CURRENT CAR CRAZES

A chunky twatmobile

Japan, where I live, is a country with a lot of narrow roads. You’re lucky if you can even find a pavement to walk on outside of the city centres, and as for bicycle lanes….well, there aren’t any. The main road of my particular suburb is barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and us poor pedestrians have to sidle along the sidewalk-less edges.

As a result of this congestion a whole range of small cube-like cars appeared a couple of decades ago. Compact, easy to park - perfect for the Japanese city dweller.

But now I have noticed some emerging autobile trends sweeping the nation that defy all logic.

There are two new styles of car increasingly visible on the cramped roads of Japan which, for a lack of any other known taxonomy I’m going to call Twatmobiles.

Twatmobiles come in two flavours, the Chunky Twatmobile and the Elongated Twatmobile. Let’s look at them in turn.

THE CHUNKY TWATMOBILE

A chunky twatmobile next to a normal human's car

As you can see, the Chunky Twatmobile is an oversized monster that serves no purpose for a city dweller. The inside is no more spacious than a regular car, and if these ugly behemoths have four wheel drive, what use is that in an urban environment?

The only purpose of this vehicle is to show other people that the owner has a car which is bigger than other cars. What stripe of idiot would want this? It’s even more laughable when you consider that these vehicles have to pay more road tax for the privilege of looking like a twat.

One such vehicle resides outside an apartment block on a narrow street I use to get from my local train station to my home. One day the owner had thought it a good idea to leave the gargantuan auto in the street with the driver’s door open. Not only could no other cars pass, I myself, a mere pedestrian, couldn’t pass either. A quick greeting of ‘buy a smaller car, you fucking moron ’ on my part eventually allowed me to continue on my journey. The mindset of those who have such cars is self-evident.

THE ELONGATED TWATMOBILE

While cars such as the Chunky Twatmobile aren’t really anything new, the elongated version definitely is. As the photo above illustrates, it’s a stretched out vehicle which appears to have three rows of seats inside. Perfect for big families, eh? Well, that might be the case if anyone in Japan had big families, but with the average Japanese woman giving birth to less than two babies these days, this is another car which has no purpose.

An elongated twatmobile.

You can see from the picture just how practical this thing is, with it sticking out into the road since it has outgrown regular parking spaces.

Looking at these lengthy beasts as they pass on the roads, it becomes clear that they are Twatmobiles for women, the chunky variety being more the preserve of men. In addition, it’s interesting to note that usually the driver is the sole occupant, with there occasionally being a child or second adult on board.

I confess that as a non-driver I find the whole idea of the roads being filled with people in their own individual moving metal boxes rather ridiculous anyway, but if you must participate in this bizarre human ritual, at least keep it practical.

Personally speaking, I’d love to see these non-sensical chariots of the selfish slapped with ‘Stop a Douchebag’ stickers a la the eponymous Russian anti crap driver movement, although unfortunately it’s not illegal to be afflicted with stupidity and/or bad taste.