Comment Will it work as well as their bobsleds? (Score 1) 71
For the Winter Olympics, the Japanese government decided to build the "world's best bobsled", paying millions of dollars in consulting fees to a consortium of 120 companies including Toyota, Nissan, etc. with no experience in making bobsleds. The government also paid children's textbook companies, TV shows to portray the heroic craftsmen who built the sled. The actual product was built by no-name subcontractors in snow-free Tokyo, with a shoestring budget and no experience in bobsleds. The resulting bobsled was uncomfortable, dangerous, and slow, so the Japanese bobsled team refused to ride it. The bobsled was loaned on contract to the Jamaican women's bobsled team, except they hated it too and ended up using an old Latvian bobsled that they borrowed from the German team.