For those of you who drove a Japanese import in the 60’s/70’s/early 80’s, did you get any heat from family/friends/coworkers/general public about your choice of car? How bad was it? What were some of the consequences and what was the most extreme example you’ve seen or heard of?
This question applies to americans as well as some western europeans, whose auto industries were also in decline with the exception of germany.
This discussion might also be a good predictor of what will await the first owners of chinese cars when they do arrive in north america.
A guy I know had a 1970’s Datsun Z Car in the Metro Detroit area brand new. He worked at a restaurant and parked it in the back. When he came outside at the end of his shift it was destroyed, fire bombed by a Molotov.
ouch, that’s rough, but must’ve been a fun car while it lasted.
i drive a miata today, chances are i would’ve bought a z car new if i was around in the 70’s.
My dad bought 3 of them. I don’t think somebody blew his car up because it was japanese but anything possible
Maybe they did, only like 30ish years post WWII, probably lots of bad blood still, particularly considering Japanese atrocities
Most of the bad blood was from autoworkers who were upset the people bought reliable japanese cars instead of the utter shit detroit was making at the time.
Lived in Detroit when the Japanese began getting a foothold in the American market. They were largely very unwelcome.
Was not uncommon to see some charity with a Japanese car in the corner of a big parking lot. They’d sell sledgehammer hits for $1 each.
So this car just sat out in the parking lot on fire and he still finished his shift?
My family and I are from Metro Detroit.
I encourage anyone to read about the killing of Vincent Chin. . He was a Chinese man who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by a Chrysler plant supervisor and his laid-off stepson after they assumed he was Japanese. The killers didn’t get any prison time and the local judge noted that they “weren’t the kind of men you send to jail”.
Anecdotally, dad drove a Chevy as an IT contractor in the late 80s, and had to work on something at a large Ford plant. He parked in the secured parking lot and came back out to an egged car. If that was done to a Chevy, cant imagine what would’ve happened to s Japanese car!
I started driving around 2010/2011, and even as a kid in the early 2000s I remember people making jokes about “rice burners”, having “BUY AMERICAN” bumper stickers, and recall family members giving shit to people who drove Japanese. That behavior has declined a lot since 2008, but even now my dad cautions me against driving either of our Japanese cars to communities with heavy auto worker presence.I don’t think anything would happen, but just interesting he still has that sentiment. The first time I left the MI/OH/IN region it was on a trip to Atlanta, and I was blown away by how many people drove Japanese vehicles.
Not sure how things work in Detroit but where I’m from, we lock people up after they beat someone else to death with a baseball bat in what is ultimately a racially motivated attack. Those two former Chrysler employees were losers of the highest caliber.