Kawaguchiko Motor Museum / Fighter Museum

Kawaguchiko Motor Museum / Fighter Museum is a museum located in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. Founded in 1981 by former race driver and businessman Nobuo Harada, it has a collection of antique motor vehicles. In 2001 it opened a new area to display a collection of 20th century military aircraft used by Japan, from Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II and the Japan Self-Defense Forces in the postwar period.

WWW car-airmuseum.com

Aircraft restorations

Nobuo Harada and his team made a number of trips to former Pacific battlefields and recovered a number of wrecks of Japanese aircraft from World War II. Subsequently, they restored three complete Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters, and the skeleton of another. One of the complete aircraft is now displayed in the lobby of the Yūshūkan museum adjoining Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
Harada and his team also recovered the damaged rear fuselage of a Mitsubishi G4M Betty bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. The forward fuselage was later built by them from scratch. The museum subsequently restored a Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa/Oscar fighter. of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service

Photography

The museum does not allow photography other than those taken by mobile phones.

Aircraft on display

The aircraft on display can vary from year to year.61-1127 Curtiss C-46 Commando Unknown s/n Grumman S-2F Tracker 51-5639 Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star 26-5007 Lockheed F-104 Starfighter 91518 Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero Model 21 1493 Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero Model 52 12107 Mitsubishi G4M2 Betty 02-7970 North American F-86F Sabre 02-7960 North American F-86F Sabre 52-0098 North American T-6G Texan 51-5639 Sikorsky H-19C Chickasaw 12045 Piper L-19B Super Cub

Access

The museum is open every day in August, but closed to the public for the rest of the year. It is accessible by car, and there is also a bus station for an infrequent local community bus across the street from the museum.