Tiny Cabin designed for the wet

Cars come in all shapes and sizes, like this three-wheeled Fuji Cabin from the 1950s.

Introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1955, it was marketed as a weather-proof scooter — which it basically was.

Produced by Fuji Toshuda Motors of Tokyo, Japan, from 1957 until 1958, the cabin is considered cramped, even by the standards of these tiny little cars.

In post-war Japan, many companies scrambled for survival.

Forbidden to build airplanes, Hitachi Aviation which was associated with Hino and Isuzu, attempted to survive by producing non-war related products.

It became the Tokyo Gas-Electric Manufacturing Company and merged with Fuji Automobile, and by 1952 was producing motorcycles and small two-stroke engines, called Gasuden.

The Cabin was engineered by Ryuichi Tomiya, a director of Suminoe Manufacturing which also produced the Flying Feather microcar and bodies for Nissan.

It featured rubber suspension, staggered seating, a cooling duct down the centre of the car and beetle-wing motor access panels.

See also

Retro autos

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