Month: January 2010 (Page 4 of 6)

Commerical time: Mixed bag of Toyota

January 16, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

Got a mixed bag of Toyota commercials from Japan: Starlet KP60 Trans Europe trial, Corona T100, Celica XX mk1, Chaser MX30 and the KE30 saloon!

Even though I live in Europe, in a country next to Germany I still have no idea what the Trans Europe Trial actually is… It must have been something like Toyota wanted to prove the Starlet was an excellent car for European roads, therefore it would certainly be an even better car for the Japanese roads!

The Corona T100 looks like it would have been sophisticated back in a day, but with those features (central warning light, 5mph bumpers) you can even find on BYDs nowadays!

And that Chaser MX30! Of course if you first run it flat out on the saltflats (who put those lines there??) you definitely need to wash your hair!

Hilarious: D1GP/D1SL Arm Wrestling

January 15, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

This video of D1GP/D1SL the drivers doing an arm wrestling match made me grin big time:

Big LOL @ Naoki Nakamura who even fails to win when using both arms! :D

New years resolution: pay respect to your old RPS13!

January 14, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

Remember the tire-change-by-hand-guy? Well, I found his blog some time ago and it turns out he is actually called Bomber Yamamotoand appears frequently in JDM Option and Option2 videos. So naturally I’m a frequent follower of his blog nowadays. ;)

Anyways, he had a very weird new years resolution:
Bomber's old Nissan 180SX RPS13
Bomber’s old Nissan 180SX RPS13
He paid his respects to his old (deteriorating) 180SX to have a safe (driving) year!

I hope for him it will actually work. :)

Carina sightings: Carina AA63 versus Trueno AE86

January 13, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

Now this is nice for a change: a Toyota Carina AA63 and a Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86 drifting on a touge near Sagamiko in 1997! You can see the Carina after 1:56:

The AE86 driver clearly has a lot of skill: he drifts those corners exactly as Keiichi Tsuchya would have done in his AE86 back in 1997! He also drifts as skillful both uphill and downhill and both during day and night!

The Carina driver is not that skilled: he spins out 3 out of 4 times. On the other hand you can see him having engine trouble at the end of the video. According to ae86lan the Carina had a stock exhaust with a rust hole in it, so that is the source of that nice sound. :D

Video: Austrian actor sells Japanese car collection

January 12, 2010 / banpei / 2 Comments

In April last year Japanese Nostalgic Car blog wrote about the Austrian actor Roland Düringer selling his complete collection of Japanese cars. I kind of forgot about it afterwards (like most people do…) until I stumbled upon some videos on Youtube. ;)

The videos of Roland Düringer’s sales talks were shot after the posting by JNC blog and had the purpose to boost the auctions. I guess they certainly did: the Toyota Celica liftback sold for €16600!

Let’s enjoy some of the sales talks by Roland:

It is very difficult to understand and I hope your German is better than mine, otherwise it will be totally gibberish for you! :D

Basically what he said was that the Crown was immaculate, has the 4M 6 cylinder 2600 engine, Japanese fender mirrors, skai interior and bonkers looks. The Corolla liftback is praised for its glasshouse look and only having 53000km on the odometer!

The Crown was sold for 3800 euros and the Corolla Liftback was sold for 2300 euros. Way too low for they state they were in!

So, how about another Toyota Corolla KE25 then?

This KE25 sold for 3650. Sounds like a good price for a Toyota Corolla Coupe deluxe with only 79000km on the odometer!

Something older than this? How about the Honda S800:

Sold for a well deserved 9550 euros. I love the selling point: the foglights! :D

Something newer then? How about a 1980 Mitsubisi Sapporo:

Super rare in Austria: from what I understand this car was never sold in Austria. He had it imported (flown in to Austria) from the first owner and it still has its first paint. Sold for only 2650 euros.

Then the best car of the auction, the 1977 Toyota Celica RA28:

This car was sold by a dealer and but bought back from the buyer after 6000 kilometer! The rest of it is a bit gibberish to me, but apparently it was actually meant for the Austrian Toyota museum… The car eventually sold for 16600 euros!

A bit of a shame of the MS60, Liftback and the Sapporo, but at least the other cars sold for a good price! :)

Why old cameras rule: Nissan Sunny B110

January 11, 2010 / banpei / 2 Comments

Before I bought my Canon EOS 350D (also called Canon Rebel in the US) I used to shoot all my photos with my trusty Minolta X300. I’m still sorry I sold the camera shortly after I bought the EOS… I probably thought I would eventually get used to the EOS and actually put effort in shooting pictures with that camera. After 4 years I’m still not used to the EOS and still do the click-clack-lets-do-another-ten-and-choose-the-right-one like I did with my first digicam. Damn, I miss analogue photography! :(

Lately I become more and more interested in photography with the good old analogue cams and I was quite happy to see this beautifully shot Nissan Sunny GX B110 at beeoneoneoh’s blog:

Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed
Now that’s an image you can hardly shoot with a digital camera!

Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed
Very beautiful shot of the rear of the Sunny. Almost impossible with the sharp and crispy lenses of the new digicams!

Nissan Sunny B110 GX 5 speed
I love it! :)

These pictures were shot with this vintage camera with a Leica Summilux-M 50/1.4 lens:

Vintage camera with Leica Summilux-M 50/1.4 lens
I’ll definitely start looking for a secondhand vintage camera tonight! :)