that you follow so like you guys Looking at the cars you have your morph into like the real I would say core enthusiast type of performance and also visually related So I just I think it's the same but Japanese tend to be a bit more extreme about that and you can see that even in like Oda Kukum and TV anime community. What do you guys think? Yeah, I mean I would agree. I mean not just car Car related but when you know as an outsider when you kind of walk around and tour around Japan You kind of see that in multiple genres of life, you know people Maybe not not individual but definitely following a path You know and kind of staying within the boundaries so to speak Yeah But I mean is that something that America American countries? Yes, um would like to follow I'm just asking out of curiosity because I see a lot of guys who really admire the type of for example kind of style Well, whatever it is they like so like you know Noriaro my friend. Yes, I actually been covering Uh the drift community for quite a long while and he knows a lot of people in there So a lot of guys come to Japan and like they go to Ibisu for example Right, they're really really really into that particular type of drifting Uh, and then that culture has Uh Come spread to America. This is already not in 20 years and uh the D1 has gone there and then people were doing that kind of pure drifting We're not talking about like irresponsible cross-section and undercake or What do you call takeover stuff and no other than I saw a video that somebody was actually copying that the Japanese guys actually copying that style They used to do for drifting like in industrial SD it's going for one area to another But now they're doing it in the circle is like oh my gosh American culture is crazy Yeah, I mean I feel like Americans especially I mean what I pay attention to is a lot of the the drift scene of the drift culture The ones that You know the ones that are real and the ones that are like really into it Like the like the old style stuff and you know they they take the whole thing You know they're they style their car, you know the way they dress even like the brands they wear You know everything is styled for you know like the Japanese drifter style I guess you could say you know Everything from their wheel setup to their interior like every single thing You know If you were to do the same thing to an American car it might be kind of what they consider ricey But since it is on like a drivetide car or like a full you know like JDM build I guess you could call it it's cool and I think that like The what the real ones understand that but the the ones that might just see it, you know face value I don't know they they might not understand how deep it is I guess you could say right like your via your car your 32 Is styled completely after Japanese cars like 100% which I think the true enthusiast that's how it is right like like for me I respect the The long history of the modification of cars in Japan and so therefore I try to take that same route You know whereas maybe I know you hate this word but like the hype boys. They don't see the depth right they don't see the depth of like The Japanese tuning culture right they just see T37s right And in the guy with a lot of followers has them so they're obviously cool, you know Yeah, but you want very funny that they raise the manufacturer themselves Understand how popular the T37 still is and they keep remaking them and putting in advertisements, right? Yeah, it's best seller. Yeah, and I'm best seller. It's like it's like pokey chocolates, you know Yeah, T37s built that building they have huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is which is of course it's good like like RS Watanabe wheels or I mean even if you look at BTS wheels, right? It's kind of cool So I wanted to ask you guys where does the term RISER come from originate in America? Oof, that's It's a I think it maybe would be I think it's really kind of a tiny bit racist If you think about it, I mean a little bit and just come from like the the late 90s when the the Honda tuning Was on the upper eyes and you know the fast and the furious movie started coming out It's kind of what the muscle guys or the muscle car guys the guys with the Mustangs the Camaros the Trans-Am It's what they would call the import guys they would call them the RISers because they were rice burners. Yeah, they're from Japan So yeah, I mean Exactly so I mean, you know, maybe it's borderline, but yeah, I mean it's basically somebody that like Goes above and beyond with flashy kind of stuff a lot of times, you know somebody that Oh, parts maybe not you know going the whole right go in the full length that you could have with your build like a bolt-on hood scoop instead of an actual hood with a hood scoop You know just right some of these like kind of I don't know what to call me. Yeah, that that's a RISER can If if you ever see one you'll know oh Yeah, yeah, it's very funny now with social media and a lot more interaction between people of different countries We've a lot of Japanese kids who are much more able to understand and foreign culture Uh much much better than than you know, maybe 20 15 years ago even Uh, then they also learned of a lot of different words and so Uh, young guy the other day was actually seen to me. Oh And a RISER mobile and I'm like How did you learn that word from you know, I like like do you know what it means, you know It was like Yeah, uh, Asian Asian style book car with a bat tuning, right and I'm like Do see that in Japan actually very rare the other day I saw exactly what you describe and we call it like just um Cheap what do you call that sticker only sticker tuning like you know If you put One HKS sticker adds to worth power kind of thing that stuff exists in Japan once in a while fake bonnet vents and you know just every Sticker that he got from every motorsports event, you know that he went to yeah, he represents pretty pretty heavy for sure um, so Can can you explain to us what is otaku-ness and uh what is the otaku-ness of the Japanese enthusiast Just nice that