Author: banpei (Page 46 of 318)

WTF: Hugging a Toyota 3T-GTE engine

January 21, 2015 / banpei / 4 Comments

I scanned this picture of a girl hugging a Toyota 3T-GTE engine from a Toyota Corona TT142 brochure. The borchure was inside one of the Kaikki Karina magazines I bought recently:

I’m not entirely sure I should call it hugging… It is more a bit like she cherishes the engine, or feeling a great affection to it and she also caresses the intake with her left hand. Now I that engine must have

It is a bit less odd if you take into account that the Toyota Corona T140 series got promoted heavily by Roger Moore who was back in 1982 still the actor that played James Bond.

Looking at this photo 33 years later makes the girl look a bit silly, or even a bit sexist photo on how to sell your high performance engines. Then again: James Bond likes classy stuff and the 3T-GTE was certainly a classy engine in the early 80s!

Commercial Time: pushing the Daihatsu Leeza ChaCha

January 20, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

I would say this Daihatsu Leeza ChaCha commercial is the weirdest ever: what car company would like to sell their car by claiming you are able to push it?

Was it a selling point that any typical Japanese young women in the late 80s and early 90s could push their own car? Did she run out of gas? Did the ChaCha run out of ChaCha-juice? Did the engine cut out? Did the battery die? Did she loose her key? I really don’t get the selling point right here…

Watch and see the commercial yourselves: Continue reading

Hilarious: Initial D Cosplay (part 2)

January 19, 2015 / banpei / 1 Comment

Seven years ago I posted a funny picture of Initial D cosplayers, so when I bumped into these two cosplay pictures I remembered the first vividly:

I must say these costumes are really sturdy made: three of them are based on shopping strollers. Itsuki’s Levin looks horrible, Takumi’s Sprinter Trueno even worse and the Subaru Impreza 22b looks acceptable. Ryosuke’s Mazda Savanna RX-7 looks the best and I bet the most sweat and tears were put into that costume!
BTW: the best looking character is Bunta Fujiwara in the Subaru! That guy really lives up to the original role!

Now there is another Takumi in the second picture: Continue reading

Magazines: Kaikki Karina – All About Carina

January 14, 2015 / banpei / 1 Comment

About two weeks ago I found an auction on Auctions Yahoo that sold two (old) magazines about the Toyota Carina A60 for a reasonable price, so obviously I was interested to buy it. I happily bid on it and two weeks later the both of them landed on my desk at work (thanks Buyee!):

What I didn’t get from the auction text was that these magazines were actually from 1981 and 1982 and not new! The magazines are called Kaikki Karina (カリーナのすべて – All About Carina) and I suspect they were a long running Toyota Carina owners magazine.

The great thing about having these old magazines is that they actually include all sorts of time period extra information, like the design studies done for the Carina sedan: Continue reading

Carina Sightings: Devil Carina AA63 at NCML Drift

Carina Sightings: Devil Toyota Carina AA63 at NCML Drift

January 12, 2015 / banpei / 0 Comments

It doesn’t state why this Toyota Carina AA63 in a NCML drift video is called the Devil Carina but I think if you watch the video you will get a good hunch why.

Not only does it go sideways just as good as all the AE86s surrounding it, it also gets rediculously close to the white Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 driving up front, over and over again. And damn, those Volk Racing TE37v sure do look awesome on the Toyota Carina AA63!

You can watch the full video below:

WTF: Exhaust pipe routed through Calsonic Nissan Skyline R31

January 11, 2015 / banpei / 1 Comment

Being one of the early bloggers about kaido racers (aka bosozoku style) I don’t get a high brow often, but this JTTC Calsonic Nissan Skyline R31 race car replica in the shape of a kaido racer really gave me a WTF:

This video features a couple of Showa cars that are either kept (in mint) bone stock or modified to a great extend, including this Nissan Skyline R31 GTS-R. Now the interesting part is why the owner chose to hacksaw a big hole in the floorpan where the passenger seat used to be and routed the exhaust to the side of the car (through the sill) and not chose to do it directly through the sill from the . Or even welded something around the exhaust pipes to keep the noise levels a bit down. On the other hand, this makes the modification more obvious for the eye…

Apart from this Skyline there are the following cars: Toyota Celica GT-R AA63 (unmodified), Dual-Factory green Toyota Publica Starlet KP40, Body-Make Nissan Bluebird 810 coupe kaido racer, kyusha kai pigsbutt Nissan Laurel C130 on Hayashi Sakura rims, kyusha kai Nissan Skyline GT C110 on Racing Hart rims, Toyota Crown MS80 kaido racer, orange Nissan Skyline GT-R KPGC10 and a white G-Nose Nissan Fairlady 240Z S30.

You can watch the whole video below: Continue reading