This used to be a harmless Mazda RX7. Now it’s a car … well, it certainly won’t pass pedestrian protection regs in civilized countries.

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.

It’s been a lost in translation situation, but from what I could develop here at the Tokyo Auto Salon, the oddly shaped and oddly named 555TES Minute-S is a “three-wheel compact commuter” powered by a Yamaha 250-cc engine coupled to a Toyota Aqua hybrid drive. Here it is in motion:

Tokyo Auto Salon HUMMER

The Tokyo Auto Salon is not just a preserve of doe-eyed kawaii girls, and a host of hachi-roku. It also proves that you can’t kill the HUMMER.

This is a short preview of our customary feature where we celebrate the hard working product specialists at major auto shows.

This innocent white car will lead major news outlets astray. It already does. Shown at 2UX3J, or rather the Lexus booth, this LFA roadster concept makes blogs of all stripes, from Jalopnik to our sister publication Autoguide, fantasize about an impending launch in 2014. I am sorry, they have all been misled.

The upscale Lexus brand and the car-kichi people that frequent the Tokyo Auto Salon usually go together like tailcoats and a Dirty Rotten Imbecils concert. As in not. This year, the Lexus booth is a major attraction, despite the fact that many people, including me, had to be told that Lexus is at the show. They are there under (a black) cover and under a false name. The designers of the Lexus booth pulled-off a whimsical and humorous concept, from the design of the all-black-on-bare-concrete booth to the choice of cars on display. It starts with the name on the booth. It says 2UX3J. But it’s Lexus.

Today at the Tokyo Auto Salon, Nissan unveiled its worst-kept secret. Assisted by attractive dancers dressed in white, Nissan “took the covers off of the highly-anticipated Juke Nismo” as the press release puts it. No, it’s not the highly anticipated Juke R, the cross-over with the GT-R engine. That has to wait for another Auto Salon. Or possibly one of the upcoming A-events.

Toyota’s Akio Toyoda never stops warning about the hollowing out of Japan’s industry. Today at the Tokyo Auto Salon, Toyoda gave a spirited speech praising the virtues of customization of the hachi-roku, Toyota’s 86 (aka GT86, Scion FR-S, Subaru BRZ), JDM Spec, In Japan" href="http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/12/review-from-the-backseat-2013-toyota-86-gt-limited-aka-gt86-scion-fr-s-subaru-brz-jdm-spec-in-japan/">(aka GT86, Scion FR-S, Subaru BRZ). Today at the show, one gets the impression that customizing the hachi-roku definitely is a huge growth industry.

Sales of Japanese car in the world’s largest car market, China, continue to be impacted by the war of words (and occasionally sledge hammers) over uninhabited rocks in the East China sea. Sales are inching up a bit after customers dare to come back to the showrooms of Japanese brands.

The Japanese new car market ended the year 2012 up 27.5 percent to 5,369,721 units. You may read other numbers elsewhere, but that’s because it is often overlooked that regular vehicles and mini vehicles are reported separately in Japan. At TTAC, we consolidate them as a service to our readers.

Good news for Lafayette, Indiana: Fuji Heavy will spend $230 million to increase the capacity of its Subaru of Indiana plant by about 30 percent, says The Nikkei [sub]. Subaru’s sole overseas plant currently works at full tilt, and about half of the 330,000 Subarus sold in the U.S. must be imported from Japan.

Last May I said that Toyota will end the year as the world’s largest automaker with around 10 million units produced. When I did that, some people gave me a look usually reserved for people who sadly lost it. Even the good folks at Toyota did not want to comment, at least not in my face.

Toyota will end the year with 9.92 million units produced, up 26 percent on 2011.

We have been saying it since May, but it took Bloomberg (along with the rest of the copypasting media) until a few days ago to realize that GM’s reign as the World’s Largest Automaker is coming to an end. GM regained the title in 2011 from a tsunami-ravaged Toyota. Toyota has been bouncing back strongly ever since. Toyota’s worldwide production is up 30 percent for the year, while GM was seen treading water when they last published global numbers in October.

Infiniti’s often discussed future premium compact model will be built at Nissan’s UK plant in Sunderland, Nissan says. It was previously announced that the new Infiniti will “share a platform developed with Mercedes.

For long, Detroit automakers explained their miserable sales numbers in Japan with somersaulting logic: “Our sales numbers are so miserable in Japan, because the Japanese market is closed to imports. Proof: Our miserable sales numbers.”

