An Omnibus ʻEntaroʼ (Ford TT type)

The Tokyo Municipal Electric Bureau urgently imported the chassis of motor trucks made by Ford in bulk, as substitutes for the municipal electric railway cars damaged by the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, thereby overcoming the challenge by refurbishing the trucks into buses. The name ‘Entaro’ derives from Rakugo performer Entaro Tachibanaya and his performance, ‘Entaro Carriage’, who played the trumpet of omnibus in the early Meiji Era, as the buses resembled that carriage. The omnibus was donated in 1955 to the Transportation Museum from Kashiwa Gakuen, to which it had been transferred for preservation and exhibition, The omnibus was donated in 2020 to The Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation from the Transportation Museum. This is the only existing omnibus ‘Entaro’ and it is the oldest existing bus in Japan.