you come to ask that because exactly the kind of guy that we were talking about early with the sticker tune and all this He is probably a type of otaku Uh otaku Don't mistake uh in Tokyo. There is an area called otaku Which is otaku is the word word or like a section of the city Otaku is one word so in Japanese we have you must be very careful some vowel sounds are long But in English when it gets red there is no there is no Recognization for short sound or the long sound Okay, Japanese there is short and long so very quick example Sorry going a bit of Japanese lesson, but I think it's very important for people When you say Tokyo Both the old and long sounds So Kyoto is different Kyoto Uh it's not otaku is otaku Long oh so I see so yeah so this section and uh where all more effective used to be is otaku Not to be confused with the word otaku which is I see translate Thought so it translates into nerd what you call Uh so the nerdy miss yeah yeah yeah yeah Weep is quite bad now I guess uh let's just go with nerd so nerd is The 90s definition of a nerd was like a computer computer signs kind of guy right like Okay geek is another yeah yeah yeah yeah Geek right because growing with the 90s of course we know Oh, you're such a nerd you're such a geek means you're so into a particular subject and Uh you're so deep into that you research every single detail about that particular thing it can be anything cars anime to Uh Trains and we have a lot of um we have a lot of guys who love trains here We call tensido kuhn Real-world real-world nerd You can even have nerd on very very obscure subjects like Uh the history of Uh city Signs or lampposts are not kidding you Uh the Japanese tend to have this kind of tendency where they'd like something they could deep into it So just to give you a description It starts with like tendency to if you want to take up a new hobby and this also relates to car But let's talk about normal sports. So I had Some friends back then I used to say some normal salary man Never had a hobby in his life. I never had strong interest like us in cars or or or anime or Whatever by the way Only I would say less than 50% of Japanese are really into anime That you would know uh people as even close to an enthusiast So on the scale of being interested in stuff you have interested You have being into i'm just using english word Then you have Enthusiast which means it becomes a regular hobby right and then when you go to that extreme you start to become a nerd or or Or Geek about it because you research everything that is where the realm of otaku comes in Wow You can be a camera otaku you can be a car otaku you can get anime otaku you can be The street signboard otaku you can be a food otaku you can be a travel otaku anything is fine Hmm. I love how the Japanese have their own word for that because Going over there and visiting you can definitely tell that that is an actual thing that you know whenever You know they're into something they are Head over heels Deep into it as far as they can go their otaku is here Their otaku is for sure And this first friend this old friend this friend of mine where he decided wanted to take up tennis Right I want to join a tennis club. I'm like okay Have you ever held a racket in your life? Never okay Then there's up on the final tennis club And he signs up for a time to pretend his lessons and the next weekend he goes out and buys all the gear like a mid-expensive racket the shoes the headband and the Where the god of the Turn up to their first lesson looking like Roger Federal, you know Yeah, like professional, you know, he's got like the expensive racket everything and then he takes lessons for about three months And I decide oh he's he's crap at it and he quit But he's bought all this gear already right like like like 100,000 into a thousand worth of it And he doesn't need it anymore. He sells it on yaku auction I think Americans do that that portion of it. Yeah a lot like they Think they want to go super hard on something. Yeah, and then realize it's either not as easy or not as fun or whatever Yeah, and then they're immediately putting it on eBay and trying to resell, you know These tennis rackets or whatever it may be and I feel like that's an American tendency for sure. Yeah I don't think Americans a lot of Americans don't reach that of talk who stage right they fade out right before now Right, right, right, so that's it's quite a that's kind of so I think this part of Japanese soldiers if people want to go into it They go into it, but then the one that survived then maybe this guy becomes a like he starts a research all the history of of the techniques of tennis or whatever right so You could kind of say I'm like that. I was a very early version of this so called what I call so deep into cars I did I've done everything in the industry from Yeah, I think the only thing I've not done in kind industry was going into like actual like Like a used car sales hardcore, you know, maybe that. That's probably a good thing It's probably a good thing. Yeah, I want to do car preparation rather than learn and just selling, you know crappy cars Because we are countries is ourselves and so we have some pride in it. So this is the word the pride the integrity of being The positive what that so the negative Otaku which existed in the 2000s whether What British guys called the numties, you know, they're a little bit paji bad haircut, you know Glasses wearing glasses and just like looking like a computer nerve in the backpack And these guys would line up in akihabara to support their favorite idol like a kb or something You know and buying tons of CDs and you know maybe doing a very questionable Things, you know that that normal people would shun on like you're not they don't have good relationships with with the women For example, they just not they're really into that kind of like really negative world of just being too much into the idol the computer or the video games or something that created a very bad image and they were also shut-ins Um, they didn't have a job they dependent on their family for For you