Densho Digital Archive - Tom Ikkanda Interview (denshovh-itom-01-0016)

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KP: I just had a question if you don't mind. I noticed in a book that said that you started repairing and also selling Japanese cars early on?

TI: Oh, yeah. That's afterward. Later on in the year, many years later, after, you know, the war. Japan started manufacturing cars, and believe it or not, they started shipping 'em here. And so right away, we decided we'd better get into it. So we got into it, and luckily, it was a good business to get into because whenever the engines went bad or something, they had no way of getting them. So I, real quickly, I went into Japan and went to, around the junkyards over there, and I made deals with them to ship me the engines. And they said, "Well, what do you want engines for?" And I says, "Well, in the United States, they could use them in cars over there." So they said, "Rich Americans don't fix cars, they just throw 'em away, don't they?" I said, "No, they fix 'em up." And they said, no, they can't believe it, you know. "Americans are all rich, they don't have to fix their cars." I said, "No, they do." And so I talked 'em into selling me the engines, so we bought 'em and shipped 'em here. Well, at that time, we were buying 'em for almost peanuts, and we're making good money at it. And I got into it, that's where I made most of my money.

KP: So as a mechanic, and having worked on American cars, and you started seeing these Japanese cars, what did you think of them? Did you see any difference in the way they were built or how they lasted or what wore out?

TI: Actually, the engines were very simple. In fact, I don't know why we didn't do the same thing. Yeah, they made their cars, their engines were really simple. And the transmissions, too, very simple. And just made it heavier duty. And heck, in Japan, they would drive their cars for maybe only a thousand miles, and they would scrap the cars. 'Cause they didn't have no place to drive to anyway. And that's why the engines we shipped here were beautiful engines, nothing wrong with 'em. And so before you know it, why, we started raising our prices here little by little, and shipping 'em all over the U.S. Opened a company called International Parts, and we were shipping engines all over the U.S. So we were shipping engines here like mad.

KP: What, do you remember what year that was?

TI: Oh, maybe (1960). (1960), around there. I also shipped some cars from here over there, too. 'Cause they liked the, some of the richer Japanese like American sports cars, like the Mustangs, Corvettes, they loved them over there. So it was a chance making money on those, shipping 'em there. And then all of a sudden, they had a big gasoline strike all over the world, if you remember, when gasolines are hard to get. Well, then, in Japan, they're saying it got hard for them to buy gasoline over there, especially gas-eating U.S. cars. So we had to stop our business. And in the meantime, our business from their engines here got better and better. And the gasoline got plentiful again. But I didn't go into shipping to Japan at all. Just shipping engines here, and transmissions. It was a pretty good business.