Hello everyone. This is Mina, the administrator of the "Porsche at Home" blog, and this is the third installment of the "Porsche Supporters File," a series of interviews with the people who support Porsche behind the scenes, which started in May. The third interview is with a long-established manufacturer of car body covers in Tondabayashi City, Osaka Prefecture.Nakabayashi Industry Co.We interviewed Koichi Nakagawa, President of

Chapter1. Nakabayashi Industry of Auto Body Cover

1-1: About Nakabayashi Industry

What does Nakabayashi Industries do?

Our company is an automobile cover sewing manufacturer. Even for the same type of car, the shape differs slightly depending on the grade, specifications, and year, so we take measurements of the pattern for each model and sew each piece by hand.Currently, we have approximately 3,000 stencils for both domestic and foreign cars.

The ratio of domestic and foreign cars in the car covers we receive orders for is about 50-50, but the most common type is the Nissan GT-R series. They account for about 25% of the total. Porsche, on the other hand, accounts for about 51 TP2T of the total.We receive more orders from owners of older models such as 930 and 964 than from current models.
This year marks our 47th year in business, and thanks to your support, we are now receiving orders from all over Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

A simple question. Why is the company name "Nakabayashi Industries" when you are President Nakagawa?

(Laughs) Actually, my father "Nakagawa" founded the company with a partner at the time named "Mr. Hayashi.The company name "Nakabayashi Industries" was taken from "Naka" and "Hayashi" of Nakagawa River.The company is now in the process of

My father originally worked for a company in the sewing and processing industry.I'm sure they'll be selling more and more cars from here on out, so I'm sure they'll be selling car covers, too."He was so impressed that he decided to start his own company specializing in auto body covers, taking advantage of the sewing and processing know-how and technology he had cultivated up to that point.

50 years ago, there were no "car body covers" in the world?

That's right. Until then, there seemed to be no concept of covering cars. However, in Japan, there were originallyFuroshiki culture of "wrapping important thingsIt was probably easier to penetrate the "cover that wraps around your car" product because of the

For example, cases and accessories for smartphones. There are countless types of cases and accessories available in Japan, and the Japanese market is said to be the most developed, a remnant of the furoshiki culture.
Overseas, on the other hand, the concept of covering automobiles is not so common.It seems to be common practice to leave the car as is, whether it is a little dirty or damaged.

1-2: Reasons for making a custom-made product

Did you originally make "custom-made" automobile covers?

No, when the company was founded, we were making general-purpose body covers. The reason was that most of the cars on the market 50 years ago had a boxy design, and their sizes and shapes were almost the same, even if they were made by different manufacturers. Then, about 20 to 30 years ago, the number of cars with unique designs increased and their shapes became more diverse, and gradually it became impossible to respond to them with general-purpose body covers.

From now on, we cannot provide body covers that satisfy our customers unless we make a special mold for each car.and about seven years ago, when I became the president of the company, we made a major turnaround to become a completely custom-made auto body carver manufacturer.

Some manufacturers still produce generic designs, but in order to differentiate ourselves from our competitors and continue to be a company that provides value to our customersIt is necessary to make each unit one by one, even if it takes a lot of time and effortI think that is a good idea.

So you have been steadily making molds of each unit for about seven years?

Yes, we did. In the beginning, domestic dealers came to us to buy body covers, so we would visit the dealers to take their measurements, and then take the samples back again...we made each car one by one.

However, due to the convenience of customer service at the destination, it is often difficult to schedule the process from measurement to creation.We thought, "How can we smoothly take measurements and create samples?" As a result, we arrived at the current method of having customers actually bring in their cars.Gradually, we began to receive a wide variety of vehicles, and we now have approximately 3,000 stencils in our possession.