Month: May 2009 (Page 3 of 6)

Carina Sightings: The Assembly – Never Never

May 20, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

From time to time I still look at the Internet Movie Car Database to see if there are listed new entries for the Toyota Carina. This is not a new entry, but I finally found the original video clip. ;)

The music video of Never Never by The Assembly was shot in 1983 and was a one hit wonder: Vince Clarke (ex Yazoo) formed a new band and teamed up with Fergal Sharkey (Undertones). The band only created one single album with only one single hitsong. This song also featured on Grand Theft Auto – Vice City Stories on one of the radio stations.

The clip features a windmill, some trailerpark background and Fergal Sharkey walking around. On the IMCDB I found two screenshots of Toyota different Carinas:

White Toyota Carina TA60 van

The first screenshot is at 1:19, but I’m unable to find the second screenshot. The child in the foreground is clearly the same as the one in the music video but I could not find this shot after watching it three times in a row… I even downloaded the flashmovie and watched the clip 6 or 7 times over and over again. I also watched the movie skipping forward and backwards around transitions.

Black Toyota Carina TA60 front

Then I searched the internet for other versions of this song, but all of them have the same length and I had to give up. So after watching this music video for a total 10 times now I can’t stand that damn song anymore! :X

Anyone else volunteer to search for that frame? :D

Ying and Yang Datsun Cherry F10

May 19, 2009 / banpei / 5 Comments

Yesterday Japanese Nostalgic Car posted pictures of the Z-Car Club of Inland Valley Show in Temecula. Even though the name implies that it was a Z-Car only meeting, there were actually quite a lot of non Z-Cars at the meeting!

The most spectacular of them was this double frontend Datsun Cherry F10:

Double frontend Datsun Cherry F10

The two 1977 Cherry F10s were welded together by Fram to show how important car maintenance is: one half did get its proper treatment while the other half was neglected. The car was driven 20000 miles per year and after 75000 miles the neglected side really performed worse, got a bad MPG and produced more smog.

Double frontend Datsun Cherry F10
After they had proven their point the whole car got neglected until Steve Jasik found it more than 10 years ago parked next to a church.

The funny thing is that the lights in the grille serve as brake lights to make it road legal. So you can actually drive this car on the road without any problems at all!

He called the car Ying and Yang. According to Wikipedia: Ying and Yang is used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn. I think the name suits the car very well!

Amazing: customized AE86 diecast model

May 19, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

At first I could not believe these two diecasts are customized and painted by hand:

Initial D and Drift Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86
But they actually are: Gee is doing a lot of diecast customization and he does it all by himself!

See the details yourself:

Use tape/gum to mask the panda scheme
First he takes them apart. He uses a mix of tape and gum to mask the panda scheme first before painting the body.

Almost perfect panda scheme!
Here you can see the rear it has got an almost perfect panda scheme: only the black line above the taillights should be much much thinner.

After painting he modifies the wheels and put everything back together. In this case he painted them black but some others received wheels from other diecasts.

You can see the end result well on this picture of both cars:

The finished product: perfect Initial D AE86
Both AE86s look stunning! Almost hard to believe they are only 1/64 scale!

And doesn’t this look familiar?

Initial D Sprinter Trueno AE86 on trailer
It is only missing the oil spots on the windscreen and fenders. :D

If you want to see much more amazing diecast customizations you can find his blog here:
Gee’s Garage

If you want to do your own diecast customization you may take the 1/64 Mattel diecast of the Toyota AE86 as base.

Random: Police chase Cosmo AP RX5 vs Savanna RX7

May 17, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

This week Japanese Nostalgic Car did not have a Seibu Keisatsu like video: they had the Tokyo Matter by pixar I posted last week. So I started to watch some myself on Youtube. I did find a great related video of a police chase. The “bad” guys are being chased in their brand new Mazda Savanna RX7 by a gigantic police force of outdated J-tin and by the chief detective in his Mazda Cosmo AP RX5.

