Tokyo Auto Salon 2025: customized vehicles and one-off creations from the Japanese dwelling market

The Tokyo Auto Salon is to not be confused with the Tokyo Motor Present, a long-running biennial occasion that has run since 1954 and was rebranded because the Japan Mobility Present following cancellation of the 2021 occasion as a result of pandemic. You possibly can test our previous reporting on the TMS / JMS right here: 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023.

As a substitute, Tokyo Auto Salon was arrange in 1983 with a give attention to customized vehicles (the present was initially known as the ‘Tokyo Thrilling Automobile Present’). It’s a pleasant cavalcade of the bizarre, from ultra-compact campers to restomods, pupil tasks, and eccentric customized jobs such because the bodykit that turns a humble Toyota Crown Sport into an inexpensive facsimile of a Ferrari Purosangue (count on authorized letters to be winging their method from Italy to Japan briefly discover).

There’s additionally a dose of cultural idiosyncrasy that doesn’t translate nicely – the annual inclusion of a squad of younger feminine ambassadors, showcased on the official web site alongside their peak, star signal and blood sort, feels notably egregious to fashionable sensibilities. American equivalents corresponding to SEMA nonetheless have comparable practices, one of many the reason why mainstream auto reveals are more and more disavowed by youthful generations.