The incumbent minister drove the memorial parade

It was an action no one expected. On 29 October 2022, at Nara Toyota’s Tawaramoto headquarters, Liberal Democratic Party Minister for Economic and Security Affairs Sanae Takaichi attended a ceremony to mark the completion of the restoration of her long-time A70 Supra (also Nagano Olympic Commemorative Car). At the commemorative parade, Minister Takaichi took the wheel of her once beloved Supra and drove it in the parade.

Her love of cars was open to the public in an article on a news website

It is very rare for an incumbent minister to drive on public roads. Originally, Minister Takaichi was only supposed to start the engine and Nara Toyota President Kikuchi would drive the car in the parade.

She was excited to see her former car resurrected like a new car for the first time in 10 years. Immediately after starting the engine, she repeatedly pushed her right hand out of the window to express her happiness. She drove off without giving up the driver’s seat to President Kikuchi. The unexpected event took everyone around her by surprise. Not only those involved with Nara Toyota but also the Nara Prefectural Police, who were in charge of security, must have been startled.

For Minister Takaichi, the completion of the Supra’s restoration was a great episode that showed how much she had looked forward to it and how much she still loves it as an ex-owner.

Sanae Takaichi’s love of cars became public knowledge on 12 September, shortly after her official candidacy for the presidential election on 8 September 2021, when the Daily Shincho distributed the following article: ‘Former Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi’s favorite car is a 4.3 million yen ‘Supra’. The article was entitled ‘A photo of her smiling face after 22 years of driving’.

The article is taken from ‘Celebrities’ slightly unusual cars’, which appeared in the Weekly Shincho (30 August 2012) 2012. The white Supra was the first new car I bought in my life. She drove it back and forth between Tokyo and Nara and around her constituency in Nara Prefecture, and after she lost the election, she drove it while playing B’z songs. She cherished the car for 22 years, and after deciding to leave it, she asked a local mechanic in Nara to store it for her, saying she “just couldn’t throw it away”.

People came to see the Supra at the election office

After the article was distributed, “Sanae Takaichi” became one of the top search terms on the Internet. In addition, many positive comments were uploaded to social networking sites, mainly by car enthusiasts. During the following election in September of the same year, a ‘Sanae Supra’ was displayed outside her local election office in Nara. The story was covered nationwide, and many people visited the office to take photos with the Supra.

It was Mr. Kikuchi who suggested placing the Supra in the office. Nara Toyota, of which Mr. Kikuchi is a representative, has been actively involved in the restoration of vintage cars. Called the ‘Restoration Project’, volunteer mechanics get together and restore one or two cars a year. Unfortunately, they do not accept restorations from the public, but completed vehicles can be seen at the Mahoroba Museum in Nara City.

This led to the decision to restore Minister Takaichi’s Supra in 2022, the 80th anniversary year of Nara Toyota.