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[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben, Narrator] This is a film about a three-generation business
called Naito Auto Engineering,
a secret garage hidden in plain sight in the heart of Tokyo.
Naito Auto's story starts in pre-World War II Japan.
Winds through the dark years of the war, and then rides up like a roller coaster
into the economic boom of the Showa era,
and back down to the current day.
The business was started by Shinichi Naito, an autodidact.
Shinichi was an engineer who first worked with airplanes.
After World War II,
Shinichi found himself surrounded by automobiles,
managing a large service garage.
On weekends, Shinichi and his friends would travel to the Yokota Air Base,
where American GIS would race and show off their foreign sports cars.
Here, Shinichi found his niche.
In 1953, Shinichi quit his job
and decided to open his own service station,
a one-car garage in the heart of Asakusa, a neighborhood of Tokyo.
Today, Naito Auto is run by Shinichi's son, Masao Naito,
with the help of his two sons.
And this is actually a story of Masao, who, in many ways,
is the quintessential Japanese baby boomer.
From humble beginnings, he rode the opportunity of postwar Japan
to make his family business a great success.
His children and even his parents seem to stand in his shadow.
[speaks in Japanese]
[speaking in Japanese]
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] Some years ago,
I was a struggling filmmaker looking for stories
and had the chance to be in Tokyo,
spending nights in a $25 hostel,
living off food from 7-Eleven, and making films
on what they call the shoestring budget.
I had a list of people I was set to meet in the Tokyo Classic car community.
Mechanics, owners, journalists, and even an ex-Formula Three driver.
I had the chance to meet the Naito family early in my trip.
I arrived at their showroom
and after a quick exchange of some gifts I had brought from America,
we headed off to the workshop.
[Masao] Oh, nice.
[Ben] Masao stayed behind.
Just his two sons, So and Kei, and myself made the 30-minute journey
to the place their family had been working for 50 years.
When we arrived at the workshop,
unknown to me at the time, I was about to be tested.
Sitting there in that dingy old shop
were three cars uncovered under the lights.
So and Kei focused all their attention on two of those cars,
a Lotus Elan and a Fiat Abarth.
They sat in the cars, started the engines,
and walked around them showing me details,
and discussing the work they'd done on them.
My photos from that night show just that.
But what my photos don't show or barely show
is the third car, a Ferrari 250 LM.
Now, a car guy would know exactly what that was.
A car guy would ignore the Fiat and the Lotus,
and walk straight up to the Ferrari,
because while the Fiat and the Lotus are worth about $100,000 apiece,
the Ferrari is worth more than $20 million.
The Ferrari is in a different class.
There were only 32 of these cars ever built,
and a couple of them won the 24 Hour of Le Mans in 1965.
A car guy would know that.
But I was not a car guy.
At least not when I first met the Naitos.
And that's exactly why they wanted to work with me.
They wanted to work with a guy that was more interested in their story,
not in their car collection.
That first meeting with the Naitos would prove to them,
despite never having opened their doors to a filmmaker,
that they would agree to allow me to document their work
and their workshop and their life.
[So, in Japanese] It could be motorcycles,
airplanes, I don't know.
It's different for different people.
For our family, though, it's cars.
Hello, I'm So Naito, from Naito Auto Engineering.
This is my fourteenth year since I started working for Naito Auto Engineering.
When you use… [clear throat] your hands to do this work,
you get a feel for the people who made the cars,
the designers, the craftsmen…
and you can sense the passion they had.
And those cars, I guess…
…they aren't just a means to get from place to place.
We pour our feelings into our work.
When the restoration is done, and it's time to run the car,
there is a joy that's hard to put into words.
Once you get a taste of that…
I don't know…
…you can't quit.
You put everything into your work
for months…
…and you see the finished car.
That feeling is something that…
…is priceless.
[chattering in Japanese]
[David] The Naitos are very private,
and what's unusual is most shops,
they advertise all around the world, they're open to the public.
They do not do that.
They choose the customers. The customers do not choose them.
They're not open to the public.
[muffled chatter in Japanese]
It, it's like hearing about Aladdin's cave
and that it really exists.
My name is David Gooding. I'm co-founder of Gooding and Company,
and, uh, I have been in the, uh, auction business
for probably 30 years, but around the Classic Car market, uh, all my life.
You know, one thing that really impressed me about the Naitos
is that they are so careful in their approach
and, uh, nothing is rushed,
and that they take on every project,
uh, with great care.
[muffled chatter in Japanese]
Here's this shop of only five people,
and they're working on
some of the most coveted and valuable cars in the world.