know living expenses and couldn't talk to anybody. They don't have friends That was the negative the worst type of otaku in Japan today doesn't really exist I think these guys have grown up They've disappeared from like the social media or whatever Today's anime and idol lovers of the cold so-called otaku young guys. They're actually very normal. All of them are actually with girls The good looking guys they're fashionable. They have normal friends Nowadays it's quite kind of cool to do this otaku because everyone has like A smartphone a lot of people play games It's kind of normal to be into like jpop or or something like that and This word has now become like you are very into this kind of culture you're very into this kind of genre So When we come to caught otaku now there is a new trend The generation ZZ Uh are now Going into or probably you've noticed especially in In America like young guys who you know watch our stuff They're very into the 90s cars because of the legends because of all these stories because of like that small trick or whatever influences The very same reason why you guys still collect 90s cars are why I still like these cars maybe Of course for us a lot of us it's it's a real time But the young guys who never lived in the 90s wanted to buy and own these 90s cars because of various influences They are now the group of called neo classic Enjoyers what I would call it. There are many young Japanese people into 20s for some Demented reason start to want to buy a 90s car that is very difficult to maintain and expensive and hard to keep in it You know i'm not a saved not a lot of the economical as more than cars because the style is great and everything So they try to explore this and as we were talking about earlier they go into the whole lifestyle as well They want to explore the music they want to dress the parts where the 90s clothes and so it becomes a retro club anything retro now starts to sell And companies are taking advantage of this whole retro thing. So I would say these kids are also type of otaku They're a kind of neo classic otaku and they're so Uh, it though Uh really Wanting to keep the period correct the wheels Uh, I couldn't it Like I know this young guy and he had a Uh one of a Cedric or some some just not even a sports car right and he was he said he'd been looking every day on yaku auction to try to buy the cassette deck player That is correct exactly Patelon for his 1989 Cedric you know like dude What's the work right? He says yeah, I don't care as well I can use my phone if I want to listen to music or I just wanted to have a repair a correct one They remove all the detuning parts that were done. There was ex you want an ex VIP a bid car Throughout the that's just the lowest of spanish throughout the chrome wheels he put in the socks stock wheels Uh, I was very careful to restore it to how it looked like in the catalog. I'm like wow you Got even more crazy than me, you know, that is otaku. Like I can see that version of it Yeah, yeah, yeah Um and every time you buy go to the dyke of dyke of stock a lot of I know a lot of people want to look up for all the cool you know LBK walk cars and all this flashy, you know Two-step popping band man man man kind of cars, but then in the background you see some of these young guys We have a fully restored or a period correct some junk box From the outlook of it right but when you deeper his dedication into Restoring and keeping that period correctness is beyond even what we would do to be honest because I wouldn't I mean I I'm I have a 90s car And I had my EK9 two years ago Heck I Actually, I did it through I sold the original Uh cassette CD player to another young guy who wanted it simply because of spirit. I'm like go. Oh, you do I ask that Here for a thousand yet. I'm gonna put my bluetooth player in that Yes exactly right because their fascination is Restoring it back to that like original Like when it was in the 90s type things where you know guys like us like of course we want to keep it period correct to an extent But then we want some of those updated Electronics and whatnot that actually Benefit the driver right we've already had the tape decks. We don't want those to be more back Oh, no, do you want to do you want to play over the CD 10 CD change in your trunk? Hell no Yeah, so I can see that for sure Um, yeah, so Ken all right um Before we run out of time here. I definitely wanted your outlook Because when we are at uh, you know the heritage collection You were really telling us the history of Nissan and you clearly know Mitsubishi and I'm sure Honda as well But those three names are about to come synonymous with each other Hmm. What do you think about that? The whole world now in order to even normal people are talking about the possible merger between Nissan and Honda with Mitsubishi kind of in the background with hiding behind Nissan going Hey, don't forget about us We're kind of here, you know like like you you guys invited us into your club like a couple of years ago What are you gonna do about us and so these are all okay? Yeah, yeah, Mitsubishi kind of that's why recently the three the three chat jaw CEOs took the stage at first. It was only you noticed it was only Nissan and Honda presidents. Yeah, I can need to be sure So um everyone's talking about it simply because Nissan and Honda Of course Mitsubishi linked to Mitsubishi group by the way, just want to talk a very very quickly about Mitsubishi Um, maybe Americans only have the idea that Mitsubishi makes cars but in reality in Japan when you come here You see a lot of things to label with Mitsubishi logo because Mitsubishi is a huge company that does everything from land to banking to The state of electronics. They make heavy industry. They make ships planes military vehicles hairdryer not hairdryer. I'm sorry TVs computer screens everything so Mitsubishi motors as a quarter motive companies only a very small part of a whole group And that was the reason why when they fell into financial difficulties in due to years of scandal They were working with Nissan and Nissan the colors gone