Category: Commerical time (Page 2 of 15)

Is this Nissan Cefiro A31 whaling the Japanese salaryman? – Commercial time

January 21, 2024 / banpei / 0 Comments

The 1988 Nissan Cefiro A31 was offered as a sporty four-door saloon alternative to the Toyota Cresta and Chaser competitors. It shared many components with the Skyline (R31), Laurel (C31) and Leopard (F31) of a similar generation. The drivetrain and rear multi-link setup were shared with all four of them and the front strut-based suspension with the Laurel. If you squint your eyes, you will also conclude it shares its design with the beautifully styled 1988 Nissan Silvia S13.

Nissan Cefiro A31 (top) looks like a Laurel C31 with a Silvia S13 (bottom) nosejob

So can we conclude the Nissan Cefiro A31 is just a Nissan Laurel C31 with a Silvia S13 nosejob? Perhaps it does. Judging from the various ads I found online it’s rather aimed towards the sportier image of the Silvia than the dull salaryman image of the Laurel. Most ads tend to highlight this. Most of them. Most of them except this one featuring a whale:

Commercial Time: Toyota Multi-valve engines

October 28, 2023 / banpei / 1 Comment

When Toyota introduced their multi-valve engines early 1980s, this was advanced technology from another era. No other manufacturer, except for Triumph, was sane enough to put a multi-valve engine into a consumer car. You could argue that Nissan did the same by placing the S20 engine in the KPGC10 and the Fairlady Z432R. However, there were only a few thousand of these engines built! So when Toyota hit the market with the 1G-GE, 4A-GE and 7M-GTE in the early 1980s, this was totally out of this world! This mid-1980s European Toyota multi-valve ad boasts about them:

Starlet EP70 ad parody of Spielberg's 1970 Duel

Commercial Time: hilarious Spielbergs Duel parody in a Starlet EP70

October 22, 2023 / banpei / 0 Comments

This Toyota Starlet EP70 ad is really funny if you have watched Steven Spielberg’s 1971 movie Duel with Dennis Weaver. A big black American truck drives up close to a little Starlet. Threatening to push it off the mountain. The Starlet can outpace the truck and even trick it into a Looney Tunes-like crash into the mountain.

Nissan Sunny LePrix B11 magazine advertisement

Commercial Time: wacky Nissan Sunny LePrix B11

October 14, 2023 / banpei / 0 Comments

These wacky Nissan Sunny LePrix B11 ads give you the impression they actually featured in a detective series like Seibu Keisatsu. However, they don’t. It’s all made up. The actors in the commercials are Keiko Matsuzaka and Saburo Tokito. Coincidentally both actors played in The Gate of Youth (Seishun no mon) but this was totally unrelated to these ads.

Wacky Nissan Sunny LePrix ads

It looks like Nissan chose to launch the Nissan Sunny LePrix with some wacky ads. Keiko and Saburo are dressed up like they would feature a detective or action series. Keiko’s catsuit reminds me of Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) in The Avengers. The ads are done in a similar tongue in cheek way.

First ad: Keiko and Saburo with Tommy guns

Honda Ballade was the four door version of the Honda Civic

Commercial Time: Honda Ballade becomes a ball of dances

October 1, 2023 / banpei / 1 Comment

The Honda Ballade was a loaded subject between Honda and Rover. Honda helped out British Leyland in the early 1980s by allowing BL to build the Honda Ballade locally and sell it as the Triumph Acclaim. When the second generation was due in 1983, the Ballade was redesigned and based upon the same platform as the third generation Honda Civic. However, the rebadged version wasn’t an Acclaim. It now was sold as the Rover 200.

The Rover 200 was actually a Honda Ballade — *The Rover 200 was actually 96% Honda Ballade*

Commercial Time: can’t buy the Toyota Crown in Germany

October 17, 2015 / banpei / 2 Comments

Toyota has just launched a new commercial for their Toyota Crown Athlete S210 and it gets kind of hilarious: a Japanese businessman is trying to sell something to a German businessman in Frankfurth (you can see the Eschenheimer tower) but the German businessman only wants to buy his Toyota Crown Athlete instead as it is not for sale in Germany.

Why is this hilarious?

Well, watch the video below and continue to read why: Continue reading