I mean, we talk about a 250 LM Ferrari, a 911 R,
cars that, uh, the world's top collections are looking for,
and the fact that they, uh, have restored them,
sourced them, found them, owned them,
uh, it's truly remarkable.
There are many people within our industry, top-level people
that have never even heard about them, seen the shop,
or know anything about the Naito family.
It is really unheard of.
And for those of us in the business…
that's magical.
[chattering in Japanese]
[in Japanese] Um, my name is Masao Naito.
Uh, born in 1949, August 3rd.
Uh, I was president of Naito Auto Engineering
until last year,
but I'm now retired and no longer working.
[Japanese folk music]
[Masao] When I was a kid,
my dad, he ran his own business.
It was called Naito Automobile Garage,
and it was up in Asakusa, in Taito Ward in Tokyo.
I remember thinking, as my dad worked on cars,
that this work was way too hard.
You get covered in grease.
It struck me as being really hard.
I remember wanting to avoid this line of work.
[Ben] Shinichi Naito was a man from a Japan that no longer exists.
Before World War II, Japanese school children
were taught with military-like discipline.
Sometimes, with military supervision.
Born in 1919 and raised during a depression,
Shinichi's family struggled to feed their seven children.
So Shinichi stopped going to school
and worked odd jobs to help the family.
Early on, he fell in love with motorcycles,
bought books on how to fix them and studied avidly in his free time.
And somehow, he was able to turn this knowledge
into a highly skilled profession.
The details of his first job as an engineer are murky.
But before and during World War II, he worked at Nakajima Aircraft Company,
building and maintaining fighter planes for the Japanese military.
[Masao, in Japanese] Everyone else there had impressive academic records.
Apparently, he was the only one at Nakajima who didn't have a degree.
It was very rare.
He must have studied really hard on his own.
[Ben] It's hard to visualize how different Shinichi was.
Children that dropped out of school in Japan
would eventually find themselves in low-wage manual-labor jobs,
rarely with any large responsibility.
But Shinichi was working alongside highly skilled engineers
on the most sophisticated combustion engines of the day.
"Rare" doesn't describe it.
It was unheard of.
But the real genius was what Shinichi decided to do
after the war ended.
[in Japanese] How should I put this?
Uh, it wasn't that he wanted to work on cars or restore them.
It was that the aircraft company was dismantled.
So he lost his job.
And right at the same time,
there were lots of American soldiers
in Japan because of the Korean War.
The officers had
these amazing cars.
But no one in Japan knew how to fix them.
That's where my dad came in. He knew how.
He went to Yokota every week to work on those cars.
Cars like the Aston-Martin DB3,
the Mercedes Benz 300SL with the gull-wing doors.
We called them "ultra super cars."
[serene piano music continues]
He was able to save a little money,
and he started Naito Auto Engineering, Inc.
And that's how it all began.
[men chattering in Japanese]
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] With Shinichi's skills as a mechanic,
Naito Auto was off and running.
At his last job, Shinichi had built a client base
that followed him when he opened his own shop.
His one-car service station was working exclusively on foreign cars,
an anomaly in '50s and '60s Japan.
[producer, in Japanese] They were mostly foreign cars?
[Masao] Not mostly. All of them.
[indistinct chatter in Japanese]
[Masao] My parents had their hands full
with the cars and the customers.
So they had to stay up late into the night,
just to keep up.
They were that busy.
I'd see from the corner of my eye,
mom and dad working late,
uh, as I left in the car with my friends.
[Ben] It used to be that in family businesses,
a son would have to learn to earn his keep outside of the family
before becoming an employee of his father's.
So Masao, straight out of school at the age of 22,
began working at Kintetsu Motors,
an authorized Ford dealer, on his father's recommendation.
What Masao did learn from his father, he learned by watching.
And when he began his career as a mechanic,
Masao realized he had a massive leg up on his peers
and excelled.
[in Japanese] Uh, no one needed to tell me
how the different machines worked.
I knew all that already.
Even though it was my first job,
I was able to fix things without asking questions.
That was all because of my father.
[Ben] So having a father that's a technical genius
can help you become a good mechanic.
But what it doesn't do is make you a good businessman.
So how did Masao turn his father's small service station
into a world-class business with the world's most valuable cars?
By going to Los Angeles.
That's how.
Arriving in LA with no money,
he first found work as a gardener
alongside men from Okinawa he met at a boarding house.
But soon, instinct kicked in and he was back working with cars.
First at a radiator shop off the 405 freeway
and then, something a little different.
[Masao, in Japanese] I picked up a little side work doing paint jobs
for guys that seemed like thieves.
They would come to me and…
Of course, they wouldn't say the car was stolen.
But I had a feeling.
