On Walkabout At: The Tokyo Motor Show

Basic Information

• Name: Tokyo Motor Show
• Where: Chiba, Japan
• More Info: Official TMS website

Narrative

One of the reasons I traveled to Japan was to attend the Tokyo Motor Show.  I am not even a big car aficionado, but since the Motor Show lined up with the time I had available to travel to Japan, I added it to my itinerary of things to do while in the country.  The Tokyo Motor Show was held in the city of Chiba which is just East of Tokyo:

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Chiba is a large city with a population just under 1 million people:

It is also home to the popular baseball team in Japan, the Chiba Lotte Marines:

While I was walking to the convention center where the Tokyo Motor Show was being held I happened to notice this Japanese monkey that was putting on a show for people walking to the event:

The owner of the monkey looked like he was making some decent money from tips from the monkey dancing around.  The convention center where the Tokyo Motor Show was being held is called the Makuhari Messe in Japanese which is one of the top venues in the Tokyo area for big events like this.  The convention center looked huge from the outside, but it even looked bigger once I got inside:

Despite being such a huge building the Tokyo Motor Show was still extremely crowded from all the people who had come to see the show.    I think it is safe to say though that the vast majority of the people attending the show came to see the various models showing the new vehicles and motorcycles than for the vehicles themselves.  For example here is a girl showing off a Kawasaki Ninja:

Here is another Kawasaki model:

It was kind of funny to watch the models show off the bikes because they were absolutely surrounded by middle aged men with cameras that looked like paparazzi following around a famous Hollywood actress instead of a no name model that was probably a local college student.  All the bikes being shown were from Japanese manufactures except for Harley-Davidson that had a number of nice bikes on display at the show:

For the cars on display just about every major manufacturer in the world had a booth setup such as Porsche:

Of course the car manufacturers had plenty of models to show off their cars as well such as this girl working for Ford:

Here is the woman showing off a Porsche:

Out of all the car models I thought this model for KIA was the most beautiful:

Besides all the normal cars on display the convention also had plenty of concept cars to see as well such as this tiny car that had no windshield or roof:

There was also a few classic vehicles and bikes on display as well:

This area of the convention center had no models to show off the old vehicles thus I was actually able to escape the crowds here for a little while.  This just made me wonder how many less people would attend these motor shows if the booths did not use models?

Tire manufacturers also had elaborate displays setup with their own models.  Here are the Goodyear models:

Here is the girl that was showing off Dunlop Tires:

Here is the Bridgestone girls:

Besides cars, motorcycles, and tires every type of car accessory you can think of was on display to include baby car seats and tools:

These accessory manufacturers though did not use scantily dressed models to push their products.  Could you imagine how goofy i it would look to have a model showing off a baby car seat?

Conclusion

The Tokyo Motor Show is about much more then just cars and bikes as every industry that is in any way related to the auto industry had a booth setup at the convention.  Like I said before I am not a big car aficionado, but I still had fun checking out this motor show.  Many of the manufacturers allowed visitors to sit in the various cars which were on display which was fun.  If I was in Japan again when the Tokyo Motor Show was going on I would attend it again.  For people who are really into cars and bikes this show should really be a must see if traveling to Japan.