In the start of the video the chase is quite spectacular, but after the chief detective made his Cosmo AP into a convertible and still continues the chase it really starts to get rediculous! At the end he bashes his Cosmo into some boxes after going head to head with the Savanna RX7 and even before he hits the boxes his car is already on fire.

Anyone familiar with this series? I want to see more! :D

Rare Bosozoku cars: Toyota Corona Mark II T60/T70

May 15, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

This week we feature the first of the popular Mark II series: the Corona Mark II T60/T70 series. This Corona Mark II coupe may not be a GSS coupe but it surely does look well under that bosozoku skin:

Bosozoku style Toyota Corona Mark II coupe RT70
Eventhough the later Mark II models are immensively popular as zokusha the first Corona Mark II series is not popular at all! So far this is one out of two Corona Mark IIs we ever encountered.

Factory stock zenki Corona Mark II RT60
The Corona Mark II was basically a model designed to fit between the middle class Corona and the upper class Crown. It was only slightly larger than the Corona but it did have a lot of luxuries only to be found in the Crown, like better seats and larger engines. The car was produced as sedan, wagon, coupe and hardtop coupe. The sedan and wagon look very much alike the Corona T40/T50 (a bit dull) while the coupes are sleekly styled after late 60s American cars.

Factory stock kouki Corona Mark II RT62
The Corona Mark II engine range started with the 1.5 liter 2R and ended with the 2 liter 18R. Eventhough normally bigger is better this did not apply to the Corona Mark II: it featured the 10R engine which got later renamed to the 8R-G. If you are a Toyotaku the G typing should already ring a bell: it means twincam (DOHC) with sidedraft carburetors!

Factory stock Corona Mark II Coupe RT72
The 10R/8R-G was a 1.9 liter engine and was capable of producing 140HP and was placed in the top of the range Corona Mark II: the RT75 GSS hardtop coupe, which after the facelift and 8R-G renaming got the RT72 designation. The GSS was mated with a 5 speed gearbox and weighted only 1050 kg so it had an amazing power to weight ratio for its era: 7.5 kg/hp (16.5 lbs/hp), that is more than the 1969 MGB was capable of! Okay, the 3 liter MGC came near, but it had 1.5 as big a displacement as the Corona Mark II! The Corona Mark II GSS was capable of reaching 200 km/h and doing the quarter mile in 16.60 seconds! Amazing performance for a factory stock car in the late 60s!

Corona Mark II GSS Hartop Coupe RT75
Even though examples of bosozoku styled Corona Mark IIs are really hard to find it don’t think it was an impopular zokusha during the early 80s. The reason it is a rare find nowadays is mainly because most of them are too far gone!

[I posted this article earlier this week on Bosozokustyle.com

Hilarious: Undefeatable, Big Man Japan and Tech Romancer

May 15, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

A colleague of mine passed me this US trailer of a Japanese movie called Big Man Japan. The movie itself was already made in 2007 by Hitoshi Matsumoto under the name Dai-Nipponjin. The plot is quite simple: a man is able to transform into a big sumo-like giant and defend Japan from all sorts of alien attacks:

The giraffe/chicken-like alien with his head and neck where his penis should be is simply brilliant! I really need to see this movie! :)

Somehow it did remind me of the Tech Romancer (Choukousenki Kikaioh) game on the Dreamcast. To refresh your memory on tech romancer:

The music of this video is fitting really well! :D

It also reminded me of this video I saw on IZ Reloaded two weeks ago… It was announced as the worst fighting scene ever! Judge for yourself:

For me it was the worst fighting scene I saw! Especially the punch line at the end is the worst!!

Looking at the comments on the imbd entry of this movie makes me worry:
This is Cynthia’s best movie she ever made … she plaid she show us her talent and that girl s fight back.
If this is her best movie I fear the worst for her other movies! :D