Tokyo Auto Salon: Small Car, BIG Sound

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Sound Quality is a small specialty store in Chiba, across Tokyo Bay. They equipped a small Smart with sound so big that you can hear it on Ginza when they turn it on in Chiba.

This is a non-exhaustive sampling of the rear sub-woofers There are more elsewhere. They take up so much room that the carlet turned into a Smart for1.

And smart it is. We count six flat screens. The one in the steering wheel hopefully switches automatically from portrait to landscape.

Did we mention that there are more sub-woofers elsewhere?

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Bumpy ii Bumpy ii on Jan 12, 2013

    Interesting they started with a 450 instead of a 451. The 450 was imported as a kei car, so I suppose they're easier to find there.

  • Panzerfaust Panzerfaust on Jan 12, 2013

    They might want to turn this over to a local medical university for research purposes. I think you might be able to use this to ultrasonically destroy gallstones, kidneystones and clean the plaque off your teath-simultaneously, whilst listing to your favorite tunes.

  • Calrson Fan Jeff - Agree with what you said. I think currently an EV pick-up could work in a commercial/fleet application. As someone on this site stated, w/current tech. battery vehicles just do not scale well. EBFlex - No one wanted to hate the Cyber Truck more than me but I can't ignore all the new technology and innovative thinking that went into it. There is a lot I like about it. GM, Ford & Ram should incorporate some it's design cues into their ICE trucks.
  • Michael S6 Very confusing if the move is permanent or temporary.
  • Jrhurren Worked in Detroit 18 years, live 20 minutes away. Ren Cen is a gem, but a very terrible design inside. I’m surprised GM stuck it out as long as they did there.
  • Carson D I thought that this was going to be a comparison of BFGoodrich's different truck tires.
  • Tassos Jong-iL North Korea is saving pokemon cards and amibos to buy GM in 10 years, we hope.
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