Ben Bertucci:
The Secret Car Repair Shop in Tokyo

Today, the company is run by Masao Naito, who, together with his brother and his two sons, restores and sells the finest classic cars – and for a long time, the company was considered a well-kept secret. Bertucci spent eight years working on the film and the book of the same name, "One of One". Why did it take him so long? It’s a long story.

If you ask Ben Bertucci what the exact story of his film is, what he thinks it’s really about, what he was trying to convey – he refuses to answer. Not because the American is rude, but because he doesn’t want to dictate to people what they should think or feel when they watch "One of One", as he explains after a moment’s thought. Yet Bertucci could simply reply that his documentary is about the Naito family – which is what he tends to say when asked. He could, however, have said that the film revolves around exclusive cars. Or that it tells the story of the end of an era; all of that would be possible.

How he earned this family’s trust is quite a story in itself. It begins with a journey and a test – and Bertucci passed it without even realising it was taking place. It all started when Bertucci was on the lookout for unusual stories. He’d only just started photographing cars and didn’t want to do the same as everyone else. So he travelled to Japan. “I had a list of about 20 or 25 people and workshops I wanted to meet – mechanics, journalists, garage owners. And on that first trip, I became friends with the son of the owner of Naito Engineering,” says Bertucci. Right from the start, it was clear to him: he had met a family that doesn’t let just anyone into their circle. There had been a few articles about them, but basically no one apart from a handful of connoisseurs and Japanese customers knew of their workshop.

And then something crucial happened: “When they took me to the garage for the first time, there were three cars there. The two sons were completely absorbed in two of the cars – a Lotus Elan and a Fiat Abarth. They started the engines, walked round the cars, explained everything, and I filmed them doing so,” said Bertucci. There was a third car in the workshop; normally it would have been covered, but on that day it was left out in the open. What Bertucci didn’t know was that it was a Ferrari 250, worth around 22 million dollars. “I’d only been photographing cars for about six months at that point. To be honest, I didn’t know what a Fiat was, nor what a Lotus was. I had absolutely no idea what was standing there.” And it was precisely this lack of knowledge that proved decisive. At the time, the Naitos were certainly receiving messages from collectors and dealers interested in extremely valuable cars. But a filmmaker who couldn’t tell a Fiat from a Ferrari, who was only interested in the people and not in the market value of classic cars, seemed trustworthy. The Naitos let Ben Bertucci into their lives. Sometimes, ignorance really is a blessing.

To understand why this show of trust means so much, you need to know who the Naitos are – and where they come from. 

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→ Read the full story in rampstyle #38 “Just for the Plot” (only available in German)