[Ben] Having saved a bit of money,
what he did next proved fateful
and was probably the moment he went from employee
to boss.
[Masao, in Japanese] The reason I bought the Barracuda was
I thought I'd look cool driving it in Japan.
I bought the car for $4000.
I drove it around to show off, and a guy said, "Sell it to me!"
I sold it a week after I got home.
Even with all the fees…
…I sold it for double.
And I thought to myself,
"Maybe this could turn into a business for me."
I guess it was three days after I sold it, if I remember,
that I went back to Los Angeles.
This time to buy cars.
[Asami] I was in Ginza, waiting for the light to change.
He stood diagonally in front of me.
I thought, "Oh, I think that might be Naito-kun,"
the one I was introduced to the other day.
I said, "Naito-kun?"
He probably said, "Kosuge-san?"
My maiden name is Kosuge.
And he was like, "Do you want to get tea?"
That was the beginning.
My name is Asami Naito.
Nice to meet you.
I'm the "Okami-san (Lady of the House)" of Naito Auto.
After we started dating, he'd pick me up in a car. Right?
And the first car was…
…a De Tomaso Pantera.
It was an amazing supercar.
The body was this low, like it was laying flat,
it was huge
and was incredibly wide, too, like it was squished.
I could hear his car from a block away.
[Masao speaking in Japanese]
[Asami] Each time he pulled up, he'd be in a different car.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Asami] I thought, "Wow!
He must have a spectacular auto shop."
When I actually saw it, it wasn't at all what I imagined.
I was like, "What?"
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] Buying and selling cars became Masao's primary focus.
And quickly, Naito Auto transformed from a small service station
to an international business,
importing and selling cars from around the world.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Masao, in Japanese] At the time, I could have bought four cars,
but that was scary, so I bought two.
I brought them to Japan,
and in the blink of an eye,
uh, because the price was so low, I sold them for double, again.
That laid the foundation for these cars today.
[Ben] Built on his father's foundation,
Masao had found his niche,
an untapped market in Japan
that proved to be much more lucrative for the company
than service and restoration.
And quickly, the business and his father shifted their focus.
[chattering in Japanese]
[chattering continues]
[Ben] The family business was growing
and soon, Masao set his sights on the UK.
He focused on British cars first,
the Lotus Salon and Elite,
or the Mini Cooper S Mark I and II,
popular models that would sell easily in Japan.
Learning English on the fly, the world was wide open.
[in Japanese] Back then… I didn't know any better.
I stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel in London,
a high-end luxury hotel.
I kept all the cars I bought in the hotel parking lot.
Once I had ten cars, I sent for the forwarder
who'd come take them to send to Japan.
[Ben] This is where Masao excelled.
So while he was importing those Lotus and Mini models,
he was also thinking ahead,
knowing that his father was always in the workshop,
Masao would buy cars that most would overlook,
cars used in races discarded as junk,
waiting for the right moment.
[Masao, in Japanese] The old cars were cheap.
For example, you could buy an old Ferrari 250 SWB
for the price of a new Lotus Elan.
But it would be a total junker.
[Ben] A Ferrari 250 SWB is worth $10 million today.
But when Masao saw them sitting in disrepair
in the back corner of a garage outside of London,
he could buy them for around $6000.
But the trust worked both ways.
Masao knew his father was ready to handle this new venture,
but Shinichi as well had to trust his son
and was prepared to sacrifice all that they had worked for
to support Masao's dream.
[Masao, in Japanese] When I told my father I wanted a certain car,
um, but we'd have to sell the house to buy it,
he would say, "Just sell it. We can rent an apartment."
No matter what I wanted to do, he never opposed it.
"Just buy the cars that you want."
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] This building is more than just a workshop.
For many years, it was also a home.
Here, Masao started his family.
Three children he raised under this roof
alongside the grandparents and Masao's younger brother.
Downstairs, the men worked on cars,
while upstairs, the women prepared meals,
tended to the children, and managed the finances.
Above the workshop, in this tiny three-room apartment,
the Naito family lived together,
ate together,
and built a business together.
[So, in Japanese] My first memories are of the workshop downstairs.
Of course, there was smoke
from the engines and the smell of gasoline.
It was overwhelming, all the fumes would come upstairs.
[chattering in Japanese]
To marry into a family to live with them, you know, I think that's hard.
I think it's difficult.
[muffled chatter in Japanese]
I was born and raised differently.
Don't be scared.
[muffled chatter in Japanese]
[Asami] And I was scared of his mother.
My heart was pounding.
[chattering in Japanese]
It would have been better if the home was big,
but it was small and cramped.