German carmakers in the meantime, notably Volkswagen, do not complain at all. They control 80 percent of Japan’s growing import market. Volkswagen’s small Up! turned into an especially hot seller, and Volkswagen’s executives in Japan emphatically deny that the market is closed.

Now, the Detroit Three are back in Japan with a revolutionary strategy:

LFA Chief Engineer Haruhiko Tanahashi says good-bye

As intimated last week, Toyota’s production of its LFA supercar is coming to an end. On Friday, LFA #500 left the assembly line at the secretive LFA Works in Toyota’s Motomachi plant. After a week of testing, the car will be delivered to its undisclosed owner.

Market share by country, passenger vehicles, w/o SUV

The island row does not make headlines anymore in China where people focus on the once in a decade transition of power. Japanese carmakers however still feel the pain. Two countries appear to be the winners: China and Germany.

With the stroke of a few pens putting signatures under a contract in Moscow today, then Renault-Nissan Alliance has become Russia’s largest automaker. The Alliance took control of AVTOVAZ, maker of the market-leading Lada brand. Lada holds 30 percent of Russia’s rapidly growing car market.

Toyota decided to postpone construction of a new plant in Tianjin, China, and is considering the delay of another new plant in Guangzhou, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun writes, quoting unidentified sources. This due to sluggish vehicle sales in the wake of anti-Japan protests over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute, Asahi Shimbun’s sources said.

In September, formerly red-hot sales of Japanese cars in China began to crater after cars were turned over and dealerships torched as fallout of a diplomatic row between Japan and China. Sales were down by about a half in October, and a little less than a third in November. At TTAC, we were skeptical that sales will be back to their old glory in a few months. A high ranking Toyota executive said for the first time that it will take long to recover.

While Japan may be a “closed market” in the eyes of some, imported cars from America are all the rage in South Korea. Honda is planning on sending no fewer than six American-made cars; the Civic, Accord, Odyssey, CR-V, Crosstour and Pilot will all be sent to South Korea as Honda attempts to become a net exporter of American made vehicles.

1,400 new cars, most of them Mitsubishis on their way from Japan and Thailand to Finland went to the bottom of an icy North Sea when the 485 foot car carrier Baltic Ace sunk off the coast of the southern Netherlands last night.

Toyota dropped out of Formula One in 2009, and said it won’t come back , claiming that the sports is “too elistist” and out of touch with Toyota’s customers. Now, the company is dropping hints that the door is not closed forever. Asked by The Nikkei [sub] whether Toyota might come back to the sport, Toyota Managing Officer Kiyotaka Ise was much less dismissive than in the past:

Chinese sales of Japanese makes continue to suffer from the fallout of the islands row. Toyota told Reuters that Chinese sales were down 22.1 percent YoY in November. Mazda’s China sales were down 29.7 percent compared to November last year, Reuters says. The severity of the drops has lessened, but it will be a while until Japanese brands return to their regular growth pattern in China.

No car in recent history must have been so relentlessly covered at TTAC as the Toyota 86 and its dizzying assemblage of names and numbers. I don’t think there is an editor at TTAC who hasn’t reviewed the car at least three times. All except me. I only reviewed it twice. Something had to be done …

Dear reader, be warned: This review of a sports car with a multiple persona syndrome concentrates mostly on seating arrangements and extraneous observations in the field of bears, bodies, far-eastern religions, man-machine romance, and sex. You may miss some of the driving impressions commonly supplied. If you are interested in those, they are provided here, and here, and here. And especially here. You are welcome. Some of the more than 30 pictures may gross you out.

Some forecasters expected Japan’s appetite for new cars to drop by more than 20 percent in the last quarter after government incentives expired in September. So far, it is not happening. Sales of new cars, trucks and buses declined a minuscule 0.4 percent in November. Elsewhere you may read that the market was down 3.3 percent, but they are not giving you the whole story. Sales of mini vehicles, or kei cars actually were up in November, pulling the market nearly completely out of minus territory.

A few weeks ago, Toyota’s CFO Satoshi Ozawa told an astounded press corps (and I paraphrase for brevity): “Sure, the riots in China have an effect, but we’ll make it up elsewhere in the world.” Today, we have the data that prove Ozawa-san right. What’s more, he could have spoken for all his Japanese peers. Yes, the boycott of Japanese cars in China caused drastic cutbacks at large Japanese automakers. However, all are doing so gulpingly well elsewhere that a buyer strike in the world’s largest car market turns into nothing more than a hiccup.

