Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: side mirror wipers

Nissan Cima Y31 Mirror Wipers [JDM Trivia #11]

JDM Trivia #11: Nissan Cima Y31 Mirror Wipers

When I thought the Japanese chindogu Side Wipers were the strangest thing that once used to be an accessory on a car I ran into this:
JDM Trivia #11: Nissan Cima Y31 Mirror Wipers
Mirror wipers!

Will that fit on my Honda?

At first I thought that this was another chindogu, in other words: a useless innovation. However a few days later I found my car in foggy weather and the fog created lots of small water droplets on my mirrors. Even the mirror heating option did not resolve this. Then I realized I was wrong: I need a set of these amazing mirror wipers on my Honda! Continue reading

Useless Japanese car innovations: side mirror wipers

This is going to be a new regular feature to my blog, just like the Carina Sightings.

You’ve seen them around on Japanese cars: useless car innovations which hardly add anything to the experience. Most of them emerged somewhere in the late 80s and early 90s till the Asia-recession struck Japan very hard and made the car manufacturers save costs by eliminating these innovations.

For starters I found these great side mirror wipers:
useless car innovations: side mirror wipers
Side mirror wipers on a 1988 Toyota Mark II X80

They are not really mirror wipers, but rather side screen wipers for only a small portion of the side screen.

Then what is the actual use of this innovation? Well, as you can see this wiper is mounted on the left side of the car. So for a Japanese it would be on the passenger side of the car. That means you don’t need to open the window on the passenger side to clean the side window. But if you already have power windows (most probably Mark II models of 1988 did feature power windows) you can clean them by opening and closing the passenger window, so what is the use??

Well, the only use I can think about is that you won’t get cold by opening the passenger window. What a great innovation! 😛

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