Remembering Japanese cars from the past
There are some questionable memorabilia that I own. Like for instance an unused official Toyota Carina notepad with Sonny Chiba and Kayoko Kishimoto riding on top of a 3A-II engine. Yes, that sounds more bizarre than it actually is, but I digress… I found this Toyota 3T-GTEU ashtray for sale on Mercari and I was stunned by its price: 166 dollars!
It does look very similar to the 3T-GTEU head. For comparison, here is an image of a Bond-girl hugging a 3T-GTEU engine:
Continue readingI 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!
Ben R managed to find me a picture of the red Carina TA63 at the JCCA New Year Meeting 2012:
I love the 63 licenseplate!
It also enabled me to track down the owner: it is the Carina GT Turbo I posted before. Apart from driving around in the Carina TA63 he is also singing a lot in his videos. You can find “his blog here
Photo originally from Flickr and hattip to Ben R!
I was a bit surprised to see the design of this early Carina GT-T TA63: the added black border (hardly can call it a pinstripe) above the black side mouldings with the twincam turbo on it.
Looks a bit weird to me because the later versions also feature a banner, but the banner is placed under the side moulding. See also this late Carina GT-TR coupe at Flyrat: Continue reading
This cool video shows how Ove Andersson’s driving is being monitored in the 4T-GTE Twincam Turbo Celica by the TRD engineers in the early 80s. Simple setups with rubberbands and pullys, a single registration unit… Back in those days state of the art technique!
I love it how easy and relaxed Ove is driving: full throttle, steering madly and driving on the edge wearing nothing more than a tiny helmet, a pair of sunglasses, a polo and shorts. And that 4T-GTE sound! Awesome!!
© 2024 Banpei.net
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