I had to bring “the other half” over the wall. It involved the standard grilling, the “how much is it?” followed closely by “you’re crazy” conversation that we’d had a number of times before, but on this occasion I needed her expertise to assist in the search. Reluctantly she agreed, despite continuing to question my mental state.
Prominent UK car classifieds had turned up nothing. I was left scratching my head, what was the next move?
Japan. Of course!
There must be an Autotrader.jp or something similar there, however kanji and my grasp of the Japanese language don’t rank up there in the list of my most useful skills, so navigating to the right website would be almost impossible. Japanese however is her mother-tongue and so her morning ahead (after the school run and should she choose to accept it) was going to involve an important mission. The brief was simple, find Japan’s biggest used car classifieds site and search for 1971-1972 Nissans! She was ecstatic…
Despite owning exactly the same smart phone, I had to hand mine over to perform the deed, I suspect the craziness should remain in my operating system and browser history? In a flash:
Step 1: Done. The intuitively(?) named carsensor.net was the vehicle, a website that I’m sure fills hours of the average salary man’s working day, that is if the culture for viewing used car classifieds is the same in Japan as it is here in the UK.
Step 2: Done. She’d found them! She’d only gone and found them! 3 Hakosukas.
I’ll have one…!!
“F” pattern out the window…again, snatching back my phone, my eye was drawn straight to the large black and red numbers, prominent above all else on the page (probably because I couldn’t read anything else) this must be the price.
Hako 1: 2138
Hako 2: 1848
Did these prove the car from the Czech Republic was mis-priced?
Where’s Sterling/Yen???? It had been a long time since I asked myself that! Bloomberg to the rescue. 195. Wow, the Yen is weak, good sign, stars aligning! Get more for every pound!
Why on Earth are prices listed in such on odd way?? Why not show all the digits, instead of forcing me to to the maths. Here goes:
2138 x 1000 – it’s obvious they were missing a few zeroes, assumption, standard accounting method, show figures divided by one thousand = JPY 2,138,000
JPY 2,138,000 / 195 = £10,964
It was my turn to be ecstatic, for a minute, weak Yen, £11k, Czech car forgotten, I’ll have one!
Given I couldn’t read anything on the page, I excitedly passed the calculator over for confirmation.
“Ni(2)-ichi(1)-san(3)-hachi(8) man” was mumbled back at me as my other half traced zeroes on the palm of her hand.
“Man” – was the name of the character that followed the price.
“Man” – was the three zeroes I added to the price.
“Man” – had created a puzzled look across the table.
“Man” – it turns out, is the character that represents 10,000.
“Man” – was the defining point in the journey. I’ll have one?! These cars are being listed for £110k in Japan.
Oh man…
At this point the search was over. I wasn’t a classic car investor and with a price tag breaching six figures you need to know your apples. I knew nothing.
Search over, for now at least, but curiosity deeper than ever before. Time to get educated. What better place to start, the title of the advert (above) and two clues, or at least 2 sets of numbers and letters I could decipher:
S20 and KPGC10…
Nissan Skyline GT-R "Hakosuka" 