Bashing a Toyota in Detroit

January 13, 2026

I uncovered this film while working in Detroit that shows a group of Detroiters at a party raising money for charity by selling tickets to allow people to use a sledgehammer to bash in a Toyota.

The local news got caught up in the “fun” and failed to look at it as something that could encourage people to channel their anger at the Japanese car companies into something more dangerous.

This was around the time that a 27-year-old Chinese American raised in Metro Detroit was beaten to death with a baseball bat a week before his wedding, June 19, 1982, by two autoworkers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, who blamed the Japanese for the U.S. auto industry’s troubles.

The consequences of hate and fear mongering.

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