brought them into the Mitsubishi uh Sorry brought Mitsubishi into the alliance and so now they are heavily influenced and controlled by by Nissan So that's the setting why Mitsubishi is inside the group And the current platform Outlander PHEV and the extra are actually a shared platform between Nissan and Mitsubishi The K-Cars Sakura all of the K-Cars are actually Mitsubishi cars Not Nissan K-Cars those are rukes They're all made by Mitsubishi so uh The technology sharing and the platform sharing is already established between Mitsubishi and Nissan Okay, so you have that as a group and now we have Honda which is very famous and well known for being independent they never had any big tie-up uh with Any car maker and on one hand you have the Toyota group which wholly owns Kino motors and that had two motors 100% of They're on 36% share of uh the former PHEV industry which is now renamed Subaru And so they're a very close partner Mazda is also in the group because they've had a technological technological layer the client way back so that's group Toyota so now It's going to become is it going to become group Nissan Honda Mitsubishi just like how you have Uh the Daimler group the BMW group and the Fox Baden group in Europe and the GM you know group in America The auto industry today is no longer like in the old days where automakers can survive on their own Uh a lot of it is linked to uh just in a just the economic difference of the the current day where you know People are actually not able to make by cars as much as before cars are going to be becoming more expensive um But they're also becoming more quality so this is where Companies that have a very good chance of understanding the market trend now as you know Evies is finally losing its ground as a trend setter America has realized that Evie is not completely the way forwards They're now turning to what what is it? Hybrid yeah hybrid yeah Hybrid is now being realized again as the most viable solution for today's current uh Automotive economic environment Possibly into the future going ahead as well. There's a little background to this Let's let's be completely honest. Do you think all of the oil and Petrochemical companies will easily allow electrification to happen without them going out of business? No way And this is very controversial for me to say this but i've been observing something that auto-motivision for a very long time We all know that petroleum oil prices are artificially pushed up and tax quite a lot right? And it's controlled and There's actually more oil left than what is always being told to us the same way how oil is running out always running out As it's been said for the past 30 40 years. Oh, yeah, but it's been a steady Reclamation just like diamonds, you know diamonds are not the most precious and most you know a valuable stone on earth It's other other stuff right so same thing happens in industry so when you come back to this then Electrification also is not the way forward because not everyone can have a electric car because it takes a huge toll on the grid Which is the first form before the manufacturer think so let's go back to hybrid who has the world's best hybrids For your time. Hmm. Yeah, they do the Prius. Yeah So you guys only think of Prius but every every model in Japan and in Asia possibly in Japan has a hybrid option Inge from the crown Alphard to the vids the areas that know everything has a hybrid option. I did not know that and now me neither that's smart. That makes sense It's it's it's been like that for 20 years Holy moly Also, so really really really if you go to a Japanese car dealership in in Toyota there is only now eh Hybrid or the option of hybrid and a petrol gasoline engine Hmm All right, but now the next trend is towards pH EV so From January the new Alphard and Ville fire now has a plug in hybrid option Plug in you can have the best of both hybrid and electric cars right now The reason why electric cars are not so popular in Japan is because we lack that infrastructure You look at our houses. They're so small. It's not possible to put a charging station in apartments Even if you have a house it's so small you only have a space for one car park It's not possible to actually put a charge only people reach people in that so the amount of EVs that are able to be used in Japan is not popular in the first place They're not very into the whole idea of yeah, yeah, EV. We already use a lot of electricity And it's even though we use nuclear it's just not practical to have that kind of thing So people still want to use gasoline petrol That's why hybrids are very popular Which means Toyota has seen from over they were the ones who pointed this technology from 1997 with the first-prest Honda Pat use hybrids, but they were using in a different way only to recently where it's more of a series parallel system Okay, so let's fast forward So it has the world's best hybrid technology. That's the trend of the world now American market is not going back to hybrid That's why they're gaining a large sharehold in the sales market Honda has Been struggling with it with their sales worldwide and so while they have hybrid technology Nissan has almost no hybrid technology to be completely honest zero They have not developed their own hybrid technology Mitsubishi with the outlander PHEV actually is a hybrid system And this is the reason in my opinion why Nissan has always needed Mitsubishi technology For the future technologies not the other way around Mitsubishi has a research I was without doing Mitsubishi we already started researching into EV shares in the 90s already had that technology From Mitsubishi heavy industries the batteries they were already like every various motor shows to prepare for electrification in the future Of course Mitsubishi group is so big that they control All of the like major components that's necessary to turn into a infrastructure Okay, Mitsubishi is very bad management Nissan is also bad management This is the reason why they're all in the The shitties today. Yeah, okay, so everyone and I predicted that in 19 in 2023 automakers