More high-profile new cars are hitting the market than have been seen for nearly 20 years, creating buzz everywhere but Japan.
Flick through the Japanese motoring press and you'd be forgiven for thinking that 2007 has been just a ho-hum, normal year for the nation's car industry. But that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Not since 1989 have Japanese manufacturers pumped out so many high-profile, globally significant automobiles in such a short space of time. It's as if the Sony Walkman, Pokemon, iPod, PSP and Nintendo's Wii all rolled out on top of one other.