Remembering Japanese cars from the past
Ten years ago I posted a set of blue Nissan Prairie twins I encountered in my hometown in Down on the Street. I happened to see one of the pair occasionally, the latest encounter happened three years ago in 2021 at a petrol station. As I wrote a few months ago, I bring my daughter to school in a neighbouring town and I tend to explore the area to find quicker routes or to avoid traffic. On one such route, I was able to find the Prairie hideout!
What do a Honda Today police car, Nissan Skyline R30 and Nissan Homy have in common? They are all driven by the police in You’re Under Arrest! And what do they use them for? To catch yakuza and young thugs walking waving their (paintball) guns around like it’s a featherduster! In this video I’ll spot all the cars and some motorcycles in the fifth part of this Dark Horse publication.
You’re Under Arrest was one of the first manga the young Kosuke Fujishima started to draw. As he was obsessed with cars and motorcycles this became the cornerstone of this manga series. The manga mainly involves the fictional Bokuto Police Station in Sumida, Tokyo. Two female police officers, Natsumi Tsujimoto and Miyuki Kobayakawa, are the main characters and both are clearly petrolheads. Miyuki is the more intelligent of the two girls and, next to her police officer job, she’s also a vivid (amateur) mechanic. She loves tinkering with cars, engines and motorcycles. Natsuki on the other hand is the brute of the duo and favors motorcycles over cars.
In this manga you can spot five cars and various motorcycles. The Honda Today police car is their daily patrol car and also received some love and attention from Miyuki. Yes it can keep up easily with a Lancia Delta Integrale. Another police car can be spotted: a Nissan Skyline R30. As this is supposed to be a high speed patrol car its origins were probably with the highway patrol units and later on this car trickled down to the local police station. Another interesting car to be spotted is a Nissan Violet T11 (also knowns as the Stanza or Auster).
The Ah! My Goddess manga may have made Kosuke Fujishima (world) famous, but it’s origins lie within the You’re Under Arrest manga. In one episode Natsuki and Miyuki encounter a goddess and this story inspired Kosuke Fujishima to create the Ah! My Goddess manga where the goddess Belldandy meets the student Keiichi Morrisato. I have also created a Manga Car Spotting episode for this series some time ago.
You can find the video and the high resolution scans of the panels containing manga cars below:
Continue readingToday I received this package in the mailbox! It is a stack of brochures I won via a CataWiki auction. Most of them are 90s era Nissan Maxima and Bluebird brochures, but it also included a JDM Nissan Bluebird 910 and Laurel Spirit brochure.
So I was really happy winning this 5 euro bargain!
Let the unboxing begin: Continue reading
This 1983 Nissan Sunny B11 ad is a real gem: 30-ish female person is tied up on a half sunken boat and almost gets eaten by an inflatable rubber alligator while two bad guys in white suits and white hats (both a Panama) watch it happen and cheer on the inflatable rubber alligator:
Then she shouts for help from Sunny and a Nissan Sunny B11 Turbo sedan rushes in and the guy saves the day.
This obviously would make a fine commercial in Japan in the early 80s and would make a horrible vintage cult classic nowadays. However keep in mind that in the very same year Nissan promoted the Nissan Stanza T11 in Japan with the following family in a Stanza:
Yes, both father and son are wearing the very same white suits and very same white hats (also both a Panama).
You can watch both videos below: Continue reading
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