In the early 1990s, Jr. Young Auto had a column that highlighted young couples’ love for each other. The column featured photos of the gifts they gave each other, primarily plush versions of their vehicles. They called this hokapure.

So far I have seen hokapure written in three different ways. Either a mix of hirigana and katakana ほかプレ, all hirigana ほかぷれ, or all katakana ホカプレ. From what I can deduce, this is an abbreviation of the phrase ほかにないプレゼント(hoka ni nai purezento) which means “a present like no other.” The full title of the column was sometimes written out as “愛のほかプレ自慢” which roughly translates to “proudly showing off a one-of-a-kind gift of love.” These were very personalized gifts that girlfriends would give their boyfriends.

Building them is not an easy task. The first step is imagining the car deconstructed into different parts and colors. Figuring out the proportions is also something that must be done early on. Some use cardboard to help make the shape a little more stiff. Some of these example photos might help out with its design.

Yuko made this Mazda Luce for Makoto. She wrote in saying it came out really large, and she took some shortcuts in making it.

Yoko wrote in about making this Crown for her ex-boyfriend’s birthday but didn’t give it to him in time. So now it is just a keepsake item.

This plush Y30 was made for Takayuki’s 19th birthday by his girlfriend. They both wrote about its creation and talked about how they are engaged.

This plush Toyota Cresta was made to commemorate 1 year of dating between readers Rie and Sage.

Atsuko from Chiba wrote in saying her boyfriend told her “Make a FZR plush if you are really my girlfriend.” While kinda demanding, she really put in the effort in making this look amazing.

Ikuyo wrote to Jr Young Auto saying she wanted to try making a plush version of her soarer.

Norio wrote to Jr. Young Auto to show off this blue Soarer plush that his ex-girlfriend made for him for his birthday. He goes on to say that this plush will still be a once-in-a-lifetime memory despite them not being together.

Sometimes these girlfriends would put their partner’s name on the bottom of them, or both of their names and the date they started dating.

Not only did they make cars, but one girlfriend made a Calpis drink can and a Lark cigarette box. She said she made the Lark box for her boyfriend Hiroshi because those are the cigarettes he smoked.

This woman made 4 cars in a month! By the looks of it, I think she has it figured out.

This Honda Prelude plush car was given to Ken-chan from Tomo-chan on their half-year anniversary. At first, she had no idea how to make this, but she studied the photos in this column before making one. She spent three weeks making it. At the end of their first year together, Ken-chan gave Tomo-chan a ring to commemorate their anniversary.

Kenzo from Hokkaido was sad that he had to sell his haiso Toyota Mark II. He had a lot of good memories with this car and the places he went with it. His girlfriend Ayumi made this plush for him. He was impressed with the amount of detail that she put into it.

Interest in these plush cars has now reached North America. One of my Canadian friends had one made for their boyfriend. Brooklyn commissioned this plush super silhouette Datsun 510 for Keith with the help of Casey.

Maybe we can start to see more of these in the coming years.