I went on a trip to Japan last May and took a bunch of Prius pictures, I posted them in the international section of the gallery on this site. I caught a couple of them in the wild, but I also visited Toyota showrooms in Tokyo: "Mega Web" in "Palette Town" in Odaiba, and "Amlux" in "Sunshine City", in Ikebukuro. They had some interesting displays, as my pictures show. I saw few on the streets. In Japan they have very small cars that probably get as good mileage as the Prius, so I wonder if the Prius is hard to get there or just not desireable. They didn't sell any merchandise like T-shirts at the showrooms, unfortunately, and I didn't have time to look for Prius parts or accessories. The only toy or model Prius I found was the Tomica 1/60 scale cars. Hope you find the pictures interesting.
I really liked the pic of the Prius taxi. The car looked great in bright yellow. Bet that guy saves a bunch of money on gas. Jeff
Image from album You know, I've been waiting so long for my Prius, I'd about settle for that one. :mrgreen:
In the posted pictures, "Prius" is written in English letters instead of Japanese characters. I wonder why?
Not only the word Prius, but all of the dash wording is English - Power, Map, Info. Perhaps these are from a car meant for sale in RHD English speaking countries. I can't imagine the Japanses consumer wants English text in their cars any more than I would want Japanese in mine!
Wonder why the turn signals on the side of the Prius, up near the front door hinges, were left off of the US models?
Side indicators are a legal requirement in the UK, as of 1985-odd, so probably in Japan too. Probably saves a few couple of dollars not to fit them for the US, where they're not required.
:idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: :idea: Here is your answer sort of if you look real close at the headlight on a US model you will see that the side facing out is amber were the side lite is, on homeland models and others you will see that this area of the headlight is clear (no light.). :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Red/White Prius in the posted pic is a Prius GTR of the race specification which is not sold. About a character; The method of recognizing the character of the Japanese, us, can be called figure recognition rather than character recognition, I think. In Japan, the character of the panel and the button of electric appliances were English before about 20 years ago. It was for a design engineer's convenience. It was not for a consumer's convenience. It became Japanese by the voices from the consumers who cannot read English. Simultaneously, it use a sign with a character. However, as for the maker 's name and the model name etc, English character is also used now. Japanized English is full of present Japan life with English character or Japanese character. It thinks that it is convenient as a sign. It seems that many Japanese do not feel rejection to that situation. The example is in the posted pic. http://www.priuschat.com/forums/album_pic.....php?pic_id=656 The upper white character is Japanese and is the same meaning as English of a black character. Prius of a model name is displayed in Latin of the original word. Four characters under Prius are Japanese katakanas. The katakana is used for the pronunciation notation of the original words other than Japanese. So, It is not troubled that an English character is shown in the notation of a dashboard. It thinks that it has thought it as the thing near a sign rather than language. Mybrid; Three, a front, a side, and a rear, are required for blinkers in Japan. I am glad if this is help you all. _______________________ USK Bordeaux mica 2001 28,649.96 miles / 480.38 gallons = 59.64 mpg(25.36Km/L) 7/7/04