Dan Sloan, since May 2011 Editor in Chief and General Manager of Nissan’s Global Media Center at the Nissan Global HQ in Yokohama, can celebrate his big breakthrough. The former Singapore Bureau Chief of Reuters landed a YouTube blockbuster.

Nissan’s Infiniti is joining high-powered nameplates such as Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes and becomes title sponsor of a Formula One racing team. Under a four year contract, the highly successful Red Bull Racing team will change its name to Infiniti Red Bull Racing starting with the 2013 season.

Honda will shift development of the next-generation Civic to the U.S. reports by The Nikkei [sub] and Reuters say. Reuters has a quote from Honda spokesman Satoshi Takami, who said: “Localizing Civic development in the United States is among various factors we are considering. Generally speaking, Honda wants to develop cars locally where we sell them.” The Nikkei said that the Accord may also be developed in the U.S.

Nissan showed technology that protects both walls from cars, and drivers from their own stupidity lack of judgment. Sonar devices in the front and rear of the car detect hard obstacles. If the system decides that the driver is about to hit the wall, the computer cuts the gas and applies the brake.

The boycott of Japan-branded cars by Chinese customers appears to be abating faster than feared by some, but not as fast as hoped by others. Nissan expects its November sales in China to be down by approximately 25 percent, Hideki Kimata, senior general manager of Nissan’s joint venture with Dongfeng, told Reuters. Yesterday, Mazda’s China chief said he expects sales in China to be down by around 35 percent in November.

Nissan showed a refreshed version of its all-electric Leaf today. Available to the Japanese market at first, it offers both more and less.

Today, I had a chance to do what I was never able to achieve in my meandering career in the automotive business: I could drive a concept car. In the past, I was able to drive pre-production models, mules, even prototypes (the latter very carefully, they are obscenely expensive to replace.) But I never drove a concept car. Concept cars usually are built to go on display at car shows, and “go” can be taken literally: Many don’t even have an engine. The concept car I will be driving is Nissan’s “New Mobility Concept”, something Nissan calls an “ultracompact” car.

A game of two questions: How many Nissan Leaf do you think were sold so far? And where does it sell the best? Answer after the jump.

Yesterday, we told you about that miracle battery, Toyota allegedly has developed. The Nikkei [sub] said it will double the range of an EV. The Tokyo wire quoted researchers as saying that they “may also be able to achieve a driving range of between 500km and 1,000km” (310 to 620 miles), You possibly noticed the skeptical tone when we reported on the report . As it turns out, the Nikkei was a bit – exuberant.

The Nikkei [sub] claims that Toyota has done the groundwork for a new battery that could “potentially more than double the driving range of electric vehicles,” possibly up to 1,000 km (620 miles). And it’s even cheaper.

Yesterday, we showed you how Toyota is going to help protect its customers from fender benders and more serious accidents, while it is at least trying to protect itself from people and lawyers who look for a deep-pocketed company to blame for their own shortcomings. Yesterday, I risked life and limb to personally test these systems on behalf of TTAC’s readers. Today, we bring you the pictures.

The night before had been short, but interesting. I find myself in a 7-Eleven parking lot, high on energy drinks. Backing up, I bump into something. A wall? A dog? A person? I panic, my car lurches forward, wheels spin, gravel imbeds in anybody and anything within range, I push harder on the brakes, but the car accelerates right into a convenience store filled with school children. They live, because an invisible hand cuts the engine, and my car comes to a bloodless halt.

I collect my glasses and my wits. I turn to the smiling man in the passenger seat, and say: “You want me to try again?”

Japan’s minivehicles or “kei” cars could lose their (next to their cuteness) biggest attraction: The tax benefit. The Japanese government is thinking about charging the same tax for regular cars and mini vehicles alike, The Nikkei [sub] writes.

Nissan appears to be preparing for another go at Germany’s Nürburgring. The time around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the northern loop of the iconic Nürburgring racecourse is widely regarded as benchmark for speed and handling of a sports car. Nissan is emboldened by the performance of the new GT-R sports car, which its Chief Engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno showed TTAC last weekend on a track behind a Nissan factory in Oppama, Japan.

Based on the Mazda2, Mazda will build a sub-compact for Toyota after Mazda’s new plant in Mexico opens, the company says. The new (Mazota?) will start production around the summer of 2015 at a pace of 50,000 units per year, Toyota says.

All three major Japanese automakers have reported their half year financial results. After Honda last week and Toyota yesterday, Japan’s number two automaker Nissan followed today. The presentations could not have been more different.

