(FORTUNE Magazine) – The biennial Tokyo Motor Show used to be a showplace for the wackiest automotive ideas seen since GM's Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair. But the most recent installment, which opened in October, has all the subtlety and wit of a stretch limo. The show is held in an immense exhibition hall miles past Tokyo Disneyland. But the long trip--two hours or more during rush hour--has for years been rewarded by a display of whimsical concept cars. Who among past attendees can forget Honda's Fuya-Jo from the 1999 show, a nightclub on wheels that had barstools for seats and two-foot speakers in the doors? Or Nissan's Serena Highroof Snowing, a van whose rear seats formed a bed, with a watertight box up top to carry four snowboards? Among some favorite names from past years: the Daihatsu Naked and Sneaker, Mazda's Scrum Buster and Secret Hideout, and Isuzu's Begin Funkybox. Poor Isuzu got so carried away by the attention paid to one concept that it put the vehicle into production--the unfortunate and short-lived Vehicross, a low-roofed, two-door SUV with less room inside than a Mini Cooper.

But after more than a decade of recession, Japanese automakers seem to have lost their collective sense of humor. Most of this year's concept cars were grimly purposeful, demonstrating some serious development in safety or fuel economy; the others seem to be nothing more than thinly disguised versions of models that will soon appear in showrooms, including the Acura NSX, Infiniti M45, and Mazda Miata. "Tokyo has become just another Frankfurt auto show," says California-based marketing consultant David Hilburn.

A few cars struggled to recapture the lighthearted days of yesteryear. Toyota's one-seat PM (for Personal Mobility) resembles a wheeled grasshopper, capable of straightening up for driver entry, then flattening down for high-speed cruising. The wackiest entrant was Suzuki's Mobile Terrace, which featured a glass ceiling, shag carpeting, and an instrument panel that transforms into a card table. But rather than celebrate Japanese creativity, these two delightful oddities only underlined the ordinariness of all the rest. --Alex Taylor III