The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Inc. (Chairman: Itaru Koeda) closed the 39th Tokyo Motor Show at 7:00 p.m., Sunday, November 6. The show ran successfully for a period of 17 days beginning Friday, October 21. It was held at the Makuhari Messe complex in Chiba. A total of 1,512,100 visitors were recorded.
The theme for the show is "'Driving Tomorrow!' from Tokyo." It expresses the Tokyo Motor Show's commitment to being the festive place where people can experience the world's most advanced technologies and designs, while at the same time serving as a source of up-to-the-minute information on interactions between the automobile and motorized society. The show featured large numbers of World Premieres, exhibits on advanced environment and safety technologies, a retrospective looking back on its 50 year history, and a wide variety of "audience-participation, hands-on" events designed to appeal to female visitors and families. All these elements have made this year's show an outstanding success.
The show also help large numbers of visitors to see advanced environment and safety technologies for themselves, reaffirming the fun and excitement of automobiles and providing new dreams for the future. It was in every sense worthy of its position as a "landmark show," marking the first step into the next 50 years of the Tokyo Motor Show.
The show set a goal of 1.5 million visitors, which it more than exceeded. Attendance was up by 91,700 (106.5 %) compared to the 1,420, 400 people who came to the 37th show in 2003. The Tokyo Motor Show received the largest number of visitors this time among the Big Five shows (Detroit, Frankfurt, Geneva, Paris, and Tokyo). By extending the show period for four days, the organizer was able to include three weekends instead of the usual two, resulting in 79.8 % of the Saturday/Sunday/holiday visitor levels compared to the previous show. By smoothing out the number of visitors and relieving congestion, the organizer ensured that visitors were able to enjoy the show itself even during the weekend times.
The Tokyo Motor Show had 79 World Premieres and 120 Japan Premieres this year. A total of exhibited 55 environment-friendly vehicles included 6 fuel cell vehicles, 3 hydrogen vehicles, 10 electric vehicles, and 17 hybrid vehicles. There were also large numbers of safety-technology displays, and visitors were attracted by the opportunity to see for themselves where technology is heading in these areas.
One of the most popular parts of the show was the "Special Exhibit to Commemorate the 50 Years of the Tokyo Motor Show" held in the Event Hall. Likewise, visitors were attracted to the "Carrozzeria Exhibit" of original cars from domestic and foreign design studios and to the variety of "audience-participation, hands-on" events held in "Festival Park," an outdoor area for traffic safety education. Like the previous show (the 37th show in 2003), this year's show offered test rides of clean energy vehicles, and during the show 18,783 people took the opportunity to try the cars of the future. That number surpassed 16,233 at the previous show.
The Tokyo Motor Show will have a year off in 2006; the next show is scheduled for the fall of 2007 at Makuhari Messe and will be a comprehensive show that includes passenger cars, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, commercial vehicle bodies and parts. The 2007 show will be the first in a new, comprehensive biannual format, and the final schedule will be announced in March 2006.
The Tokyo Motor Show will be the only one of the "Big Five" shows (Detroit, Frankfurt, Geneva, Paris, Tokyo [alphabetical order]) to include large commercial vehicles. While there are still many challenges to be overcome, particularly in securing sufficient exhibition space, the Tokyo Motor Show will use the experience and expertise built up over its 50-year history to create an attractive general show that will bring together all categories of vehicle, thereby creating a show that provides the maximum amount of information in a compact, well-designed format.
| Name: | The 40th Tokyo Motor Show 2007 (name tentative) |
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| Organizer: | Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association Inc. |
| Dates: | Fall, 2007 |
| Venue: | Makuhari Messe, Makuhari, Chiba, Japan |
