Fuji Cabin

Its designer was Tomiya Ryūichi, born in Akasaka, Tokyo, in 1908. He studied design at the Tokyo Higher School of Arts and Technology and joined the company that became Nissan in 1934, to design Datsun bodies; the Datsun rabbit mascot is his. In 1949 he moved to Suminoe Seisakusho and created the Flying Feather, and in 1956 he joined Fuji Jidōsha.source 1 The Fuji Cabin was his second attempt at the creed Japanese Wikipedia gives him, the most work for the least consumption, this time as a European-style cabin scooter, a three-wheeled kei vehicle (more on him in the designers).source 2

Fuji Jidōsha, in Tokyo, repaired, dismantled and rebuilt the American forces’ military vehicles and made “Gasuden” engines for small motorcycle makers; its president, Yamamoto Sōji, was a former Nissan executive.source 2 The Toyota Automobile Museum calls it a Nissan-affiliated engine maker.source 4 It had nothing to do with Fuji Heavy Industries, the makers of the Subaru 360, though the two are often confused.source 2 The Weiner museum’s story, of an aircraft maker forbidden to build aircraft and merged into Fuji, muddles the history: Gasuden was the short name of Tokyo Gas Electric, the pre-war forerunner of Hino, and the Japanese sources describe Fuji Jidōsha as a vehicle rebuilder and engine maker.source 2source 4source 5 The Weiner museum and RM call the maker “Fuji Toshuda Motors”, a name no Japanese source explains.source 5source 3

A scooter with a roof

The prototype was announced in 1955 as the Metro 125: a cabin scooter with a single rear wheel, one headlamp and a playful streamlined body with an opening underneath. The Japanese edition of Popular Science headlined it, that August, as a scooter with a roof, and it was shown at the Tokyo Motor Show that year.source 2source 5source 3 It had two front wheels and a single rear one, as the German Messerschmitt KR175 did (more on such layouts in three-wheelers).source 2source 6

The body was the car. It was a glass-fibre monocoque with no chassis, eight layers thick where it was stressed and three elsewhere.source 2source 4 Japanese Wikipedia calls it Japan’s first car body in the material.source 2 It goes further and calls it the world’s first car whose whole monocoque was glass fibre, two years before the Lotus Elite of 1957; no other source read makes that claim.source 2 The seats were part of the shell, and the occupants sat on cushions laid on the fibreglass. A teardrop body with a big opening below the waistline served as both air intake and backbone, and the single headlamp was chosen to save parts.source 2 The passenger sat 200 mm behind the driver, so the driver could walk through from the passenger’s side, and the first cars had only one door, on the left. Production cars got a door on each side, which put the weight up from 140 to 150 kg.source 2

The prototype’s rubber springs worked in tension and were too soft; production cars had rubber in compression at the front, and a coil-spring strut on the swinging arm at the back.source 2source 5source 3 The 121 cc Gasuden two-stroke sat under the floor ahead of the rear wheel, which it drove by chain.source 2 The driver had ordinary pedals for brake and throttle, but changed gear with a lever on the right: tilt it to declutch, push it forward to change up, pull it back from neutral for reverse. The engine was kick-started with the left foot, and the wiper worked by hand.source 2source 5 RM noted that reverse was unusual in a scooter-engined microcar.source 3

85 cars

Production began in August 1956, at ¥235,000, sold through Metropolitan Agencies.source 2 RM says the plans were for 400 to 500 a month.source 3 It did not work. The rubber springs gave poor handling and ride; the cabin was hot in summer and had no heater in winter: little more, Japanese Wikipedia says, than a scooter with a roof.source 2 The makers did not yet know fibreglass well: long curing times slowed production, and the stressed shell cracked on rough roads, which brought complaints.source 2source 4 The 60 km/h of the catalogue was hard to use with the awkward gear lever, the body was heavy for the engine, and the tyres were small and the track narrow.source 2 The Weiner museum adds a stiff price and poor marketing; RM blames unfamiliarity with fibreglass and a limited marketing strategy.source 5source 3

Production stopped in December 1957, after 85 cars. Dozens of half-finished bodies were left, and most were reportedly broken up. A more conventional version, a fibreglass body on a steel subframe with a stronger engine, was considered but not built.source 2 Fuji Jidōsha stayed out of cars until the Gasuden Mini Van EM36 at the 1961 Tokyo show, which never went on sale.source 2 Tomiya moved to Central Motors in 1958, founded his own research institute in 1972, later co-created the walking “Mechanimal” machines that Gakken sold as Mechamo, and entered the Japan Automotive Hall of Fame in 2013.source 1

The Weiner museum counted three survivors in about 2002; Japanese Wikipedia says a few, and that fibreglass, which does not rot, helped them last.source 5source 2 The Toyota Automobile Museum shows its Model 5A on the third floor of its cars building, and the Motorcar Museum of Japan at Komatsu has one; the photographs on this page show a turquoise car there and a pale one at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles (more in museums and meets).source 4source 2

The Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum’s car was found derelict in Pennsylvania, changed hands several times and was restored by the museum, which had to remake parts of the side lights and handle the primitive fibreglass with care.source 5source 3 When the collection was sold by RM Auctions in Madison, Georgia, in February 2013, it was lot 623, chassis 57570076, and it fetched US$126,500.source 3