THE CARS OF UNCANNY VALLEY

FOR A HALF CENTURY, JAPAN’S MITSUOKA HAS CRAFTED SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST CURIOUSLY FAMILIAR COACHBUILT AUTOMOBILES.

BY BRENDAN McALEER

IMMEDI-ATELY YOU CAN SENSE SOMETHING IS OFF. The vehicle in front of you has the face of an Eighties K5 Chevy Blazer, but the bow-tie badge is missing and the proportions are all wrong. That Blazer was never this small, and neither was it a four-door hatchback. The vibe is friendly and familiar, yet at the same time this is something dredged out of the uncanny valley. From Toyama city, 250 miles northwest of Tokyo, comes the Mitsuoka Buddy, the latest from the most unlikely defender of Japan’s coachbuilding heritage. Hand-built automobiles are usually expensive, European, and exclusive. The Buddy is mostly the last of these. Essentially the spirit of a big-body, old-school SUV grafted onto a Toyota RAV4, the Buddy starts at $45,000 for the entry-level model and is sold out…

You're reading a preview of

Road & Track (Digital) - 1 Issue, August/September 2022

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.