will consider their EV commitments right and today prices have raised even more So Honda has already been in talks with Nissan in the like early 2023 About these these things because you know when Carlos gone left He left a huge legacy of Nothing to do with his problems just talking about the company itself Nissan did not sell well Because they don't have a strong product and the product range besides GTR which was already as you know very all Fairly is very old is very niche market the normal Nissan very unappealing. They had a very poor Product appeal even in Japan. So in America they tried to push the prices down by doing a lot of fleet sales And so this pushed the general image of Nissan cars so low That reseals very bad and this contributed to a huge You know like a sales deficiency in in offer the company On top of that you had bad management Carlos gone at least was able to give a company their direction And when he left all the kicked him out. Let's per se according to his words Uh the Japanese managers were just completely incompetent and that's something that we all know They have admitted themselves Which is a son is admitted themselves And that's reason why they're really just like Homadown and sales so now what Nissan really does need they need money They need to be bailed out Right Yeah, I said this is where they've been talking to Honda and our Honda is doing much better they have Certain technologies they're talking about this merger Merger doesn't mean they will Combine their brands know each brand will keep their own individual Identities but like Toyota Nissan Mitsubaru and Mazda who twice has shared the hybrid technology So by the way Now there's a new cross track Subaru cross track which completely adopts the the THS system It's called its strong hybrid finally Subaru has a car that has completely the way that Toyota hybrid has been is doing like like also Mazda oh Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a huge I've been waiting for it for a very long time because it was quite difficult to integrate the motor Only before it changes into a serious parallel with the engine assisting To give it a very good feel economy and a good EV kind of feel The only car that can do that in Nissan's lineup right now is the new extra which is develop A bit with Mitsubishi's Outlander PhDV so only really they have the technology Honda has their EHV which is the next step and it's getting closer to what Toyota has So you can see from the Nissan Honda Group that Mitsubishi Group that they can they have a lot of opportunity to To compete with the Toyota Group in order to supply with Japanese hybrid Technology and going towards more EV right this is the reason why they've been talking to each other early on to Create the basis for the current Need for overlapping type of markets. Why? Because As you know in the industry by standardizing and a lot of development and products for human which is very important from third party They can reduce costs and they can create new vehicles that are able to be more competitive per unit per dollar You know just compete you cannot compete with Toyota let's just put it this way They have all the suppliers in a tight You know family based they're all based in in Toyota City all the suppliers are within Like a like a I don't know like a like a more even a hundred kilometer radius whereas other car companies have this All around the country the logistics cost to bring all these parts to the factories like in Q-Sho To to come a much to to put G-E side-time is much larger than what Toyota can do. This is why you cannot meet them Uh, and so they need to have a merger now the problem is Nissan needs to be bailed out So a lot of people say oh Honda you're coming here to build on then the president me be all said no It's very difficult. We're not here to bail them out. So the latest news now is that Uh, it's very funny now they've said that Nissan needs to fix their problems first before they can really do an effective merger The merger is supposed to be yeah, yeah, yeah They they will each make a founding like a like a homing company to protect their interests on the outside uh, and then they try to streamline into technological integration Uh, but then now it's like it may not actually happen that soon although they're said they're supposed to sign an agreement In June this year to come to the agreement to try to fast forward things because There's you know as you've heard there's news if Nissan doesn't recover in a year They're dead. They bankrupt actually they're now in a state where it's worse than 1999 when Renault and Colors Gordon stepped in they're worse. The market was huge. That's not that's not good Not good. That's not good. However Nissan is the oldest car company in Japan started from like Like pre 1920s and then without the group of companies as I was explaining The government has a very strong uh, uh, it I would say Emotional stake in Nissan of course through that Nissan is also to Officials and governments than who the is to ever seen as like a you know from iGburefecture farmer You know that made so machines into a big company whereas Nissan has a lot of actually governmental ties traditionally from the presidents and whatever even the sounds like Like in America sounds like GM You know, they're the government couldn't let GM go out Exactly the cut so some way or another they had to structure a Saving kind of thing right. Yeah, but they won't do Yeah, by the way Nissan has the word son in it the the there's Japanese word for heat Which is the same as nihan the same kanji so there is a Image of like you know, it's a national car company everyone We just don't want to see Nissan die right so what to do they need money? Are they gonna Let foreign Chinese company or Arab company or Indian company or whatever company coming and buy a stake in Nissan know with that Which Japanese would rather kill ourselves than yeah us too shoot They sure So the The only way is to have a Local investor company which was also in the talks Uh, but before that happens why not try to Combine car