In the late 60's and early 70's there was an introduction of Japanese cars to the US market.
Said cars required metric tools, not yet widely adopted by mechanics.
So the basis of much humor was that these cars needed to be taken to a special shop (ie the dealer or a mechanic with metric tools).

Could y'all comb your joke books published 'round then and find jokes (not necessarily about cars) where the basis of the joke is that x is Japanese, and so a special shop is required?

perhaps something like
"bob got married in the Japanese garden at Golden Gate park"
"It'd be great but now he has to spend his anniversary every year at a sushi bar!"

I know that's not funny... but my recollection is that there were hundreds of jokes in this vein. Perhaps not so funny today, but very much of the moment at the time. I suspect someone with a full collection of Carson vids could find many.

I wonder if any of them actually stand the test of time.

Odd topic..  :-\\  Never heard of such things ...

It took Australia from 1970 to 1988 to fully convert all industries to the metric system. In 1972 (when I was 12) schools started teaching only the metric measurments. Before that, we had to learn both metric and imperial.

But I don't recall any jokes about it all.  I was too young to own a vehicle...so that didn't affect my world.

I find it amusing that Subway has got younger people asking for foot longs etc... ;D