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The story
An article claiming that wealthy residents of places like Karatsu City in Saga Prefecture deliberately drive old kei cars (Japan’s compact 660cc-class vehicles) and kei trucks, and carry Velcro-strap wallets, to make themselves “look poor,” has gone viral. Kei cars and Velcro wallets were once mocked online as symbols of being broke or unfashionable, but the article argues they actually work in the wealthy’s favor as crime deterrents. On 5ch, reactions ranged from skepticism that Saga even has any rich people, to the coined phrase “automotive stealth performance” for avoiding luxury cars, to a full-blown debate over car models.
I currently live in Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture, and the successful people in this town never flaunt their wealth. For one thing, they don’t drive luxury cars. People rich enough to easily afford a Mercedes S-Class instead drive a 1500cc Japanese domestic car from the 1990s. Another wealthy person I know drives a kei car, kei truck, or kei van.
Kei cars used to be objects of mockery and scorn online — people would write things like “My boyfriend’s car turned out to be a kei car. It was such an embarrassing, miserable date I wanted to die.” There was even AA (ASCII art — illustrations made by combining text symbols) depicting women lamenting things like “My boyfriend’s wallet had a Velcro strap.” Kei cars and Velcro wallets became symbolic markers of being “uncool” or “poor.”
But for today’s wealthy, owning these two items might actually make life safer. After all, being perceived as rich is nothing but a liability. A man in his 50s who runs a restaurant business put it this way:
Source: news.livedoor.com / Original article here
What people said
In Saga, of all places
Saga doesn't even have a prefectural police headquarters
What is this guy even talking about
If you're dead, none of it matters anyway
What's the difference here?
You really think Saga has fancy neighborhoods?
Seriously, what's the 'benefit' supposed to be?
You get to show off, satisfy your vanity, feel superior to others
or at least convince yourself you do
Like being 'wealthy' in Japan even means anything lol
This isn't an era where keeping up appearances and pride matter anymore
I recall someone who made it big as a YouTuber
Make Uma Musume a hit at Cygames
Salonpas, maybe?
→ Gets murdered for it anyway
So could you actually build an ultra-reinforced kei car?
One that looks completely normal on the outside so nobody knows it's armored, since the whole point is defeated if it looks expensive.
The Jimny
Apparently someone survived a crash in one with nothing worse than a broken jaw
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HEXus8taIAAwfLX.jpg
Maybe it doesn't pile up if there's nowhere to spend it
When will people learn that in the countryside you basically need one car per person just to survive
If you live in a run-down apartment, you won't get targeted even if you drive a fancy import — people will just assume you're broke and overreaching
That'd be easy in Saga
owns an expensive car but never drives it day-to-day
What he actually drives around town is a plain white kei van
Since nobody can tell who's driving it, he can go anywhere without worry
I call that 'automotive stealth performance' lol
The rich guy in my neighborhood has Japanese Communist Party posters plastered all over the walls of his mansion lol
Why do rich people always want to live in giant houses anyway?
Seems like it'd be inconvenient
There are race-spec versions and the like already
If you reinforce it, the body gets heavier — a 660cc engine won't be able to move it
'Super-luxury car' means something like a Rolls-Royce
The Lexus LM, more like
Isn't it more like an Aston Martin or something
Oh, the ride quality is on a completely different level
There's the whole 'I worked hard to afford this' value too, but beyond that, they really do run quiet
Even at speed, it just glides smoothly. BMWs, though, are hopeless — no matter what you do, that thing is loud
Background and key points of this discussion
Kei cars and Velcro-strap wallets have long served as running jokes on Japanese message boards since the 2000s, symbolizing being “poor” or “uncool,” and what made this article notable is how it flips that association into a deliberate disguise for crime prevention. The thread split over two questions: skepticism about whether wealthy people actually exist in a rural place like Saga in the first place, and whether dressing down is genuinely effective as a safety measure — on the latter point, some users embraced the phrase “stealth performance,” while others coolly pointed out that it won’t save your life. Worth noting: the original article is based on the testimony of a single business owner in Karatsu City, and doesn’t statistically confirm this as a trend across all of Saga Prefecture or any particular industry.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “Wealthy people in Saga Prefecture deliberately driving kei cars and the like to ‘look poor’ — a recent trend?“
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