Commercial vehicles take spotlight

Tokyo, Japan–The itinerary prepared by our hosts, Mitsubishi Motors Philippines is notably easy and non-hectic. Basically out of character if I would consider the tight schedules I would normally meet on any trip to Japan with any of the major car manufacturers as hosts.

But who’s complaining? Not any of the two other motoring journalists I have the privilege to be with in this trip, namely; Ron delos Reyes, the producer and host of the TV show Auto Review, which also airs on the National Broadcasting Network and Erle Sebastian, columnist of Today and regular writer of Motoring Today. The focus of our 4-day trip is the 36th Tokyo Motor Show — Commercial Vehicles. The rest of the time is free for us to look around and to shop until we drop. On both counts our group finds no problem. There are a lot of interesting things to see in Tokyo by just walking around and the prospect of any of us shopping till we drop is a little far fetched–not during these hard times and definitely not when in Tokyo, considered by many as one of the most expensive places in the world.

We left Manila Monday morning via Japan Airlines for a non-stop flight to Narita Airport only to have the whole afternoon to ourselves. The Motor Show is Tuesday where the whole day is set aside for, while Wednesday is again another free day, which we can spend in Akihabara. That’s the place to go in Japan for all electronic shopping–cameras, telephones, etc. Thursday is when we fly home for a 6 pm departure schedule leaving us more free time. Again, who’s complaining?

The 36th Tokyo Motor Show is the first to be held since the merger of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association and the Japan Motor Industrial Federation and is the second time as a "commercial vehicles show". A total of 105 exhibiting companies, 2 governments and 2 organizations had signed up from 7 countries, including Japan. The total exhibition area is approximately 25,000 square meters.

The exhibit includes trucks and tractor trucks, trailers, truck bodies, buses, light vans, wagons, and taxi cabs, vehicles for the handicapped, low emission vehicles, electric vehicles and parts.

Aside from Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the long list of exhibitors include Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., Ltd., Isuzu Motors Ltd., Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., Suzuki Motor Corp., Volvo Truck Corp., Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., Mazda Motor Corp. to name some.

Next week we shall give you more inputs on this internationally acclaimed motor show to include some of the outstanding vehicle models we came across, many of which, sad to say, may never have the chance to run in our roads. We shall have a wealth of footage of these vehicles, which we shall show on our TV programs Motoring Today (Sunday 11:30 am — 12:30 pm) and Auto Focus (Tuesday 11:00 pm — 12 pm) both aired on Channel 4 Manila and nationwide on the National Broadcasting Network.

Our very gracious Mitsubishi Motors Philippines hosts include Mr. Leo Samonte, Mr. Tony Prado and of course, Mr. Mel Dizon, MMPI’s first vp and to them we would like to say thank you for helping us sharing with our reading and viewing public some insights into the 36th Tokyo Motor Show.

Happy Motoring!!!

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