Space Explorer: Lucky Cat Garage’s sci-fi Yamaha XV950R

If you grew up in Japan in the 1950s or 1960s, you probably wanted a ‘Sonicon Rocket.’ It was a little battery-powered spaceship on wheels, made by Modern Toys, with a most unusual mechanism: if you whistled at it, the spaceship would change direction as it rolled around on the floor. These days, Sonicon Rockets are hard to find, and a good one is worth up to a thousand dollars. They’re also icons of Japanese style, and caught the imagination of Frenchman Séb Lorentz and his partner Laurence, who run Lucky Cat Garage. Séb and Laurence were so taken with...