In between blinged-up custom vans and hardly dressed campaign girls at this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon, I ran into the man that busted Japan’s kei car keiretsu. He will have to be thanked when Japanese soon get 20 horses more in their mini-vehicles. Also, Donald Trump should talk to the man before he says again that Japan is a closed car market.
The man is Justin Gardiner, chief of Caterham Cars Japan, exclusive importer of the legendary Caterham race cars from the UK. I found him in that special kind of relaxed mood reserved to the exclusive few on this planet who made their annual quota two weeks into January.