Remembering Japanese cars from the past
Carboy magazine has been known for its tuning specials and finding old issues really show some great and weird things! Now this old cover is interesting: Carboy Magazine showing with big letters on its cover “Goodbye 2T-G”!
Carboy Magazine may 1983
Now what is that all about? From what I understand it speaks about TRD dropping support for the 2T-G engines. Probably in favor of the 3T-G(TE), 4AG(E) and 1G-G(TE) engines. Yeah, they were great engines too! :)
Found at monkiti1173
I’m cleaning up old directories on my old (retired) harddisks and came across this Finnish gem called Lada Raider. It is a Knight Rider spoof and features a Lada 2101 (aka VAZ-2101 in Russia) instead of the Pontiac Trans Am.
And beware: there is more to come from the old Banpei crypts. :P
Now this was a big WTF for me: a Toyota Levin AE101 based Nissan Skyline BLRA-3 lookalike!
Toyota Sky-Levin BLRAE101
I can understand a replica car, or even a front end swap (hey, I like those things!) but a lookalike car of a 60s Michelotti design on a 90s car from even a different brand and call it a Sky-Levin? No sir, can’t make any sense out of that!
We all know the first generation Isuzu Gemini was based upon the Opel Kadett C (third generation), but what I didn’t know was that Isuzu actually upgraded its specs to Japanese standard:
Yes, that’s a Kadett C with not only headlight washers but actually double headlight washers! Now that’s something you can misuse to squirt on girls! :D
Isuzu also prolonged the Gemini beyond the FWD Kadett D by giving it a mild facelift. To prove they did a great job on that they launched this comparison commercial:
Now if it also could also fly as good as the Space Shuttle it would be even better than the 1982 Pontiac Trans Am. :P
How much bigger is a Lexus GS300 than a Carina TA60?
Just about this much bigger:
Toyota Carina TA60 and Lexus GS300 JZS147
That is indeed my Carina. On one of the rare occasions when I went to work by car (I live at 5 minutes walking distance from work) and returned to my car I found one of my colleagues parked his Lexus GS300 JZS147 next to my Carina. I just had to take a quick snap!
Music from commercials always have been successful if the product caught on. This was especially the case for the Nissan Skyline in Japan: apparently there were many vinyl records, cassette tapes and CDs sold with the music of the Skyline commercials.
Kayou is a collector of these items and put pictures of them on Minkara:
Nissan Skyline Turbo vinyl record
Click here if you are curious how the Nissan Skyline Turbo sounds,
And what would a collection be without the full Paul Newman cassette collection?
Nissan Skyline Paul Newman cassettes
See here for some of the different Paul Newman commercials.
And let’s not forget the most important one:
Nissan Skyline Ken & Mary CD
Ken and Mary! You can find their commercials here.
I really envy Kayou: gems like this swap hands for loads of money on Auctions Yahoo nowadays…
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