Gardiner in front of his sold-out Caterham 7 (Photo: Bertel Schmitt)
In between blinged-up custom vans and hardly dressed campaign girls at this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon, I ran into the man that busted Japan’s kei car keiretsu. He will have to be thanked when Japanese soon get 20 horses more in their mini-vehicles. Also, Donald Trump should talk to the man before he says again that Japan is a closed car market.
The man is Justin Gardiner, chief of Caterham Cars Japan, exclusive importer of the legendary Caterham race cars from the UK. I found him in that special kind of relaxed mood reserved to the exclusive few on this planet who made their annual quota two weeks into January.
Gardiner is allocated one fifth of Caterham’s global production to be sold in Japan. Caterham makes two cars per day, 500 a year. Japan has grown into Caterham’s second-largest export market, after “the [expletive deleted] French beat me last year by 20 cars,” Gardiner said. Before the Tokyo Auto Salon started on Friday the 13th, the 100 Caterhams allocated for 2017 already had found buyers. “I could go on a long vacation in Thailand,” said Gardiner.
60 of the quickly sold-out Caterhams were the 60th anniversary model of the Caterham 7, the car Gardiner was draped over when I met him at the show. He called it the "retroer than retro" car
“With flared front wings, polished exhaust silencer and uniquely retro-styled, individual rear lights, the car harks back to the early days of the Seven,” says Caterham’s marketing propaganda, and it doesn’t exaggerate. Inside of the al fresco salute to the times of Twiggy is scarlet-red upholstery, and a dashboard adorned with a row of period rocker switches, along with a plaque identifying the gentleman who built the car at Caterham’s Dartford, Kent, factory. There are two of these gentlemen, and if one catches the cold, half of Caterham’s global output is imperiled. Trunk space? Not much. This is a car to mess up your new girlfriend's hair on a weekend-tour to a romantic onsen --- who needs clothes? GF must stay home if you go golfing.
Affixed to the racing-green Caterham at the Tokyo Auto Salon was a yellow license plate, signalling to the Japanophile that this is licensed as a mini-vehicle, or a “kei” car, one of these underpowered Japanese oddities born in the dark years after Word War II, when raw materials and gasoline were scarce. Kei cars (from “kei jidosha,” Japanese for “light vehicle”) are restricted in size and power, they are tax advantaged, and they used to appeal mostly to the financially disadvantaged demographics in Japan. Recently, they became cool. Kei cars are surprisingly popular in the island nation, where they command a market share of around 40%.
Kei cars often are cited as proof for Japan creating a protected car market, but Gardiner, a Brit and former motor journalist who went native in Japan, calls it utter balderdash: “They say kei cars are an artificial barrier – simply because they don’t have a kei car.” Meet the Japanese requirements of length, width, and 0.66 liter engine, and anyone can bring in a kei car, with the Caterham as proof. The procedure is far from onerous, as Gardiner had explained to me when I met him a year ago at the Fuji racetrack.
“We have EC SSTA approval, European Small Series Type Approval. We pass EU6 emissions. We show that. One in 10 cars has to take an emissions test to check that we aren’t Volkswagen, one in 20 cars takes a noise test, we do the regular Shaken safety test like everybody else in Japan, and that’s it, you are on the road.”
Regular cars have it even easier. Japan has something called the “preferred handling procedure” that allows up to 5,000 cars per year and type into the country with the barest of paperwork. If someone tells you that Japan has a closed market, and with Trump at the helm, more than a few will try that rickety canard again, you can tell them they are liars. They can call Justin Gardiner to verify. I’m sure they will get an earful.
Of course it helps in Japan that the Caterham, being British, has its wooden steering wheel at the right side. But then, the cockpit is so small that it won't make much of a difference.
Japan’s alleged non-tariff barriers even gave Gardiner an unfair advantage over the Japanese competition. In Japan, kei cars are limited to 64 horsepower, “but that’s something the manufacturers decided among themselves to avoid a horsepower war in the kei car class,” Gardiner told me. Caterham’s Suzuki-supplied engine “naturally wants to supply 80hp,” said Gardiner, hence, 80 is the car’s rated horsepower in Europe, more than enough due to the Caterham’s legendary lightness. When Gardiner brought the Caterham to Japan as a kei car, he de-tuned the engine to 64hp, like everybody does. That did not fly with the Japanese regulator, as Gardiner recalled:
“I was told by the registration authority that I couldn’t bring it in with 64 hp. The car has 80 hp in Europe, and the Japanese car must be exactly the same, otherwise it breaks the homologation rules. Sorry, Suzuki, Daihatsu and Honda, I’ve got more power than you, the government told me to do that.”
With the voluntary limitation busted by the racing-green gaijin, Japanese makers now could have an excuse to do likewise. “I wouldn’t be surprised if at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show, someone shows up with a 80 hp kei car,” Gardiner said.
Those who want a Caterham car in the U.S. will find out who's living in the really closed market. Finished Caterham cars cannot be brought into the country. To skirt the rules, U.S. customers must order a kit from Caterham, and assemble the car with an engine bought locally. Even then, they need a lot of patience. Caterham is sold out globally for the rest of 2017, Gardiner told me.
“I wasted time and money going to the show with nothing to sell,” Gardiner grumbled. Empty hands did not deter interest. Two hours after the show opened, all his business cards were gone, and emergency photocopies needed to be made from his last remaining Caterham catalog.
