Morizo is holding court at the foot of Mount Fuji. The location is the edge of a 4.5km-long speedway, where he’s just brought his multicoloured GR Corolla to a standstill. This Toyota is racing using liquid-hydrogen fuel. The driver’s door opens and out steps Morizo, clad in his trademark black-and-yellow racing gear, face hidden behind a bulbous helmet.

The crowd, many of whom have come specifically to brush shoulders with this living legend, erupts in cheers. Making his way off the track, Morizo is trailed by journalists, Toyota employees and a security detail, as well as by a gaggle of “Race Queens”, dressed in matching miniskirts. He stops to hand out stickers, featuring a cartoon of himself with the phrase “I love cars”. Fans who don’t manage to get one can console themselves in the gift shop or booths, which sell Morizo pins, Morizo posters, Morizo key chains.

Morizo was not always this famous; that is not even his real name. The man behind the visor is Akio Toyoda, the 69-year-old grandson of Toyota’s founder, Kiichiro Toyoda, and the company’s most powerful executive since 2009. Several years before taking over the family business, Akio began taking racing lessons from Toyota’s “master driver”, Hiromu Naruse. Unlike his grandfather and father, he had not studied engineering and was criticised for lacking technical knowledge. Then in 2007, when Akio was still just a vice-president, Naruse convinced him to participate in the Nürburgring 24 Hours, the endurance race that takes place annually in Germany.