Examples of these ranges from every previous generation of Civic Type-R, Skyline GT-Rs, Impreza STIs and Lancer Evos. It is only until recently that these forbidden fruits of the Far East have been released to overseas markets of Europe, North America and the Asia-Ocenia region. Have you ever wondered why it is so?
The dissatisfied enthusiasts often cry foul to such practises, with many claiming that the likes of Honda, Nissan, Subaru and Mitsubishi are teasing them on purpose. Well could you really blame the average layman petrolhead for thinking so? After all none of the European makes have such practices. Not even the methodical, cold and somewhat clinical Germans behind Porsche and BMW, nor the eccentric Italians of Ferrari or Lamborghini. There has never been such a thing as a German domestic market only variant of the 911 or the M5. There might only be European-spec variants.
I find it surprising that in my 10 years of reading professionally written automotive magazines, none have so far attempted to explain the reason behind such practices. Below is my first attempt to answer this “mystery of Japanese forbidden fruits.”
We shall leave arguments about the missing hot hatches of Peugeot and Volkswagen GTIs from the North American market aside for now because that is purely a marketing issue. In the land of V8 Ford Crown Victoria NYC yellow cabs and SUVs which will can pass off as a heavy duty commercial truck in some countries, small hatchbacks are not something that many would want to be travelling in. Americans have always perceive hatchbacks as cheap econo-boxes and are the anti-thesis of being cool. However, in age of USD 110 per barrel crude oil prices, that sort of perception is set to change, but that’s another story.
Back to the forbidden fruits from Nihon, the reason is a simple – it’s quality or should I say the underlining cultural differences between the Japanese and European socities. You see, cars like the Civic Type-R, Skyline GT-Rs and the assorted Japanese rally monsters are very highly strung machines with engines running on very high compression ratios and lightning quick valve opening-closing times. For all their power and intent, they are actually rather fragile machines. To appreciate the “embargo” on exports we need to understand some basic philosophy behind engine design.
In simple engineering speak, designing a complex mechanical system like an engine is all about balancing the opposing forces – power and reliability, high output and everyday-slow-traffic driveability. The further along the edge of the margin of material strength and production / machining tolerance the higher risk you are running against potential failure. Thus these high precision machines require regular maintenance from highly trained specialists with specific diagnostic tools. Something which the distributors in overseas market might be unwilling to invest in due to low sales volume of such a niche product. So with this chicken-and-egg issue which resulted in questionable after-sales support, it’s no wonder that Japanese manufacturers are unwilling to release these cars across the Pacific.
There is an often nagging problem behind every car manufacturer’s mind – a recall, this best explains why some models are limited to a certain geographical zone, not even to markets in Europe where sales volume and fuel quality is not a big issue. A car is a sum of its components, the parts count of an average car easily range between 2,000 to 10,000. Thus, it is not surprising that occasionally despite the best quality inspection methodology and intentions, some defective components do slip pass the net. And with an annual production run of 250,000 cars for a global model, a defective part in a model is both time consuming to address and also puts unnecessary strain to the company’s public relations. Tracking down every owner of a potentially defective vehicle and delivery of replacement part across many different countries is a logistical headache. A recall limited only to the Japan domestic market, close to where the manufacturing plant is greatly simplifies things.
The Japanese are known to be more prudent than the Europeans when it comes to quality related issues. But this is not to say that the German engineers care more about their Oktoberfest rather than making sure their cars work properly. It’s just they come from a culture that places higher premium on original innovation so long as “reasonable” levels of reliability is achieved and that occupant safety is never compromised. In fact German companies tend to be more transparent about their recall while the more “face-value sensitive” Japanese would often do defective parts replacement quietly during regular vehicle servicing or disguised as “special service campaigns / product updates.”
Anyway, this Japanese prudent and play-safe mentality is the second reason to why these exotics reman locked up within the borders of Japan while uber German luxobarges like the M5 and torque monster AMG Mercs are released once they are made available in Deutscheland.
Other stumbling blocks including the necessary vehicle homologation cost, especially if it involves crash testing to a particular regulation, available fuel grade and exhaust emission regulations all builds up a wall to make export of such machines difficult.
Image courtesy of GT-R world.
However of late, with advancement in manufacturing methods which allow for lower tolerances and sophisticated electronics, manufacturers are now more willing to export such exotics overseas. Production though remains tightly controlled in Japan. Even the USA, which is known for its notoriously poor quality fuel with high sulphur content gets previously unavailable Lancer Evo, Impreza WRX, the latest generation GT-R. This is only possible with the advent of advance electronic engine control units that automatically adjusts ignition timing according to the fuel grade used.
But in the case of the GT-R, things are a bit over the top. Nissan basically managed its warranty claims risk and mechanical failure by employing an army of “militia electronics". Did you know that JDM versions of GTR are speed-limited to 180 km/h (nothing unusual about that), but this is where things get interesting - upon driving into a Nissan approved race track, the embedded GPS receiver will disable the speed-limiter! And then the systems logs an entry into the engine computer's memory that track-day / race activity has taken place and if the driver does not send the vehicle for a complete inspection after that, the vehicle's warranty will be voided!
And then there are arrays of sensors to pick-up "beyond ordinary" driving parameters; crucial information for Nissan to deal with the potential warranty claims. Read more about it here. KITT 2000 anyone?
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