Car Protection During Typhoons

Last Saturday, an unprecedented massive Typhoon No. 19 struck the Japanese archipelago. Many areas suffered severe damage, and reports say recovery will take time. My heart goes out to everyone affected. Our household also experienced a massive blackout during Typhoon No. 21 that hit western Japan last September, and it painfully reminded us that “you must never think, ‘we’ll be fine’”.

Regarding this Typhoon No. 19, I saw many car enthusiasts on Twitter taking measures to evacuate their beloved cars. Naturally, we had to prepare as well. Currently, we have five cars: usually, two in our home garage, two in an open-air parking lot a bit away from home, and one in a covered parking near my husband’s office.

This time, we parked the GT3 in the covered lot near his office, the Panamera and the air-cooled Porsche 911 (964) in our home garage, and the BMW 320i and Boxster in the open-air lot. While the GT3, Panamera, air-cooled Porsche, and 320i seemed okay, the Boxster was the main concern.

We put a body cover on it, but I thought, “With a huge typhoon like this, the cover might get blown away…” Still, we decided to have the Boxster tough it out. (By the way, we love using Nakabayashi Kogyo’s body covers at our home.)

車のボディカバーメーカーの仲林工業に、実車持ち込みでカバーを作ってもらった！

The Miracle of the Body Cover

On the day the typhoon arrived, the news said “Typhoon No. 19 will directly hit Shizuoka and Tokyo”, so I thought Kansai wouldn’t be too bad. But contrary to expectations, the rain and wind here were quite strong and lasted a long time. We said, “If it’s this intense in Hyogo, the areas directly hit must be in serious trouble.” Still, my husband was worried about the Boxster…

I wonder if it’s okay… Even with the body cover on, this kind of rain and wind might be too much…

He kept muttering like that. The storm raged on for hours, but by evening it finally calmed and the rain stopped. My husband hurried to check on the Boxster. A few minutes later, he came back and said,

It’s amazing, it’s completely fine!

There was still a bit of wind, so the cover puffed up sometimes, but because the ventilation holes let the wind pass through, it never flapped around. I lifted the cover and touched the body — it was just a little damp, not wet at all, and the soft top was fine too. It really made me realize how important it is to have a body cover that fits your car perfectly. Hats off to Nakabayashi Kogyo!

He said this with relief.

If a body cover doesn’t fit well, it flaps in the wind and can scratch the car’s surface, causing damage. But Nakabayashi Kogyo’s cover didn’t cause any of that.

If we told Nakabayashi Kogyo about this, they’d probably humbly say, “No, it’s still not perfect—we’ll make it even better!” (laughs) This typhoon reminded me once again how our lives are protected by the dedication of Japanese professionals, including those working on flood control.

The world runs on someone’s hard work.

To all the professionals out there, thank you always.