The Lee brothers in the Double Dragon game may have inspired these two to stand on top of their Toyota Celica XX-es in today’s Family Album Treasures. So why are they standing on top of their cars? And what is the Double Dragon game? And what has that got to do with the Celica XX?
Double Dragon
Let’s start with the Double Dragon game. If you are unfamiliar with this game, you really missed some vitally important gaming history. Double Dragon was the first game in the beat-’em-up genre. This genre is a side-scrolling game where “bad guys” have to be fought and reach a goal at the end. In this case, a young student, Marian, is being kidnapped by the Black Warriors. You have to fight your way to rescue her from this evil gang of thugs.
You can play this game in single-player mode, but also cooperatively in two-player mode. In two-player mode, this game has a bizarre plot twist at the end of the game. After you have cooperatively fought all your enemies, it turns out you’re both in love with Marian. This means you have to fight your brother to death. After you have killed your brother, Marian will fall into your arms and love you forever.
Celica origins
Celica is derived from the Latin word Coelica. Coelica means heavenly celestial or celestial things. When Toyota named their compact sports car the Celica, they used a celestial blue dragon as the logo. This blue dragon represented the East as dragons are associated with the East. This is the reason why I immediately associated this photo featuring two Celicas with Double Dragon!
The double dragon Celicas
Now it may be a good idea to identify both Celica XX-es as they are clearly not the same.
The Celica on the left features a small Twin Cam 24 badge in the grill. This means, if the badge is real, the engine under the is bonnet a 1G-GEU. The 5M-GEU also was a Twin Cam engine, but it remained a 12-valve engine. This makes this Celica XX a GA61 with the GT trim level. The engine is naturally aspirated and outputs a healthy 160 PS (158 hp) and 182 N⋅m (134 lb⋅ft) of torque.
The Celica on the right is a bit more mysterious. We can’t read the badge on the grill and it’s clearly not a Twin Cam 25. Luckily there aren’t that many other options. The aforementioned 5M-GEU powered Celica featured a badge that read 2.8GT but the one in the photo is clearly longer than that. Another possibility is the 1M-TEU powered S-turbo and G-turbo twins that both featured a smaller turbo badge.
The G-turbo was higher spec than the S-tubo and featured the typical Toyota bucket seats of this era. As this Celica XX also features those seats, we can assume we’re dealing with a G-turbo here. That would fit nicely with the size of the badge. That makes this Celica XX an MA63 with the G-turbo trim level. The 1M-TEU engine is a single overhead cam engine with a turbo slapped on it. It outputs 145 PS (143 hp) and 211 N⋅m (156 lb⋅ft) of torque.
Surrounding cars
Perhaps we can also make an attempt to recognize the cars surrounding this pair of double dragons. I’ll go from left to right.
The car on the far most left is a relatively new E90. It features an extra window on the C-pillar, so it must be a Toyota Sprinter E90. Judging from the hubcaps I would say it’s a Sprinter MX that was available as FF and 4WD. I personally suspect the former.
The van behind it is a third-generation Mitsubishi Delica. Given the two-tone paint scheme and being relatively high on its wheels, I’d say it’s a Mitsubishi Delica Star Wagon. The dark red/brown car behind the left Celica XX looks like a compact car with a set of fogs in its grill. It looks like a Mark II GX71, but then in miniaturized form. Maybe a Carina ST160 with fog lights? Or perhaps a Nissan RZ-1?
There are two white cars behind the right Celica XX. The left one appears to be another Toyota Carina, but this time the T170.
The right one is about the same size, but slightly taller. The tail lights slope inwards at the top. This could be the Carina ED T160, but that car has a different C-pillar. I suspect it is a Corona T140.
Finally, we have another white four-door B-pillarless hardtop saloon parked next to the right Celica XX. The chrome mirrors and clear waistline make it a third-generation Toyota Chaser with some chrome-trim pieces over the fenders.
Conclusion
I’m still not entirely sure what the two brothers intended standing on top of their pair of Celica XX-es. If it were a nod towards Double Dragon, then I must congratulate them for being this awesome! If it weren’t I would also congratulate them for keeping me occupied for hours 33 years after this photo was taken! I wonder if they ever managed to rescue Marian from those evil Black Warriors.
I also observed some sort of suspended railway system behind the parking lot. I tried googling for it on Google Images, but I was unable to find out anything. It thinks I’m searching for a photo with a Japanese high school in it. I can’t blame Google as most of the Japanese post-war high schools look exactly the same and high schools tend to put photos on their websites.
One final thought: there are an awful lot of Toyotas parked in the same parking lot. Could it be this photo was taken near Nagoya or Toyota City?
Photo found at Facebook
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