Nissan’s chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga said he was “disappointed and frustrated” by the lackluster sales of electric vehicles in general and the Leaf in particular. Speaking at the mid-term results press conference at the Nissan HQ in Yokohama, his emotional appeal to recognize Nissan’s pioneering efforts in the field of zero emissions had undertones of an eulogy on the electric vehicle:

“No, Japan is not a closed market, come on, it has zero percent duty on cars.” Such spoke Yasuo Maruta, Communications Director of Volkswagen Japan, today at Volkswagen’s Tokyo offices. Volkswagen Group sold 66,000 cars in the first ten months of the year in Japan, and is expected to sell roughly 80,000 by the end of the year, making it Japan’s largest car importer, a title it held for as long as I can remember.

Maruta’s employer wants to enlarge its footprint in Japan.

Toyota’s CFO Satoshi Ozawa presented the financial results of the first half of fiscal 2013 to a packed conference room in the basement of Toyota’s Tokyo HQ. Analysts were astounded to hear that the company beat their expectations with a 6 month operating profit of 693.7 billion yen ($8.64 billion), an EBIT of 794.5 billion yen ($9.9 billion), and a net profit of 548.2 billion yen ($6.83 billion) after Japanese taxes are paid. What baffled them much more was Toyota’s business outlook: Toyota says it might make even more money than previously predicted.

Looking back at three catastrophes, the high yen, the tsunami and the Thai flood, a Japanese auto executive said to me last spring: “We’ve gone through hell, and made it. What else would be there, war?” He was close. A war of words over rocks in the East China Sea destroys Japanese car sales in China, while Korea profits.

Japanese subsidies for eco-cars expired in September, and analysts predicted a hard landing due to pulled-forward sales. In a way, this happened, but the fall was not as hard as expected. In September, sales on all automobiles in Japan were down 3.4 percent. This month, they are down 5.7 percent. The fall would have been harder, would it not have been cushioned by the resilience of a Japanese oddity, the Kei car.

A company owned by China’s central government is taking it on the chin as Chinese customers avoid Japan branded cars. Dongfeng reduced production at its joint ventures with Nissan and Honda, the Wall Street Journal reports today. Amount or duration of what the company calls “production adjustments” is unknown.

The boycott of Japanese goods in China , triggered by a dispute over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, hit Japanese automakers where it hurts most: In the pocket-book. Honda cut its profit forecast for the fiscal year to March to 375 billion yen ($4.7 billion) from its earlier estimate of 470 billion yen ($5.9 billion), Reuters says.

Toyota today announced global production data for September. Worldwide production for Toyota, Daihatsu and Hino was down 5.8 percent in September, which saw Chinese factories closed and sales boycotted. January through September, global production is up 37.6 percent to 7,681,891 units.

Volkswagen’s ultracompact Up! is taking Japan by storm. Three weeks after its Oct. 1 release, orders for the up! have exceeded 3,000 units, The Nikkei[sub] writes.

Sales of Japanese cars in China dropped 40 percent in September as a result of the islands rumpus. The shares of Nissan, Toyota and Honda shares lost about 10 percent of their value. Chinese state-owned enterprises lost much more.

The violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in China appear to be over, and intestinal complications aside, it seems to be safe again to eat sushi in Beijing or Shanghai. State-owned media however is trying its utmost to keep the matter on the front burner, so to speak, in a very insidious way.

Cratering China sales due to the islands row made Toyota revise its production targets. Worldwide production by the Toyota Group including Daihatsu and Hino “now looks likely to reach around 9.8 million units to 9.9 million units for the calendar year instead of the currently projected 10.05 million units,” The Nikkei [sub] says.

Nissan plans a budget Leaf to be sold along the current version, Nissan’s Andy Palmer told the Financial Times. With the stripper model, Nissan hopes to extend the car’s reach beyond early adopters to “pragmatists.” Another problems remains unsolved: The car’s reach.

Infiniti’s often discussed future premium compact model will not be built at Magna-Steyr, but “in-house in a European production facility,” Infiniti says in an emailed statement. The car will still “share a platform developed with Mercedes.”

Toyota may be cutting back its global group production by 200,000 units in the 2012 calendar year, writes Reuters, as a reaction to sharply reduced sales in China after the island row. Toyota’s China sales were down 49 percent in September.

I am sitting next to a man in a Nissan Leaf. The man tries to run over pedestrians. If you think that’s mean, then the three black clad guys who are hiding behind a row of parked cars will disgust you. Their job is to push a pedestrian in front of an oncoming car.