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＊It was the press and special guest day of the 36th Tokyo Motor Show - Commercial Vehicles. I visited the show held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba prefecture. I left my home in the center of Tokyo Metropolis past eight o'clock in morning and took the bay coast speedway. The traffic was very smooth and arrived there by forty minutes drive. It was rather calm, comparing with the passenger car show of last year. Volvo was the only one foreign manufacturer which exhibited its products. The show was rather lonely this year. Meanwhile Japanese manufacturers avoided the competition among them and displayed many sample vehicles which was rich in new ideas. They tried cautiously to observe the customers's reactions against their trial products.
The left bottom picture is a 4WD having the extraordinary big width which the Chiba prefecture government added to its disaster relief force's equipments. I would like to know how they use it at disasters.The right bottom picture is a commercial van which has no center pillars. Its front doors can be opened widely and its rear doors can be opened/closed by sliding doors. It would be very convenient for riding on/off of passengers as well as for loading up/down baggages through the wide open entrance, Its customers will develop many uses of the vehicle. I think the good future is exected for the vehicle.
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The bottom left picture is a commercial van. A passenger or a driver can ride on/off the vehicle while he/she is on a wheel chair. The bottom right picture is a sample of van which adopted the latest IT equipments for the home delivery service. The biggest problem for it would be pricing, I think.
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The bottom left picture is a mini van for the business people. It would be a mobile office for lawyers or executive managers of smaller enterprises. The bottom right picture is a mobile service shop for racing machines. The truck was classified as kei-jidosha (light vehicles.) under the vehicle code.
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Many other interesting vehicles were exhibited.
* In fact, three class meetings were held this afternoon. So I left for Tokyo at past eleven o'clock after I finished a study visit to the motor show. I attended one of them held at the Marunouchi Club. I could arrive there just on noon, taking a route suggested by the car navigator. The total of nine members attended the meeting, namely Messes. Yoshiro Kobayashi, Yasushi Hosokawa, Shin Suzuki, Nobuto Tsuchiya, Youji Hiraga, Hiroshi Chiba, Tomitaro Ishimori, Shin Kuniyasu and me. Mr. Kuniyasu, the general manager of meeting, asked the attendants to tell the enjoyable talks starting from Mr. Ishimori. He said he had a small vegetable garden in the back of his home in Waseda. He harvested good vegetables without using chemicals. Mr. Kobayshi said he got over many dangers of his life by his own proper judgment on his health. Mr. Hosokawa conquered cancers twice. Mr. Suzuki said he was still active for studying the environmental problems in East Asia together with Chinese scholars. Mr. Tsuchiya told when he made a study visit to a nuclear power plant operated by the Tokyo Electric Power company, he felt there might be problems which were uncovered recently. Mr. Kuniyasu told the latest information about our classmates in details one by one. Mr. Chiba said he was stiall active at the various government committees. When I told them I was getting the machine massages recently at a hospital to treat Lymphedema on both of my legs, there was big response from the attendants. Mr. Hiraga seemed to have much interests in it. Mr. Chiba said our meeting held at the Marunouchi Club would end today because the Shin Marubiru building is going to be reconstructed from the next spring. As I attended the class meeting after long absence, I found all attendants were in good health while some of friends who were absent today were said to have troubles about their health. They were Messrs. Ryusuke Mizukami, Yutaka Kose and Seizo Muto.
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This class meeting has been sustained by voluntarily effots of Messrs. Chiba and Kuniyasu.