Question about Euro LHD/RHD cars in Japan

[IanB]

As this is LHD, would it be a Euro-spec car that was imported to Japan, or a LHD JDM-spec car? I notice most of your Euro's are LHD, but they would make RHD for the UK, so they would ship RHD new to Japan, or how does that work?

Really clean car Mark, if only it were standard tranny.

[Mark]

As this is LHD, would it be a Euro-spec car that was imported to Japan, or a LHD JDM-spec car? I notice most of your Euro's are LHD, but they would make RHD for the UK, so they would ship RHD new to Japan, or how does that work?

Really clean car Mark, if only it were standard tranny.

Hey Ian...

With Euro vehicles, in Japan you can buy either LHD or RHD although some models were either only available in LHD or RHD here.
Take pre-90's Porsches for example, they were only imported by Porsche Japan in LHD and during the 90's Porsche Japan started to offer RHD models as well.

So why do you see some vehicles as LHD and some either LHD or RHD.

A lot of the Ma & Pa vehicles (I will not mentioned models in case I upset anyone) were available in RHD even though they are from a LHD country of origin. This is because not everyone can get to grips driving with the steering wheel on the wrong or right side.

The sporty type models plus some of the Ma & Pa owners, some Japanese like to be different or prefer the vehicle to be as the country of origin.

Then there are some of us who want a LHD vehicle because they were originally designed for LHD driving. What a lot of people do not realise is that some vehicles like the Porsche 944/968, BMW E30 M3, were designed around LHD driving. The weight distribution which can include battery location, engine slant etc is set up with one person (driver) in the car. When the vehicles are manufactured in RHD the battery can be moved easy enough but engine slant cannot so what you find is that instead of having a more even weight distribution you can in fact have too much weight to one side now.
The engines are slanted partly for driver weight distribution and partly to help counter balance other engine parts that hang off the side of the engines.
However, for road use you would never notice the difference but for track use...... any seconds saved by better handling is a blessing.

So the next time you look at a Porsche 944 for example at a car show...... look at the engine and you will see that it is slanted to the right hand side which is why any true die hard Porsche 944 collector will want a LHD model opposed to a RHD.

http://www.braveautointernational.jp...19870.html#btm
http://www.braveautointernational.jp...28910.html#btm

Cheers

MB..

[jdmvip]

This is very interesting, Ian&Mark do you guys mind if I split your question and answer to a new thread as I think it would be very useful info (otherwise no one will ever find it in this thread).

[IanB]

Fine by me, very interesting stuff.

[Mark]

This is very interesting, Ian&Mark do you guys mind if I split your question and answer to a new thread as I think it would be very useful info (otherwise no one will ever find it in this thread).

No problem......

[jdmvip]

Good info, for clarification can you explain more though about the distinction between "JDM Euros (produced for the Japan market specifically)" vs "Imported to Japan Euros"? Sorry if I missed it already but this question seems to come up a lot.