[muffled chatter in Japanese]
[So] The five of us in a single six-mat room.
We basically slept right up against each other.
There was a living room, where we all ate together,
and across that,
grandpa and grandma in another six-mat room.
It was tiny.
But at the time, it was a lot of fun.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] At first glance, the family seems to work together
in perfect harmony.
Upstairs, three generations lived in a cramped apartment,
slept cheek to jowl,
while downstairs, some of the world's greatest cars
were serviced with artistry and precision.
Knowledge passed down day by day over a lifetime from father to son.
Masao was the brains of the operation, overseeing the smallest details.
His word is law.
He rules with a quiet force.
Orders come in short bursts,
followed by one of his children rushing off to complete a task.
[Masao, in Japanese] We'll leave the rest to you guys.
Check before you back out.
[Ben] Tensions arise, but never for the camera.
And never outside of the home.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] And despite this, the Naitos stick together
as a family and as a business.
Decisions are made in Masao's dining room.
At this table, he makes his wishes known,
who they can sell cars to, who they can buy cars from…
[chattering in Japanese]
…and who they must avoid.
Maybe it's like this for good reason.
Or maybe he won't let go.
A family, like a business, must have its leader.
And Masao was born to rule, to be in control.
And this control he hasn't shared with anyone.
Not his father, not his brother,
and not his sons.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] This workshop is a moment frozen in time,
but the work is what's fascinating.
Knowledge stored up over years.
Lessons that become instincts gained through experience,
not teaching.
And this creates synchronicity.
[muffled chatter in Japanese]
Tools, car parts, workbenches, oil cans, and scrap metal
strewn about this shop with its leaky roof and broken windows.
But it works so well.
And despite the mess, or because of the mess,
the cars are immaculate.
But there's magic in the discipline and the dedication to a routine.
[speaks in Japanese]
[Ben] Like clockwork, they wake up at 5:30 in the morning.
By 7:00, they've eaten breakfast, had a cup of coffee,
and are dressed in their workshop clothes.
Masao and his sons gather
in the showroom downstairs from Masao's home
and discuss the day's tasks.
They pack the car with parts or tools that have arrived by mail,
and at 7:30, they're on the road headed to the workshop.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] When they arrive,
their two employees have arrived just moments before,
and with little more than a good morning, work begins.
There's very little talking during work hours.
No music, no idle chatter.
Just five men completing tasks.
From warm days to cold, the only thing that changes
are the number of layers they wear
and the temperature of the coffee during breaks.
A nearby vending machine provides them with all they need.
And they always break together.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] Tools that were purchased when the business opened,
haven't been discarded for the newest models,
but used as intended.
With as many parts they can source from the original factories,
they put these cars back on the road to be enjoyed by themselves
and their select group of customers.
Their philosophy has always been simple.
Restoration as close to the original as possible.
The work is silently watched over by Masao's patriarchal eye.
His two sons, in their forties,
work alongside their father day in and day out,
listening, watching, and being shown how it's done.
Their employees are also part of the family.
One is Masao's younger brother,
who, having never worked anywhere else in his life,
must be content to never rise in the ranks
as it was first his father
and today, his brother, who will always be his boss.
[chattering in Japanese]
[in Japanese] My name is Shigeru Naito.
I joined Naito Auto about 45 years ago.
I loved cars, and as I watched my dad work,
I wanted cars, wanted to ride in cars,
and ultimately, wanted to fix cars.
Our current chairman (Masao) told me to go to England.
I went for half a year.
I learned a lot about racing.
Back then, I wasn't one to race on the circuit.
I had no talent for that.
With the boss…
Just like at any other workplace,
there's a boss-subordinate relationship, which is hard.
I've watched Naito Auto all these years,
and I can say it's transformed into a different company
from my dad's time.
[chattering in Japanese]
All this time, I feel that I've been trying really hard.
Quite hard.
But still, my dad's presence is so great.
I've realized that I'll never surpass him.
Not him.
I think I've done the best I could.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] The fifth and most valued employee
of Naito Auto is the shop foreman,
a distant cousin of the Naitos by marriage.
Of all the men under this roof,
he most embodies the spirit of the shokunin,
a true craftsman.
His life is dedicated to these cars in the same shop for over 50 years.
Originally hired by Shinichi when he was just 23 years old,
he's been working at Naito Auto longer than Masao.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] His skills speak volumes within the company,
and he is tasked with holding the most knowledge
of how these cars must be maintained.
Today, the most stressful part of his job
is ensuring that this knowledge is passed down
before it's his time to retire.
[men chattering in Japanese]
[in Japanese] I'm the foreman at Naito Auto.
My name is Nakagawa.
