Author: banpei (Page 51 of 318)

Commercial time: Toyota Crown S120 in the Netherlands

Commercial Time: JDM Toyota Crown S120 in the Netherlands

November 15, 2014 / banpei / 0 Comments

Yesterday I posted a documentary on the Toyota Crown and in one of the scenes I spotted a very familiar background:

You just feel immediately with your entire body when you see your home country used in the background of a movie, so obviously I immediately recognized the Netherlands in this documentary when they displayed the Toyota Crown S120.

As the majority of the documentary consists out of footage of old ads I started to investigate the Toyota Crown S120 ads and found the one that actually takes place in the Netherlands: Continue reading

My Carina: Celica Supra seats upgrade

November 13, 2014 / banpei / 1 Comment

I have always fancied the Toyota Corolla AE86 or Toyota Celica Supra seats as they are quite comfortable for OEM factory seats and still give enough support at the thighs and back when cornering.

In contrast the OEM Toyota Carina TA60 seats feels more like sitting on a buck of a carriage: too high and no support to be expected from any side. I regularly bumped by head against the ceiling if I took a speedbump too fast.

You probably get what I mean if you compare the two different seats with each other: Continue reading

Classifieds treasures: Toyota Crown S40 cabriolet

Classifieds treasures: 1966 Toyota Crown S40 cabriolet

November 8, 2014 / banpei / 0 Comments

Today I spotted this 1966 Toyota Crown S40 for sale in the Dutch classifieds:

What I really like about the car are the high mounted fender mirrors: exactly like they had them in Japan. Now I’ve seen some other S40 crowns with the exact same fender mirrors so I reckon they were standard like this.

Now it is a bit more special than being “just” another standard 1966 Toyota Crown S40 as it actually got its roof chopped off over the full lenght of the car: Continue reading

Nori Yaro visits N-Style: Toyota Carina AA63

Carina Sightings: N-Style Toyota Carina AA63 by Nori Yaro

November 7, 2014 / banpei / 1 Comment

I know I have been slacking again on the blog lately… My job was killing me and last Tuesday I gave a presentation at a MySQL oriented conference in London so hardly any time left for anything else. So I promise to make it up to you with this beautiful photo of the N-Style Toyota Carina AA63 taken by Nori Yaro:

Alexi Smith (aka Nori Yaro) visited the N-Style garage and took a couple of beautiful photographs of their car lineup, including three of the N-Style Toyota Carina AA63.
So head over to Nori Yaro’s visit to N-Style to see all the other photos!

Car feature: Nissan 2400GT HGLC10 at Garage Denissen

October 22, 2014 / banpei / 9 Comments

About five years ago I found a Dutch Nissan 2400GT brochure for sale on our local classifieds and I posted photos and scans of this brochure on my blog. Then I got contacted by Frans-Jan Petrij about his two Nissan 2000GT and 2400GTs and I posted a few of his photos. One thing led to another and I got contacted by a Nissan dealer called Fons Denissen who told me he actually has a Nissan 2400GT HGLC10 in his showroom!

Obviously I visited the Denissen dealership in 2010 and took a lot of photos of the 2400GT that was crammed between a few modern Nissans and at the back of the dealership there was a Datsun 240Z on a pedestal. Unfortunately my digital camera was dysfunctional so most photos were scrambled and had black lines in the photos. So I made the promise to return to the dealership and I finally was able to keep my promise and visit them again.

In the four years that passed a lot had changed at their dealership. They now also represent the Kia brand, the Datsun 240Z has gone and the Nissan 2400GT took its place on the pedestal: Continue reading

Teaser: something special is coming up!

October 19, 2014 / banpei / 5 Comments

Just a small teaser of something special that is coming up:

I did a photoshoot of a quite rare and special car and can you guess which car it is?
tay tuned for the full photo series!