One month and 20 days before Zacharias' arrival in Saigon in the middle of the downpour...
........Taiko arrived in his Toyota Crown. Humility and ultra-nationalism despite defeat.
This was also one aspect of his business. American cars for use in the military bases of the occupying troops were discarded. It was cheaper to abandon them than to repatriate them. So cars, jeeps, trucks, kitchens, boots, mess kits and toilets were abandoned as scrap and melted down. That was one of their first businesses. Then, little by little some of them grew in status. Still the Japanese did not make luxury vehicles. Gasoline was horrendously expensive. And that's where he came in. He bought lots of cars from the armed forces, some of them were dismantled to recycle the metal of the bodies, the tire
