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Weird and wonderful cars in Tokyo


From the country that can take your pulse from a toilet seat comes technology that can take your pulse from the steering wheel -- and makes sure you’re still alert enough to drive.

The Tokyo motor show is well known for showcasing the weird on wheels but the 43rd running of the event which opened today took its reputation to new levels.

Japanese technology supplier Denso has come up with a novel way to improve driver safety among the world’s aging population: by making sure you’re still alive while behind the wheel.

Deaths of drivers over the age of 60 have increased by more than 22 per cent in Australia over the past five years as the number of young driver deaths has come down (deaths of road users aged 17 to 25 are down 34 per cent, those aged 26 to 39 are down 30 per cent, and those aged 40 to 59 are down 19 per cent, according to Federal Government data to October 2013).

The driver safety technology that’s set to check your heart is still racing is still several years away from showrooms. But the company says it is possible and has "expressions of interest" from a number of big Japanese brands, which it declined to name.

Proving it is not the stuff of dreams, other cars such as the new Range Rover Vogue already have heated steering wheels to help the well-heeled handle cold mornings.

At the serious end of town the world’s biggest car maker Toyota has found itself in a race with Honda to bring the first mass-produced hydrogen-powered car to market.

Both companies were neck-and-neck in the late 1990s in the race to introduce hybrid technology to the masses; Honda pipped Toyota but Toyota released a much more advanced and more successful hybrid system. More than 5 million hybrids have been sold since, compared to Honda’s tally of just over 1 million.

Toyota says it will have a hydrogen-powered car -- which emits nothing but water vapour from its tailpipe -- in showrooms in 2015. Honda is making the same promise, and has had experimental hydrogen-powered cars in customer hands since 2010.

A little closer to reality Mitsubishi unveiled the world’s first plug-in hybrid SUV. The petrol-electric version of the Outlander, which can travel more than 30km on battery power alone, will be on sale in Australia in early 2014 priced less than $50,000.

As ever, small was big in Tokyo, where the star cars are the pint-sized offerings from specialist companies.

Personal mobility scooters are slowly merging with city hatchbacks, it seems, with several brands displaying tiny two-seater electric cars in which the occupants sit in tandem.

Even the trucks were small at the Tokyo show, with Daihatsu unveiling a concept design of how its new van might look.

In the photos the Daihatsu "FC Deck" looks as large as a truck, until someone dwarfs it by standing next to it.

Adding to the Tokyo weirdness was the usual line-up of weird names.

The Mazda Bongo Friendly is long gone but new candidates for whacky names include the Tanto (a small Daihatsu), the Noah (a Toyota people mover) and the Wit (a small Suzuki hatch), which appears to be missing a descriptor.

The cute Daihatsu convertible called the Kopen has a new look and a new tagline “Future Included”, which is optimistic for a car so small its drivers feel vulnerable.

Perhaps the most inappropriately named car, though, was the Suzuki Hustler. A tiny box-shaped hatch with a pint-sized 660cc three-cylinder engine, it is unlikely to hustle anyone out of the way.

There was no competition for the revhead’s choice: the Nissan GT-R Nismo edition.

The fastest iteration yet of the car they call “Godzilla” has a whopping 441kW of power from its twin turbo V6 engine, and can lap Germany’s famous Nurburgring race track -- the unofficial benchmark for all performance cars -- faster than a Porsche, in 7 minutes and 8 seconds.

Having an each-way bet, though, Nissan also unveiled a hybrid-electric version of its weird-looking LeMans racer.

It can do 10 laps of the French circuit on petrol power and  one lap on electric. After recharging the battery pack after 55 hard stabs of the brake pedal, it’s ready to do another petrol-free lap.

The high-tech future of the automobile looks fun after all.