Man goes to car meet and is left baffled as to what the Mustang-looking car is as it's one he's never seen before
Published on May 30, 2026 at 6:06 AM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on May 30, 2026 at 6:06 AM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Mason Jones
This Redditor went to a car meet and found a Ford Mustang that wasn’t a Ford Mustang at all.
In fact, it wasn’t even a Ford, and it wasn’t even American.
The car you see here is the great-grandfather of a relatively popular sports coupe that sold well in Japan and Europe, but practically never existed in the US.
And there’s a huge giveaway.
The Mustang that’s not a Mustang is actually from Japan
A Redditor named gajendra_01 took to the aptly called Whatisthiscar sub-reddit to ask a question about a car he saw at a car meet.
Painted yellow with chrome wheels, the vehicle looked shockingly similar to a Ford Mustang, especially from the back.
In reality, this is a second-generation Toyota Celica Liftback.
Introduced in 1973, the Celica featured C-pillar louvers and vertical bar tail lights that are clear homages to the Mustang.
It was never sold outside of the US and it’s super rare, especially where this Redditor saw it.
“The car meet was in Riga, Latvia,” he told Supercar Blondie.
In general, Japanese icons from the 1970s are already difficult to find in car-centric countries like the UK, Germany or perhaps Italy or France, let alone Latvia, where there are only 424 cars per 1,000 inhabitants.
“This was the only 1970s Japanese car I’ve ever seen in this country, and I’m not surprised,” he said.
Japanese cars from the 1970s looked remarkably muscle car-like
Most of these cars never left Japan, which is why they’re not easy to spot in Europe or the US.
But, amazingly, most if not all Japanese sports coupes from the 1970s and (in part) 1980s looked like what you’d call a muscle car.
Even the Skyline started out like this.
The fourth-generation Skyline in particular – pictured below – looked surprisingly similar to a Chevy Chevelle or a Charger from the same era.
The biggest giveaway, by far, are the side mirrors.
No American car has ever had its side mirrors placed on the hood but, in Japan, that was the norm in the 1970s.
After beginning his automotive writing career at DriveTribe, Alessandro has been with Supercar Blondie since the launch of the website in 2022. In fact, he penned the very first article published on supercarblondie.com. He’s covered subjects from cars to aircraft, watches, and luxury yachts - and even crypto. He can largely be found heading up the site’s new-supercar and SBX coverage and being the first to bring our readers the news that they’re hungry for.
