Month: November 2014

Brilliant: longest car name on a Nissan Leopard GF31

November 18, 2014 / banpei / 0 Comments

Previously I thought the Nissan Cedric Y30 V3.0 Turbo Brougham VIP was supposed to be the longest name given to a car ever, but I stand corrected with this Nissan Leopard 870 Ultima GF31 3.0 V6 Twin Cam (intelligent adult coupe):

The Nissan Leopard GF31 is a typical mid 80s luxurious grand tourer and continuously improved with the latest and greatest technical gadgets like any Japanese car manufacturer did by the end of the 80s. Oh I love the 80s and Japanese cars from the bubble era!

The question is: what is an intelligent adult coupe?

Found at: High-Top-Fade

WTF: Mini emerging from a Daihatsu Mira Gino

November 17, 2014 / banpei / 0 Comments

When the Daihatsu Mira Gino (also known as the Trevis abroad) arrived the car world immediately spotted the similarities between the Mira Gino and the original 60s Mini. It was like Daihatsu made the missing link between the original Mini and the new (BMW) Mini. Now with a little bit of dressing up you can actually make the Mira Gino look like the original Mini:

Winged Mini inspired logo, walnut veneer all over the place, Mini slated grille and those round indicator lights at the front make it look like 00s meets 60s.

Even the Rallye Monte Carlo lookalike roof-rack and plate look convincing:

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!