Almost two weeks ago I posted a couple of videos of Magnum P.I. like commercials by Toyota for the Mark II GX61. I was wondering why the salary man was in both commercials, but now Zeb from GX61 cleared that up: that man is Shigeo Nagashima, a professional baseball player who played with the Yomiuri Giants till 1974. After that he became the manager of the Yomiuri Giants till he got fired in 1980. After that he didn’t do anything till 1992 when he became manager of the Yomiuri Giants again.

To quote Zeb from GX61:
So THAT’s why these cars often have baseball bats on the parcel tray!

Probably the Toyota commercials funded his unemployment during the early eighties. He did a some more commercials than the two with the 1982 and 1983 GX61!
1981 Corona T130:
1981 Corona T130 commercial

1984 Mark II GX61:

And in 1988 he did a commercial for Visa:

Now what is that last commercial supposed to say?