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'Mini Mania In Japan' as reported in the DailyTelegraph today:

The spiritual home of cheap, small cars has a yen for the peculiarly British Mini.
Japan may have a world-beating auto industry of its own, but there are plenty of Japanese who feel a far closer affinity to the classic British Mini than anything that has ever rolled off the production lines of Toyota, Nissan or Honda.
The Mini, they say, is actually the quintessentially Japanese car.
"Us Japanese have a special sort of love for Minis, probably because we have so much in common," said Jiro Shimazu, owner of Mini specialist Turtle Trading.
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/cla ... Japan.html#

mab01uk wrote:'Mini Mania In Japan' as reported in the DailyTelegraph today:

The spiritual home of cheap, small cars has a yen for the peculiarly British Mini.
Japan may have a world-beating auto industry of its own, but there are plenty of Japanese who feel a far closer affinity to the classic British Mini than anything that has ever rolled off the production lines of Toyota, Nissan or Honda.
The Mini, they say, is actually the quintessentially Japanese car.
"Us Japanese have a special sort of love for Minis, probably because we have so much in common," said Jiro Shimazu, owner of Mini specialist Turtle Trading.
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/cla ... Japan.html#

...very interesting, i see his comments about the BMW and its DNA...of course he is right but there also appears to be a large following of BMW race spec cars in nippon also...as far as our mini is concerned there are prob as many mk 1.2 and 3 coopers and s types over there as still on the roads in the uk... !!!....

The article is vey close to home (Turtle Trading Yokohama Negishi showroom). I can walk to this shop in a couple of minutes. They have a lot of parts BUT very expensive!