companies together actually this is not the first time that this has happened in the 60s and the late 60s It actually happened did you guys know that so That's one of the reasons why prince motor company got Yeah, merged with Nissan His prince was struggling Prince was struggling very very badly prince Uh had Very high technology that came from aerospace in the same group that Fuji heavy into this battery comes from any company that has an indirect language of Of aerospace making war planes and engines, you know Has an advantage in terms of technology in that time where Japanese car companies were trying to catch up to the west If you know all the European car makers so As a result what happened was in our the proposed war there were actually many Japanese car companies much more than what you see today There were too many small car companies. It was not a good thing the government was trying to consolidate and Trying to get companies to merge with each other the bigger companies to eat up the smaller company that was where um Prince came into Nissan So In today's automotive environment the same thing is happening on a larger scale where where largest established companies have come together and make a Congron company kind of group so we shouldn't be surprised that today this is happening with Nissan and Mitsubishi and uh and Honda uh They need each other and the only way to go to survive for is the cool for is to just share technology much to the chargray of Car enthusiast like you don't want to see a BMW super but i think you're right. We've got him about that now the super is such a good car that you forget is gonna be W engine right? It's not a bad car, so uh The what i think so just to finish off i think what's gonna happen is uh I have this small opinion that it really won't go well. The colors gone actually Did a little interview and he said yeah, it won't go well. See what happens when they kick me out and they leave me All right, I think he's just gonna be selling grapes, but he's got a point He's got a point Honda Cannot completely save Nissan Nissan has to think of some ways Uh to to you know like Save themselves because there was also rumors that a Taiwanese crew con high was trying to buy Nissan But ujida the president denied this and still they're saying officially that Honda and Nissan were working towards integration right and they were talking about Like synergy achieving a multiple effect And the objective is that they aim to become a world-class mobility company with a sales of over 33 lean yen in operating an operating property of over three 3 lean yen, which is very very ambitious, which means they would be The second largest group to Toyota group which by the way Toyota group has at you know The distance between Toyota as number one and the second is crazy. It's like seven times Worldwide. Yeah, it's seven times you cannot beat Toyota, but you can try to maintain your maintain your position by synergy. This is the reason why this needs to happen Right so officially they're saying that Uh, they want to achieve the synergy in seven different ways number one Genie economics of scale through standardization of vehicle platforms. This is something that's been done in the industry so far They've worked like even Toyota group GM group and uh, you know Volkswagen group No matter improving development capabilities and realizing cost synergies through integration of R&D functions Number three optimizing production systems and bases number four Strengthening competitiveness through a supply chain by integrating purchase functions Number five realizing costs synergies through improved operational efficiency Number six achieve the economics of scale through integration of sales finance function And lastly number seven establishing a human resources based for intelligent and electrified vehicles So this is where it's becoming a little bit fuzzy because Uh, each three of these three companies have their own strengths And they really need each other in order for the Japanese automobile industry to survive and to maintain their identity Uh, but what is more scary is that how many jobs will be lost and uh, when Nissan president said oh, we're gonna cut 9,000 jobs, you know, there was a huge huge huge News about this hub rule that a lot of families uh, you know, we're gonna lose jobs Uh throughout the country with just Blancs closing down and and everything already Nissan in my I so I live very near one of Nissan's biggest plants in Kiratsuka and a couple of years ago, the sole half the plant To create a shopping mall And that was like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was like the silver is made in Kiratsuka Uh, the 13th 30th year, you've seen right so I have I have a lot of friends who used to work in Nissan When I was an English teacher 10 years ago, I taught a lot of Nissan executives I'm very close to a lot of people in Nissan and everyone was just like Holy shit man. Holy shit. What's going on the company's gonna go? Go into a bad situation, but we did not expect that it will be this bad um, and The problem is that today While we all want to see a next GTR we want to see all this as contours. There's like sports cars It's and you know on us sent a gunner actually make the prelude, which is what do you guys think you think is people gonna buy it? I don't know not if it's basic because You know now it's just another car in the lineup that is an automatic, you know like that type of thing I mean if it has sort of sports to it. I mean Yeah, it has to pay homage to the old old prelude. I feel like for it to sell well Yeah, for our generation at least Exactly exactly and our generation at least the people love have money to buy these kind of quite expensive sports cars right? Yeah, it's very funny how A lot of like the younger generation they I feel so old when I say this I shouldn't say it like that No, but I'm like people will come into cars people will come new into cars. I wouldn't say they're age Uh, they always say oh should you be like in the back in the good old days, right? Like but then like yeah dude Like