Last week I spotted a big Toyota parked near the office. A few hundred meters later I vaguely remembered what it was and returned to the spot. It was a Toyota FJ Cruiser:

Down on the Street: Toyota FJ Cruiser
When I saw the pictures on the net in 2006 and 2007 I always thought the FJ Cruiser was much bigger than this, in my memory it had at least the proportions of a Hummer H2. Well you can see it is actually smaller than the Volvo XC90 parked next to it!

Then after taking the second shot the crap-cam died on me again, so you will have to do with this shaken (but not stirred) shot of it:

Down on the Street: Toyota FJ Cruiser
I must say the FJ Cruiser surely has great looks! If I had to choose between the XC90, H2 and a FJ Cruiser I would certainly go for the FJ Cruiser! ;)
The only thing that would stop me was my wallet at the next gas station. :(

This is a very good example why Cash for Clunkers is wrong:

Immaculate German Toyota Celica ST162 to be wrecked
This Celica is for sale at Marktplaats (Dutch craigslist), but you can never drive in it!

According to the ad:
AUTO KOMT VAN DUITSE SLOOPREGELING DUS GEEN CHAS>NUMMER DUS ALLEEN VOOR SLOOP OF ONDERDELEN

Which roughly translates into something like this:
Car was taken in from the German Cash for Clunkers, so no valid chassis number and only to be used for wrecking or parts

Immaculate German Toyota Celica ST162 to be wrecked
That is a bit of a shame since it is a very rare original cabrio Celica GT (3S-FE) and comes with ABS, central locking (like that is useful!) and 4 brand new tires!

Immaculate German Toyota Celica ST162 to be wrecked
And if you thought it had been used a lot before it was traded in you're wrong! It did not even drive 75000 kilometers in its life! For a Toyota the car has just been broken in. :(

Hopefully the car is now being reused in some other way... It is still a shame to see such a thing happen! In some cases the Cash for Clunkers may be a good thing, but looking at this example it sounds like a very bad practice of funding the car industry...

Keiichi Tsuchiya is in his lecturing mode again when suddenly this Toyota Crown GS140 appears out of nowhere and tries do an attempt to reach Tsuchiya offroad.

The big question remains who is that driver and why is he driving a Toyota Crown offroad with helmet, but without wearing a shirt? (Maybe he is called Onslow?)

Earlier this week I saw a bunch of vintage Honda ads posted on EK Hatch's blog and one of them made me think:

Honda Think Simple campaign
Think simple! It sound incredible so simple, yet so right about the spirit of Honda.

At the same time I thought of the Apple Think Different campaign:

Apple Think Different campaign
Apart from the fact that it uses the type face (clear sign of plagiarism by Apple!) it is also the direct opposite of the Honda spirit...

It almost smells like a parody made on Apple after they came up with the slogan, but I found the following pages to back up the Honda campaign:
Honda Think Simple ad
Similar Honda ad
Another similar Accord ad

Last friday Michael from Retro Classics posted some pictures of the New Zealand Nationals 2010, including a Carina AA63 coupe going head to head with a Corolla AE70 hardtop:

Toyota Carina AA63 coupe and Corolla AE70 hardtop
The coupe features a set of SSR Longchamps at front and some less wide rims at the rear (probably the extra set of tires). It looks very good with the Longchamps, so a mental note to myself: buy a set whenever you can get them! ;)

Dunno what's up with the hood, but it looks loose on the picture above and fastened on the picture below:

Toyota Carina AA63 coupe
Somehow the Carina single headlights look much better on a coupe than on a sedan!

You can find more pictures of the Carina, Corolla and many other great classics (like a 810910 Bluebird hardtop!) on Retro Classics blog or at their Flickr page.