Your first
Right hand drive vehicles, not surprisingly, have interested me for a long time. I can actually remember the first right hand drive car I saw.... a MG convertible. Being a kid about 9 years old, I couldn't help but stare. I hadn't heard that traffic rules are different for different countries. I was in the car with my parents at the time, and they muddled through explaining traffic to a 9 year-old.
After that I don't remember seeing one (saving mail carriers) for a long time. I remember seeing my first Kei truck up close. It was quite mind-blowing at the time. I was in the market for a new vehicle, and have a flavour for... well... weird vehicles. It was in a parkade and for sale. I spent about 5 minutes looking it over in disbelief. I remember saying the highly stereotypical "this can't be legal in Canada" and "wow, that must be a puny motor", and most other things that people say if they are not educated in grey imports. I also distinctly remember looking to see where the signal stalk and the petals were, and how they were arranged.
8 months after seeing my first Kei truck, I was buying one. I was at a business that is a Kei truck dealer of sorts and took the truck I now own for a test drive. And, it turns out that this story rings true for most people that drive an RHD; The first RHD they have driven is their own.
After talking to a few of my friends and acquaintances that drive RHDs, most of them had to 'take the plunge' and buy an RHD before they ever get to try driving one. This struck me as quite amazing. Finding out this fact, I've turned my truck 'open source' - if you can drive a stick, you can drive my truck (given I know you at least a little). It's good for two reasons: It's education for those who have never driven one (no, it's not super weird) and it lets people have the experience of driving an RHD (which a lot of people do not have). It's been a good exercise for both me, and everyone whose gotten to drive it.
I, of course, drive one of the cheaper RHD on the road, so this does not scare me as much as people who have more invested in their cars. But, I encourage everyone to let their friends and family take their car for a spin. It helps them realize that you're not crazy for driving 'on the wrong side of the car' and will maybe plant some seeds to get more people driving these great cars!
rob
Right hand drive auctions – a walkthough
If you've ever wondered what the Japanese car auctions look like, check this out!
The Australian show 'Mighty Car Mods' went on a tour of one of the HUGE Japanese car auction houses. It's a really interesting video to watch. They do a walkthough of a 6-storey carpark full of vehicles up for auction. Since Australia is an RHD country they could choose more liberally than we could here in Canada.. but they were still eyeballing a lot of the same cars! RX-7s, Skylines and the like! They also do a little bit on Kei cars up for auction.
The bit about the actual auction floor is INCREDIBLE. The auctions usually take 20-30 seconds (take THAT ebay!) and 4 go on at the same time. It looks like a pretty intense environment... but really interesting at the same time. They basically set it up as a videogame, by the looks of it!
Advice: skip the first 8 minutes... it's all fluff. Otherwise... enjoy! Lots of good information and shots of really interesting cars in here!
Cheers,
rob