A Kei Truck, or Japanese Mini Truck, is a laughingly small yet utilitarian pickup truck built to satisfy the Japanese “light vehicle” statutory class. They are known as 'Keitora' in Japan. Although imbued with a kind of character befitting a charming children’s cartoon, Kei Trucks are not always viewed as collectible vehicles in their country of origin and are only now coming into the fold with Western enthusiasts. Enthusiasts like Clark Sopper and Jen Harris of RoundCat Racing, designers by trade, who have a keen eye and deep appreciation for the subtlety and uniqueness in the objects around us.

Eager to know more about RoundCat’s collection of Mini Trucks, we sat down with Clark Sopper to learn what he loves about these unique vehicles and what kicked off his collection.

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Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

Marqued: First things, first: what’s RoundCat Racing?

Clark Sopper: I guess the simplest thing is it's a celebration of charming utility. I'm a designer. I have a design studio, which is how I earn an income. I really love working on projects that have some kind of utility component to them. I really love the intersection of form and function where an object couldn't exist if you removed either the form or the function, where the object ceases to exist as an object. And in the vehicle space, for me, that’s exemplified by cute, small utility vehicles. RoundCat is sort of this idea that elemental mobility is fun. Small vehicles are fun. Purposeful vehicles are fun. And we originally created RoundCat as a way to differentiate the vehicle hobby from the design studio.

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Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

Marqued: Have you always been into Kei cars and Japanese design?

Clark: I've always been into bubble-era Japanese design. So the idea that the Walkman is a near-perfect object. It was inexpensive. It was a mechanical, complex masterpiece that worked flawlessly. It had all these injection molded parts that they could make bazillions of and with enormous consistency. And that, from a design and manufacturing perspective, is really exciting to me. I feel like it's easy to build one thing. It's easy to build 10 things by hand. You can’t fudge stuff to build a million things in incredibly high quality. And so the quality of the design coming out of Japan, pre-economic bubble in ‘91, combined with the quality of manufacturing, is just off the charts. I don't think it has ever been replicated.

And then I discovered trucks because when I was in high school I worked on an organic farm in my hometown. There was a collection of 10 to 20-year-old F-150s. These field trucks. We would drive into the fields and put the vegetables into them and whatnot. And shortly after I stopped working there, the farmer got a couple of Kei trucks to replace his aging F-150 fleet. And I immediately was captivated by them because I'd never seen them before, but I never got to drive them at the time because I didn't work there anymore.

Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

And it just stuck in my head. And periodically I'd search on Craigslist. I lived in New York City for a while. I didn't need a car. But I ended up in California. I had a garage. For a long time, I had some time for a hobby. I had some spending money. I traveled to Japan to visit a friend. And the mission on that trip was to buy a Motocompo. So I was visiting the shop that had the Motocompo for sale. And then I casually mentioned to the guy, "I love your Kei truck, because it's pretty mint." I was like, "I've always wanted one of these things." And he's like, "Oh, well, I can ship if you want a truck as well. You're already getting the Motocompo. You can buy both."

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Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

And so that was sort of a light bulb moment, like, “I can do this.” And I had a Japanese friend who's a car enthusiast to help me look at auctions. And I bought the first truck and shipped it over. And I got really lucky with the first truck. I bought it sight unseen from the very southern tip of Japan. And it is still my favorite truck in my collection. It was in surprisingly nice condition. Totally accidentally. And I think that was what set the hook. I thought these vehicles were of enormous quality. They have enormous utility. This thing is 30 years old, and it's still in amazing shape.

Marqued: How many of these have you brought over?

Clark: I think between 12 and 14.

Marqued: That's a lot of cars. That's pretty amazing. In terms of the import process, I imagine there was a bit of a learning curve.

Clark: There's a number of people on both sides of the Pacific who can really help sort of smooth the process. There are a couple of companies in Japan that will help you buy from auctions and will put it on the boat for you. And really make it an easy turnkey process. I haven't used them because I've got a buddy in Tokyo who's helped me out. And so we just do it ourselves at our own pace.

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Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

But otherwise, it's a giant pain in the ass to put it together yourself. And you have to work with brokers and shipping people in Japan. You have to get the car from wherever the car is to the port. If you want to have any repairs done before it leaves, which I highly recommend, then you have to get into a shop and you have to pay the shop. There's a bunch of little steps. If you don't have someone on the ground, you need to pay one of the shops that do it well.

Marqued: You mentioned you'd like to get the cars inspected or worked on before they get shipped over. Is that because of parts availability being better over there?

Clark: Yeah. If a mechanic can lay eyes on it and give it a thorough inspection, then it's so much easier with the parts supply right there. I think it makes everything easier, and it makes it a lot more satisfying for me. I'm not a mechanic of passion. I'm not the person who's like every weekend goes and wrenches on the car to blow off steam. I do it as a way to understand the car and to sort of become friends with the car. If you're all about a project, then you probably would have a very different opinion.

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Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

Marqued: If you do need to fix something once a car is in the US, are parts hard to source?

Clark: I think that most of the service parts and the consumables are available in the US at a two or three times markup. But they are available. The bigger concern is that the 80s truck parts are really drying up, even in Japan, and a lot of stuff isn't available anymore. And the 90s OEM truck stuff is beginning to disappear. So it's not like a panic time, but in five years or 10 years, it's going to be harder to maintain.

Marqued: What’s the community like around these cars?

Clark: In Japan, they're still considered tools. A lot of my Japanese clients think it’s funny. In a meeting, without fail, somebody will be like, “Clark collects Kei trucks” because it always gets a good laugh. It's like somebody came to you and was like, "I collect white Ford vans from the 90s. The utility ones with no windows.” But I think that there's beginning to be a pivot in the last couple of years, where car enthusiasts are buying these things.

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Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

And young enthusiasts are seeing them as an affordable first vintage vehicle. They appeal to young people. And they're also whimsical which appeals to young people. I get tons of attention from people under 35, and people over 60. All the young people at a show come by and talk to us. And then all the older dudes are like, "Oh, this is neat."

But the middle of the car collecting world is perhaps a little slow to warm up to these as collectible. And this is because it's not traditional, it's not European, it's not expensive, it's not produced by hand, by people drinking Grappa. It's a utility thing. And I think that young people who grew up with this bubble-era Japanese design like I did understand the joy of utility and understand the magic of a really, really, really nice utility object that is equal part design and equal part of the utility.

Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

Marqued: For people who would like to get into these cars, do you encourage them to get in touch with you? Are there forums? What's the best way for someone to enter this ecosystem of enthusiasts in the States?

Clark: There are not any high-volume forums or sort of central platforms for the hobby. But I've met a bunch of people through Instagram that have been really great for the field. I have people I consider good friends I've never met in person because we share the hobby on Instagram. The first time I needed to do a timing belt on one of these trucks I sent a message to a guy who had posted that he just did a timing belt. I was like, "Hey, how long does the job take? Are there any gadgets?" And he sent me a folder full of step-by-step photos of the job. He's like, “take an hour and 20 minutes. Here is a step-by-step process.” I've never met him. I don't actually even know his real name, but it was a great moment and showed me how cool this community can be.

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Photography by Naveed Yousufzai

More about RoundCat Racing:

You can keep up with Clark via his Instagram (@clarksopper) and can learn more about RoundCat Racing by following them on Instagram (@roundcatracing) and by exploring their website.

Meet our contributors

As an avid driver and collector, photographer Naveed Yousufzai (@eatwithnaveed) captures California's car culture from a true enthusiast's point of view for various automotive publications.