you complain about these cars and not coming up, but you're not the ones buying them Every new gr86 and Subaru VRZ or super upbought by middle-aged Japanese guys Every are like in the back of the 33 and 34 GTR they were bought by guys over 40 years old. Yeah Yeah, that's true. The only people with the income to support it Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then they decide to sell it 20 years later Which then you see one owner low mileage cars because they don't have time to drive it Then the 60s and late 60s now and you know that that's the thing right because they have the money to buy so Every sports car today is in at They have to aim at like the Democrats of all the generations. So the Predator is gonna be the same Toyota has been very smart by aiming the 86th and the g-r-a-d6 For young people also with a specification for older people that they have the luxury spec and they're the basic spec Genius, how is Honda gonna do that the civic type bar? Uh is expensive like yeah, I feel five right? It's no longer like the e-c-k and I was two million where it was a boy races car. We all bought them just like you know As basic motor sports car and new tuning go on all those days. So uh Like how can car makers become more more? I mean, say like create an identity where it's it's still pleases enthusiasm to make sales for normal normal road Users or motorists. It's very very difficult as an individual brand. Basically speaking Neither of these three companies have a strong sales brand of like cars Uh as much as Toyota group Mazda and Subaru even though they're lucky to be attached to third group because they can capitalize on their uniqueness of their type of vehicles Simply because Toyota is supporting them through various various means like it's their product being protected by Toyota group Whereas Honda is the strongest of the sort of these three at the moment in terms of sales So that's why they're becoming like a leader in it for them. We're gonna see something's changed It's I think it's gonna be exciting whatever whatever the decision is uh don't worry We are not going to let Nissan die one another. We don't gonna let it go into foreign hands as it does as it did with Renault Renault's now taking a stage back The relationship between Runo and Nissan has already since 19 sort of just not it really existed anymore And that's a very very good thing. So um I really hope like you guys as uh Japanese Kindistry uh into the eastern also one I wanted to see this this future continue That Nissan can really turn around. I really don't know how they're gonna do it Every day new news is coming out about this um and What do you guys think what what kind of company would you like to see when the in the interp integration of these three companies Yeah, that's tough right because you know when of course our minds I'm sure go into what they were right, you know And it's actually with the evo Nissan with the R cars, you know these different things but Yeah, I mean what I'd like to see is some sort of Revival of that passion, but what I know needs to happen is Affordable economical cars that apply to the masses and not necessarily sports cars that Apply to guys like us right for them to get back on their feet. I don't see sports cars being leading the charge for that right like you said It's a hybrid technology. It's many vans. It's these things that apply to the average Joe as opposed to Guys like us unfortunately. Yeah, I think I think that's pretty much the same thing. I was thinking as well I mean, I'd love to see Nissan come out with another r36 and you know the s16 all these things, you know We're rooting for him, but you know is it realistic? Yeah It's to sell yes, the last thing that's present The president of meat Honda said was that I'm just translating We will create products that will please our customers including the content of the technology We will create a new value in the products So regardless of the business integrated integration. I hope that both Honda and Nissan will prioritize Creating products that excites their users and this is very hopeful for us Because while we have the normal motorists who want to buy cars that are exciting Ah for the families level for the normal user but also for car enthusiasts I think to be completely honest, this is also my opinion of being in the kind of street for a very long time that The average employee in Honda and Nissan Of course even Subaru are more Uh Of sports cars and motor sports than Toyota Toyota is a big company and even the people who are running the GR Programming everything they're just doing it because they're bosses are similar the real Intusiest who really love sports cars in Toyota is Well as you know more result I hear Toyota himself if he is a car nut wasn't leading the he would not have GR super arm and GR You know jareus and corolla right I mean he started the whole program. Yeah um So that was what we thought of Toyota 25 years ago just car company that had Kind of interesting cars they've available but reliable you're just boring what reliable um But Nissan and Honda of course on the other side Mitsubishi and and and Subaru I was able to build cars that really excite Uh and have this motor sports passion right like I would say Out of all the car companies Nissan and Honda have in their category rich history of of like actual you know victories and motor sports experience than any other japanese car company so I believe that the engineers oh yeah and and and and and the Honda culture they have a uh They usually promote engineers to higher management or what most of the president likes engineers Actually Like Honda so himself so they're passionate to create something. It's like all of them want to make another NSX S2000 Trust me they are very very crazy about this but they can't We'll do exactly what they want that's why you see They they put in so much effort created the NSX is oh shit nobody bought them. How we have to cancel it And they're like no we still never sports that they created the S660 right and then now it's out of sale In Japan they couldn't