[chattering in Japanese]
[chatter continues]
I want the boys to master
all the technical things.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Nakagawa] Of course, they'll need sales and things like that,
but the basis for that is restoration and repairs.
They have to know their stuff.
[chattering in Japanese]
I'm getting old, you know.
The sooner the better, or the work can't be carried on.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Nakagawa] How should I put it?
If So and Kei could…
…do all the work on their own without guidance,
that would be ideal.
[chattering in Japanese]
I'd like them to try harder.
[chattering in Japanese]
It would be great if the people you leave things to do a good job.
Maybe their teachers
aren't doing a good job, I don't know.
The teaching may leave something to be desired.
[producer] How much longer do you want to work as an engineer?
Or do you want to quit?
Well…
I'll keep going
as long as I can.
But at most, I've got five years left.
Ten years is pushing it.
[Ben] It's the twilight for Masao's generation.
The baby boomers who watched their parents come through the war
and decided they were gonna do things their way.
Opportunities were everywhere.
Optimism reigned.
His father stepped aside and trusted Masao's vision and grit.
But by the time his children came of age,
Japan's prosperity was on the decline.
It seems that Masao has heirs of blood,
but none of vision or opportunity.
And yet, he's often inscrutable.
At times, contradicts himself.
He claims to be retired, but here he is, every day,
running even the smallest details of the operation.
[speaking in Japanese]
[Ben] Near the end of my time with the family,
I saw this clearer than ever before.
Recently, he's fired his younger brother Shigeru
after the two had an argument.
And as mysteriously as he allowed filming to begin,
he's decided it's come to an end.
And today, I'm not welcome in the showroom or the workshop.
But I'd like to believe that Masao's decision
was rooted in empathy, not anger,
as he knew that in order to tell the story honestly,
I needed space away from the family.
I needed perspective, and this was how he helped me.
A question remains,
what will happen when Masao's shadow fades?
Eventually, So and Kei will have to stand in the light on their own.
But today, their father remains perched high above them.
It's possible he's waiting for his sons to have the will to push him aside.
Or maybe, he plans to remain in the workshop
as Shinichi did till his dying days.
Masao and Nakagawa are nearing 80 years old.
With deep reverence for the ways of the past,
they preserve hope for the younger generation.
But these men represent a dying breed.
Their lives dedicated to a craft…
…you have to wonder if the knowledge of their work will be lost.
[chattering in Japanese]
[Masao, in Japanese] You have to have a sense of self-sacrifice.
If you don't, everyone will leave.
With self-sacrifice, the family comes together.
[speaking in Japanese]
[Masao] I'm not important.
The family is important.
But that was the Japanese spirit, originally.
Everyone was like that…
…in the old days.
[Ben] Early in my filming with the Naitos,
I made a pretty big mistake.
We had a plan.
Meet at the workshop at 4:00 a.m.
and drive to the countryside with their Porsche 907.
Everyone was coming.
Masao, So and Kei, Shigeru, Nakagawa,
and an assistant I had hired for the day.
But that morning, I missed my alarm.
Missed it because it never went off.
I woke up at 6:00, saw the light in the sky and knew.
My heart sank.
It was too late to make it right.
Everyone was back home.
The day was scrapped.
I tried to call the family to apologize, but no one answered.
I got a text reply that simply said,
"Don't worry. We'll talk later."
I decided the best thing to do
was to try to apologize to Masao face-to-face.
First, I went to the 7-Eleven and got some cash,
enough to cover his employees' time.
And then, I went to the showroom and waited.
I didn't call.
I didn't ring the bell.
I just stood outside.
Six hours I waited on the street.
Finally, Masao appeared, headed to the grocery store.
He was surprised to see me and said hello in his usual jovial way.
I handed him the envelope of cash and said sorry many times over.
-[speaking in Japanese] -[Ben] He patted me on the back,
a cigarette hanging out of his mouth,
and said, "No problem, no problem, don't worry."
Before I could say another word, he was on his bike and gone to the market.
[in Japanese accent] Finish.
Finish your adventure.
[Ben] I didn't hear from them for a couple of days,
but then I got a text.
"Tomorrow morning, be at the showroom 5:00 a.m."
[chattering in Japanese]
[Ben] I went back to 7-Eleven and bought two alarm clocks.
I don't think I slept that night.
When I got to the showroom the next morning,
there was Masao and the 907 waiting for me.
Masao looked at me with a big smile and said, "Take two."
That morning, So, Kei, and I took the car out to a street Masao had suggested.
He stayed behind.
For Masao and the men of his generation,
the story is coming to an end.
But for Naito Auto,
the story is still being written.
[chattering in Japanese]