Japan Report: Remember the Historic Tokyo Motor Show Debuts

The 2007 Tokyo Motor Show might have come and gone, but how did it stack up against all the great Tokyo Shows of the past? A series of fascinating books on the history of the show by Japan’s Nigensha Publishing tells you all you need to know.

Late last year, Nigensha (which produces Car Graphic, Japan’s most prestigious car magazine) began the mammoth task of covering the cars and concepts from the past 40 Tokyo Shows, dating all the way back to 1954.

As we’ve mentioned before, instead of producing one giant book, they’ve gone instead for a series of small softback volumes: essentially picture and caption books with both Japanese and English text and utterly compelling if Japanese show cars are your bag.

Volume one covers 1954-1960. Then Volumes, two, three and four cover the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s respectively.

Yes, you can get the books in America, either individually or as a batch. The whole set, with shipping, comes to ¥8460 (some $77). E-mail orders are accepted on intl@nigensha.jp.