Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Month: June 2010 (Page 4 of 6)

DOTS: 200SX S12, Starion and Soarer


Two months ago I posted some older Down on the Street by me from a period where I didn’t even have a proper digicam yet. So, here are some more beautiful cars taken on a crappy phonecam!

Let’s start with this nice S12:
Down on the Street: Nissan 200SX S12
Down on the Street: Nissan 200SX S12

The Silvia S12 was called the 200SX in the US and even though this car has the “normal” CA18ET under its hood it is still badged as the 200SX. ;)
Back then the owner of this car lived in the center of Amsterdam and took the habit of parking it close to my house (waiting time for a parking license in Amsterdam is about 3 to 4 years!) so I saw it many many times. According to the RDW this car no longer exists in the Netherlands…

How about a non-widebody Starion then?
Down on the Street: Mitsubishi Starion
Down on the Street: Mitsubishi Starion

Owned by the same person who owned the Starion widebody and disappeared a few days after I took the picture. It is no longer registered on the Dutch roads, so I don’t have to guess what happened to it…

This Soarer parked in front of my house was a nice surprise after a long day of work:
Down on the Street: Toyota Soarer JZZ31
Down on the Street: Toyota Soarer JZZ31

Back then I still had my AE86 so within 20 meters apart there were an AE86, a Starion widebody and a Soarer! Too bad they were not directly parked next to each other…

Ten minutes after I took this picture the Soarer left. Engine sounded like a non turbo 6 cylinder engine, so most definitely a JZZ31 with a 2JZ-GE. Only the badge makes it a Toyota Soarer and not a Lexus SC300, the rest of it is identical. However I still like the idea of seeing a real Soarer! ;)

WTF: Toyota Corona Super Roomy


After Yesterdays Lincoln Touge Car I remembered I came across something very different some time ago: a Corona T170 Super Roomy!
Toyota Corona super roomy limo
Toyota Corona super roomy limo

A what??

Well, basically it is a standard T170 Corona, but then lengthened in the middle:
Toyota Corona super roomy limo
Toyota Corona super roomy limo

And it still has got those cheap hubcaps on it… :(

Well, at least you can sit very comfortable on those velours seats with all that extra space:
Toyota Corona super roomy limo
Toyota Corona super roomy limo

Apparently from what I found was that Toyota introduced the Super Roomy to celebrate the sale of the 10 millionth Corona in 1990 and offered this 210mm stretched limo in a limited run of 500 cars.

I can’t imagine many people actually bought this Corona! The Corona wasn’t that big, luxurious and only the extra space may be a bit more comfortable… Looking at it it may have been good as a rental limo or a extra luxurious version of the Corona Taxi lineup, but for the “normal” people it would not have been an attractive car. However back in the early 90s Japanese were just buying anything that looked more luxurious than what the neighbour had on his driveway. As the source mentioned: The Corona was a limo that had the common touch, like the car was a symbol of the bubble period.

Commerical time: Honda See are EX


It is almost two weeks since I last posted a commercial, so how about these CR-X commercials? They surely are typical early 80s commercials with their music by Salon Music and their comic like photo animation!

The name CRX was even more cleverly chosen than the, already famous, SX designation. The song pronounces it clearly as See are EX. Now guess what you could get if you bought this car??

Another one:

And another one with different music:

Now compare that to the Japanese CR-Z commercial:

It looks like they still like the copy-paste functionality and the retro-electro music could almost be 80s if it weren’t for the voice pitch tuning…

Carina Sightings: Emil and Thomas at Gardemoen

Emil and Thomas are from Norway and took their Carina TA60 sedans out on the Gardemoen ice track. Too bad Emil and Thomas used a copyrighted song for this video, but nevertheless it really looks like they are having fun in the snow (and ice):

It may not be suitable for the faint hearted, the ending is very bad for one of the Carinas… :(

Japanese rustoseums (part twelve)

Since posting up a lot of rusty pictures is getting a bit boring, how about some videos of rustoseums? I found a couple of them on Youtube, just like this video of a Mitsubishi Minica A107V Econo:

A complete mess inside and just left somewhere to rot away miserably…

If you like mess and rust this rusty Suzuki Carry van ST20 will certainly cheer you up more:

I haven’t seen so much crap inside a car since at the company I work for one of the office managers quit her job… Her car was definitely just a big a mess as this Carry van, but then of course without the rust! ;)

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