For the past few weeks, it seems like almost all our collective travel dreams have been put on hold due to the coronavirus situation. But it doesn’t mean that we should stop dreaming about visiting faraway places when the virus scare eventually has subsided. For example, I’ve never been to Japan in my life, and day by day more and more fascinating travel spots in Japan seem to come up, places worth visiting if you’re in any way interested in cars. Take the Suzuki Jimny Museum, for example.
Japanese Nostalgic Car put up a newspost about the Jimny Museum the other day. It’s not an official venue ran by Suzuki, but rather a passion project of another passion project. Japan has a bunch of aftermarket parts specialists for the Jimny, and Shigeru Onoue’s Apio is one of the most noteworthy ones. Onoue’s been enthralled with Jimnys for nearly 40 years, and for decades he kept developing and selling custom parts for Jimnyists to make their tiny off-roaders even better. As his career flourished, Onoue also kept dreaming of setting up a Jimny museum, and he was able to open the place in August 2018. The museum features some of the earliest versions of the mini truck, including Hopestar-branded ones that used Mitsubishi mechanicals. They are followed by LJ and SJ -series vehicles, and newer rally specification ones, all owned and driven by the proprietor. In short, if you’re a fan of Jimnys new and old, this must be the place for you.
Tickets to the museum cost about ten bucks, and it’s situated about a hour and a half southwest of Tokyo, in Yoda, Fujisawa. If I was planning an automotive tour of Japan, this place would certainly be marked on the map.
As well as the Japanese Nostalgic Car article, more photos of the museum and its contents can be found on the Tripadvisor page of the place.
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