keep up with the M8 emissions in the way Okay, let's create this consider civic type of so that's what civic type of smell is too continue They need to have and then like this one Nissan doesn't want to give up the R35 GTR All the fairly these at they cannot give it up there to hang on to it even subarad ever keep at least up your ex right Yeah, uh, it makes sense But if I thought you're the if I hear you or don't say let's just make a sports car let's make a live aim or I would I believe they will you only have a very mediocre uh sports grade of a chaser or or or something at the very most Oh wow Yeah, I mean so choices right that these guys made And into stay in like our culture, you know like like you said they they need to like they want to Yeah, yeah, so one really other they'll they'll finally to do it and even make the sporty versions of like the normal cars. That's why yeah, there's an easel version of of just so many even even a normal E power note in Japan. Yeah, I think please Just like there's STI sport of all the different models of Subaru Uh, but I think my Americans misunderstand what is STI they think it's only a grade of car for the doubter's STI but in reality Needs more STI they're all brands which means the technology From the motorsports division is fused into the parts and we make the complete car with the Driving dynamics that correctly reflects Uh the sporting nature of these brands or companies. So what it doesn't have a high power engine Because let's face it not many people are willing to buy these days a 200 horsepower turbocharged Nissan Note in Japan at least I don't know about America So that's why they put The styling and the chassis reinforcements of the suspension tuning dampers or you know they even go to very great detail like like like putting different bushings pillow ball mouth bushes in the suspension putting cross Floor crossbeams you know like all the Toyota g sports and the gr sports This chassis is actually fully reinforced Wow, it's the suspension sort of the car handles much well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, people don't see this right? Yeah, the brand of the Timon Not the power I mean America all new except power I mean I was probably got that 46 and for that man Nothing, you know, you're so right though. That's best though Man can this has been great, man. We we Definitely appreciate the conversation. I know we could we could go for days. So much Overdates Yeah, definitely we would love to have you back on in the future that I think that would be amazing Just the wealth and knowledge is super beneficial for everybody listening But so can we just let people know real quick like where can they find Ken on the internet At the moment you can only find me on Instagram being quite busy, but look at Captain Bradford CAPT B-R-A-D F-O-R-D That's my name on Instagram. You can find me there. I have some old posts on a lot of articles translated and original articles But in the near future. I hope to come back to YouTube awesome It's it's it's in the it's in the mill. I've been preparing some videos and I'm just Trying to balance other stuff to come doing and actually come back because I want one. What's in the front back? And I think I should It's been fun to meet you. So I will also see you guys maybe soon this year in America. Oh wow Ken comes to America. That sounds pretty cool I love to have you I need to go and see you guys here and actually check out the gd on culture there I just want to see you stuff you like the back there So all right, Ken man again, we appreciate this 100% Hopefully you have a great day over there in the Hakanay area And we'll talk to you again soon man Yeah, thank you very much. I think I'll go to the mom's Wow, I feel like I just got out of a college lecture dude Wow, yeah, did you see me taking notes over here? Trying to take notes dude. I was like this man Dude, Ken It's hard right because it's almost like the knowledge is overflowing. Yeah out of him and it's hard for him to Not necessarily keep on track, but to solely Explain this one thing because there's so much relative right behind that he wants you to understand Yeah, and it makes sense that's how somebody helps you learn is to fully You know explain it to you instead of just give you a little tidbit right 100% I appreciate that yeah, and yeah after we ended the episode we end up on the conversation with him for another 20 to 30 minutes Because it's hard to stop right because us as you know, enthusiast says you would say are so interested in this knowledge In him as almost a teacher is so interested in teaching us that it just keeps going dude. I couldn't get enough I know I know I'm like man. Maybe we stopped recording too soon, but yeah, I mean we could have went for yeah This is by far our longest episode. It's it's definitely like you know three times the length that we normally go but You know, there's nobody better to do it with right than that guy I hope that we do get to have a mon again, you know, maybe six or eight months and and you know after Nissan some more developments have come out and Kind of pick his brain history wise Yeah, I love that but yeah, that was Ken man again. It's at CAPT Bradford Yeah, check it out because you man just scrolling on his Instagram is like a history lesson. Yeah. Oh, yeah It's I remember when I first found him on Instagram. I was just like whoa Yeah, who is this guy and just like next post Read read read read read read read read like whoa, I'm blown next put like I couldn't get enough of it and talking to him same thing Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, like I said at the Heritage Collection We didn't need the Nissan the Nissan Tor guide was below can yeah, yeah All right guys, we definitely appreciate you listening if you listen to this point we owe you because you We're dedicated one hour and 40 minutes is no joke. Oh, yeah, appreciate that Absolutely, and if you want to find us of course you can find us at our HD G UIS on all the social platforms But for today episode 115 I'm Bobby. This is Aaron. See ya peace[Music]