マイカー

1956 is the key Japanese date for マイカー: Kotobank's Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten says Haruo Hamaguchi of Aichi Toyota devised it as a passenger-car sales slogan. The form uses English my plus car, but it became a Japanese noun for 自家用車. The same dictionary cites Yoshiro Hoshino's 1961 book Mai Kaa for マイ・カー時代. During Japan's 1960s motorization, マイカー appeared in sales copy and then in daily life. Toyota's 75-year history notes that private-car demand grew from 590,000 passenger cars in 1965 to 2.37 million in 1970, and national vehicle ownership passed 10 million in 1967. Honda's history connects the N360 in 1967 with the private-car boom. Related terms include マイカー族, マイカー通勤, 自家用車, and モータリゼーション. Modern マイカー means a privately owned car, not just the speaker's car in a sentence. English my car changes owner with the speaker; Japanese マイカー can appear in signs, surveys, insurance, and commuting rules. マイカーで来店できます means customers may come by private car, even when no one says whose car it is.