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Last week my colleague told me about this hilarious TV series from the 80s:

Automan is about a computer wizzard working for the police creating an program which makes him an Artificial Intelligence hologram which fights crime, with a sidekick called Cursor which is a thing that can draw polygons into holographic images as if they were real! Take Superman, Knight Rider, Airwolf, Battlestar Galactica and Tron, mash it together and you have Automan!!
Hilarious enough Cursor becomes a Lamborgini Countach quite often in the series and he drives Automan around town and takes cornes square with any speed!
Cursor brakes, you hear the tires squeal, but he brakes instantly. Amazing!!
Of course you can't hurt a hologram, so bullets have no use:
Amazing! I wonder why the Dutch television never picked up this high grade tv series while we were stuck with The A-Team, Knight Rider and Airwolf!
Ofcourse this is hilarious now, but back then my colleague really loved this series, just like I loved Knight Rider or The Dukes of Hazzard. Nowadays you really see poor quality on those series as well. Even the first movies of Shuto Trials look rediculous nowadays: what use is doing 180s forward and reverse on driving on the Shuto Expressway? And those action shots are all shot doing 100km/h and then doubled in speed.
What would people think of Initial D in 10 or 15 years time? Would they think it was rediculous as well? In some ways I already find it rediculous and the CGI of the first stage is really outdated nowadays and that will only get worse in 10 or 15 years of time...
I found this video on youtube today and thought it was quite nice.
The chaser is a Corolla AE86 struggling to keep up with the Carina AA63 and barely manages, however after a slip up from the Carina (almost crash at 1:32) he falls behind and a Soarer MK2 (I think) Carina Coupé starts chasing the AA63. Then the Corolla AE86 falls behind even more: he can't keep up since now the Carina is being pushed by a faster car.
Last week I blogged about the Toyota Celica XX advertisement with the ELO (Densha Otoko) theme in it. This week I have a Japanese Celica XX advertisement with Grace Jones!
I can understand why they compare Grace Jones with the Celica XX: both are square muscular superstars but I personally would prefer the Celica XX above Grace Jones. ;)
A nice detail is the mirror shot at 19 seconds: it is a bit the same as the mirror shot of the New Carina catalogue (S59-3):

Same style, same era?
Just found this Japanese Celica XX Advertisement on youtube:
As you can hear, the music is Twilight by Electric Lights Orchestra. Apart from the fact that I'm an 80s (electronic) music fan I immediately recognized the main theme from the Densha Otoko J-Drama.
You can view the opening credits here:
Funny they used the same theme for both videos! So now there is a link between the Toyota A6 platform and Densha Otoko! ;)
This page contains videos I find interesting.
I have them categorized in the following categories:
Carina A6:
Advertisements
Carina on ice
Initial Diesel
Carina with 1JZ-GTE twin turbo
AE86:
Keiichi Tsuchiya
Other:
none
