Two postwar Japanese microcars that weren’t widely produced were the Suminoe Flying Feather (4 wheels) and Fujicabin 5A (3 wheels). One of each is displayed at the Toyota Automobile Museum in Nagakute City near Nagoya. When I visited in December 2024, I was more surprised that they were designed in the same year than that they had the same designer. The Flying Feather was a convertible with a 350cc engine, while the Fujicabin had a fiberglass-reinforced plastic monocoque and a 125cc engine. Designer Ryuichi Tomiya (1908-1997) was a very active engineer who also worked on the Shinjuku NS Building’s pendulum clock and animal-like “Mekanimal” robots (in collaboration with Masahiro Mori).
