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Commerical time: Toyota Magnum PI?

July 22, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

What does Toyota have in common with Ferrari? Simple: both were selling their cars through the Magnum P.I. image!

When the Magnum P.I. television series aired in 1980 the sales of the Ferrari 308 GTS (and other models) boomed. Tom Selleck’s favorite car had so much appeal to the audience that everyone loved the car, including me! Even though I was only a little boy back in the early 80s that 308 GTS is somehow burned in my mind together with the image of a mustache wearing P.I.

Apparently Toyota thought the sex appeal of Thomas Magnum was strong enough to sell the “sporty” 1982 Mark II GX61:

To be honest: the 1G-GEU sounds really sporty…when modified the right way… But it will never sound as good as the V8 of any 308! ;)

The same salaryman features in the second commercial in this clip:

But then he promotes the Mark II Grande Limited. The seats of that Grande Limited look like one of those very comfortable couches from the 60s my grandma used to own. Mmmmm, soft! ;)

Toyota Soarer MZ11 review

July 21, 2009 / banpei / 2 Comments

Great! Even though my Japanese is really bad I still can understand the car review of this first generation Soarer:

The Japanese automotive website webCG reviews cars from time to time and the June 2004 issue reviewed this factory stock Soarer MZ11!

Just look at those seats! I already said the same about the seats of the GX61 Mark II Grande Limited: they look like comfortable couches from the 60s! Now that’s a Grand Tourer! :)

Damn, just look at that touchscreen panel! Imagine this was the same era as the “modern” turn dials of the A6 Carina!

If you look at all features and gadgets in this car it would still look as modern as an average car from the year 2000. Maybe to create a car as modern as the year 2000 was their aim?

Blog 2.0

July 21, 2009 / banpei / 2 Comments

As you probably noticed: I updated the blog software to a newer version. One of the things I was really missing was the rating of blog items. Unfortunately that was not possible in the version I was running, so I had to do a major upgrade. Also swapped the sidebars from right to left and made it to work with all browsers I could test with. So if you still suffer from a bad layout: please let me know which browser you are running!

Anyway, you can now rate all my ramblings so go rate some! :)

Flyrat car company

July 21, 2009 / banpei / 1 Comment

Last week Beeoneoneoh posted some very beautiful pictures and info about a Nissan Sunny Excellent k120Y PB210:

Nissan Sunny 120Y PB210

And there was something about those pictures… I could not pinpoint what it was… Until he posted these beautiful pictures and info on a Nissan Cherry 100A X-1R:

Nissan Cherry 100a X-1R

It was the exact same location as the Carina Sighting of the almost mint TA63 GT-TR:

Toyota Carina TA63 GT-TR at Flyrat!

I never took notice of the name of the dealer who sold that particular Carina, but it remained in the back of my head somehow… :D
Damn, I think I have another car dealer to follow now! ;)

How to recycle your AE86 seats?

July 18, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

Alexi Smith from Nori Yaro posted a picture of another way to recycle your AE86 seats:

Recycle your AE86 in a different way!

It kind of reminded me of the AE86 seats I tried to clean up… Not that they were this moldy, but believe me: they were moldy enough!

Back then I was very brave and removed all metal rings holding the seat together. Thinking about me removing those rings still hurts because of the blisters I got. Then I removed the cloth and washed it 3 or 4 times, both by hand and in the washing machine. In the end the seat looked cleaner than when I got them, but when I compared it to the dirty seats which were already in my Trueno I decided to keep those: they were cleaner than the ones I had washed!

Well at least I learned how the disassemble and reassemble both AE86 seats. ;)

[ Picture made by Nori Yaro ]

Hilarious: Ultra scatman!

July 17, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

Remember the car usage in tokusatsu movies and series? Most tokusatsu heroes have the most expensive and most up to date cars of that moment, but not Ultraman. Ultraman can fly, so he has no need for some super fast car with the latest technical abilities. Ultraman can do almost anything: Specium Ray, Ultra Slash, Electrical Immunity, Ultra Attack Beam, High Spin, Ultra Air Catch, Ultra Air Catch, Ultra Psychokinesis, Flight, Teleportation, Ultra Current, Dynamic Size Change, Clairvoyance Beam, Ultra Chop, Ultra Punch, Ultra Kick, Ultra Swing, Ultra Eye Spot, Slash Beam, Catch Rings, Star of Ultra, Ultra Separation, Marine Spacium Beam, Energy Transfer Beam, Final Cross Shield, Energy Exposure, Giga Specium Beam and Beta Capsule Transformation.

Lucky enough for him he now has a new ability: scat singing!

Scatman John only had one big hit in the world, but apparently they loved him till death (and after as well!) in Japan: he scored hit after hit in Japan and after he died they released a special edition tribute cd with several unreleased Japanese tracks (“Su Su Su Super Kirei” and “Pripri Scat”). Even today he is still very popular in Japan and now even Ultraman is continuing his scat singing abilities!

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