Mazda R360: UK Market?

[MisterH]

Hi all, 

I was perusing through my beloved 1001 Dream Cars book earlier admiring all the poor editing and prooofin g when I came across a picture of a Mazda R360 with UK plates on it. Now looking at the reg it was last on the road in 1994, indeed, there are a lot of rare pictures of UK registered cars in this book, and it made me wonder was the R360 ever imported into the UK officially? I suspect it was probably a grey import, but the plate style makes me think it isn't 

What do you think?

 

 

[LightBulbFun]

32 minutes ago, MisterH said:

Hi all, 

I was perusing through my beloved 1001 Dream Cars book earlier admiring all the poor editing and prooofin g when I came across a picture of a Mazda R360 with UK plates on it. Now looking at the reg it was last on the road in 1994, indeed, there are a lot of rare pictures of UK registered cars in this book, and it made me wonder was the R360 ever imported into the UK officially? I suspect it was probably a grey import, but the plate style makes me think it isn't 

What do you think?

 

 

GGU-C was issued in Period from July 1965 in London, so its a genuine period registration etc, but theres no real way to say from that if it was imported officially, or someone just decided to bring one over new to the UK

but one thing to note is that the DVLA have a Model code for the Mazda 360 so thats quite interesting

[MisterH]

3 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

GGU-C was issued in Period from July 1965 in London, so its a genuine period registration etc, but theres no real way to say from that if it was imported officially, or someone just decided to bring one over new to the UK

but one thing to note is that the DVLA have a Model code for the Mazda 360 so thats quite interesting

That is interesting, I believe the Cosmo was sold in limited numbers over here back in the day, it certainly was in europe.

UK market Japanese cars fascinate me  

[DavidB]

Are there still mad JDM only spec cars like there were in the 70’s - 90’s?

[MisterH]

46 minutes ago, DavidB said:

Are there still mad JDM only spec cars like there were in the 70’s - 90’s?

I think there still are, though I am not an expert by any means...

[Spottedlaurel]

The future Mrs SL and I saw that one back in 1993:

My guess is either it was brought across by someone looking to import them, which happened a few times with the various Japanese marques back in the '60s, or a random grey import shipped here by someone returning here from overseas.

[MisterH]

37 minutes ago, Spottedlaurel said:

The future Mrs SL and I saw that one back in 1993:

My guess is either it was brought across by someone looking to import them, which happened a few times with the various Japanese marques back in the '60s, or a random grey import shipped here by someone returning here from overseas.

Wow that is absolutely fascinating, this car was last on the road in 1994 so it could very likely be in a barn somewhere, I doubt that would be scrapped if the owner took it to a show

[MKT]

1 hour ago, DavidB said:

Are there still mad JDM only spec cars like there were in the 70’s - 90’s?

Lots of the smaller Kei cars are still JDM only, Honda S660 is a good example (though I think a fair few have been imported to the UK).