MG Car Club of South Australia
Fukuyama Automobile and Clock Museum
From .Stephen Marlow
“On the left is a 1961 Datsun Fairlady; on
the right is a 1935 Bugatti; and in be-
tween them is a 1951 MGTD”. Welcome
to the Fukuyama Automobile and Clock
Museum, a dusty and eclectic mix of
cars, motorbikes, clocks, guns, televi-
sions, radiograms, statues (including
Elvis, Barack Obama and Abraham Lin-
coln), gas cookers, a working pianola
and probably much more I’ve left out.
FACM – as it’s affectionately known (be
careful how you say it) is a big tourist
attraction in my son’s adopted home
town of Fukuyama in Japan’s Hiroshima
Prefecture so obviously a must-visit site
for my wife, Chris, and I during a recent
family visit.
Where to start! I’ll come back to the
MGTD but let me first list a 1935 Datsun
open tourer (and many other early Da-
tsuns); a T model Ford; a 1949 Willys
Jeep sedan; a 1950 3-wheeler Hi-
roshima Batanko taxi; a 3-wheeler fire
engine (year unknown) and you’ll start to
get the picture.
As a Subaru is my ‘weekday car’ I was
interested in the 1964 Subaru 360 K111,
which I’d never heard of before – exam-
ples including a ‘sedan’ and something
vaguely resembling a hatchback. And
was the 1962 Mazda 360 coupe a fore-
runner of the MX5???
There were many motorbikes, some with
sidecars, and a peculiar example tucked
away behind a dusty Maserati which
looked as though it had been made out
of a kerosene tin (the bike, not the Ma-
serati).
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