The Japanese have a weird affinity for Americana. When American GIs left the nation following World War II, for instance, the Japanese embraced and maintained American blue-jean and white-t-shirt culture as their own. Nowadays, if you desire the very best variations of these American classics, you’re paying in Yen.
When c and w made its method east, it was a comparable story. The music category generated old-fashioned honky tonk bars that still dot corners of downtown Tokyo, long after your regional honky tonk failed.
That sort of cultural exchange has actually stayed a trademark of our relationship with Japan given that the post-war age; While Japan embraced and protected a number of our sartorial worths, American companies in specific have actually embraced a number of Japan’s cultural standards. It stays so today. Well before blue denims and Just In Time production crossed courses someplace in the Pacific, the Japanese looked to America to develop a landmark car: The Land Cruiser.
Before the War
Toyota Jeep BJ 1951-1952
Well before American soldiers set foot on the island country in wartime, Japan had a small runabout called the Kurogane Type 95– nicknamed “Yonki” for “four-wheel drive.” It was integrated in the 1930s, 10 years before the very first Willys, and powered by a two-stroke engine making 33 horse power. The Yonki was among the very first real four-wheel-drive cars in the world, including a gearshift-activated transfer case to engage the front wheels.
Tokyu Kurogane Industries produced the Yonki under the order of the Imperial Japanese Army. It was developed from the ground up for military usage and shuttled soldiers throughout Japan’s war with China in 1937 and later on in World War II. Approximately 4,700 Yonki were constructed in between 1936 and 1944, with little info about the automobile offered today.
Toyota Jeep BJ 1953-1954
It wasn’t up until the Postwar 1950s that the very first Land Cruiser as we understand it was born.
When American forces pulled away from the Philippines throughout the 2nd World War, the Japanese discovered a deserted Willys Jeep. That automobile would be the “motivation” for Toyota’s very first mainstream off-roader, the AK10, total with a two-speed transfer case, a three-speed handbook, and a four-cylinder engine.
As the AK10 developed to end up being more Jeep-like, Toyota at first opted for the name “Jeep BJ” as a catchall to explain the off-roader in concern. Toyota’s Jeep was larger and brawnier than the American SUV of the exact same name, with a 3.4-liter six-cylinder engine and a part-time four-wheel-drive system. It had no transfer case. Toyota would utilize the Jeep name for 3 years in between 1951 and 1954 before the Willys Company declared hallmark offenses over the term, requiring Toyota to come up with something fresh: Land Cruiser.
Seventy years later on, the Land Cruiser name is still going strong. Given, it’s not anywhere near the very same Willys-inspired off-roader that it remained in the 1950s, however Toyota’s modern-day halo truck has a number of the exact same qualities that made the initial so damn captivating: rugged ability,