I posted it here shortly before Christmas:
http://www.banpei.net/blog/toyota-corolla-ke30-pickup-europe
Must have missed this JNC blogposting during the holidays:
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/blog/2008/12/28/rs-yasus-nissan-sunny-b122-pickup-resto/
Because the Corolla KE30 pickup turns out to be a Nissan Sunny B122 pickup. Must have overlooked that it could possibly be a Sunny and not a Corolla. Well, they do look very much alike after all. ;)
This week I present you: the Honda City! (city… city… hondahondahondahonda…)
I used to be a big fan of Madness in the 80s and owned about every record/cd they ever made, but I never knew their songs (and themselves) were actually used in commercials for the Honda City! The commercials itself were hilarious back then! Dated as they are now they look even more hilarious! Honda tried to attract young people to the Honda City and back then Madness was the band that attracted a lot of those youngsters, so it would have been a very obvious choice!
The 1981 Honda City was a subcompact car and was produced till 1986. The car sold in Europe under the name Honda Jazz. Due to Opel owning the rights to the name City on a car (Opel Kadett City for instance) Honda had to choose a different name. It was just a few centimeters too tall and wide to be a Kei car if the displacement would have been lower. Of course the European Jazz is in no way comparable with the Japanese City: apart from the Turbo and Turbo II editions it lacks the Motocompo companion in the trunk! The motowhat?
Motocompo minibike in Honda Jazz
The Motocompo is a small minibike with a small 49cc 2 stroke engine which fitted in the trunk of the Honda City. It was sold as an option till 1983 when the production reached 53369, so not every City did actually have one. The Motocompo manages to output 2,5HP and with its 42 kilograms it should actually a quite capable minibike for the City! (city… city… hondahondahondahonda…)
Here you can see how rediculously small that Motocompo actually is when someone rides it:
And during my search for info I also found out people are selling brand new Motocompos through Ebay for $3500! That’s more expensive than the City was when new! (thanks to Japanese Nostalgic Car for that info!)
I only learned of the Honda Motocompo during early 90s when I got involved into anime and discovered the You’re Under Arrest (Taiho Shichauzo) series. In this series Natsumi Tsujimoto and Miyuki Kobayakawa, two female police officers, patrolled Tokyo in their Honda Today. The Honda Today was partly the successor of the Honda City: Today was the smaller Kei sistermodel of the City while the higher spec (like more luxurious and the Turbo editions) remained the City. Back then I mistook the City for the Today.
You’re under arrest (Taiho Shichauzo) and their Honda Today
In the series you can see the Motocompo in action various times since Natsuki ownes one and always takes along on their patrols.
And to show you once again how small that Motocompo actually is, look at how big Madness is:
Motocompo minibike vs Madness
A bike that small? Madness!
IMO the Motocompo was a great invention from Honda! Just imagine: drive to the outskirts of central Tokyo, park your car and travel to work in central Tokyo with your Motocompo! It would even work here in the Netherlands and it’s puny capital Amsterdam! If they would only have sold the Motocompo along with the Jazz… Jazz? I should rather call it the City!
If you really like Madness you’d definitely love the City! city… city… hondahondahondahonda… Damn… That song is in my head now! :(
Some days ago I mentioned that I would not buy a Carina after this one. What would be my successor for the Carina then? Well, I don’t know that either but time will tell, maybe an Lexus IS300 (Altezza) or perhaps another car. At least I’m always looking around for fun cars and I found another one: the Toyota Comfort! :)
Toyota Comfort in standard trim
The Toyota Comfort was designed in 1988 with only purpose to serve as a taxi. More or less something like the Austin FX4 you saw around the UK up till five years ago. The current model is based upon the Crown S130 platform, but with a shortened floorpan to make it more agile. The Comfort features a 3Y-PE engine on LPG or a 3C diesel.
But the more fun is the limited (59 vehicles) TRD Comfort GT-Z. This car features a supercharged 3S-FE and has, of course, a TRD suspension which is much stiffer than the standard Comfort. The supercharged 3S-FE outputs 160HP which should move this car happily around every corner. ;)
And if that is not enough: there is also a TRD Comfort GTZ which runs on the track. It’s got the supercharger replaced for a turbo. I suspect it is mainly being used for drifting seeing the D1 sticker.
Sounds like an ideal family car if I would live in a RHD country. Nobody expects something as boring a taxi to be used as a normal car and actually be a wolf in sheepsclothing. And what I would do is probably take out the 3S-FE and replace it with a Beams 3S-GE. That would make much more sense than supercharging or turbo-ing the 3S-FE. ;)
Apparently now it has been posted by the user called toyotawiki who is reposting a lot of old videos with spam in the description (pointing to some wiki page on toyota-wiki.com). He even reposts videos from Riceboy.tv! Oh well, I expected this kind of behavior to happen on Youtube sooner or later anyway…
This week I wanted to highlight the Nissan Gloria / Cedric C330. :)
Nissan Gloria C330 Bosozoku style
The mid 70s cokebottle styled Gloria and Cedric and pilarless doors are excellent bodyshapes for a bosozoku styled car! It looks really wild in its shape, it’s got the big bad attitude of the early VIP cars and with the big flared fenders it looks even more wicked!
Nissan Gloria C330 Yanky style
These yanky styled Gloria C330s really looks a bit more like an American hotrod than a Bosozoku styled car. Only the exhaust gives away these cars. ;)
Bosozoku styled Nissan Gloria C330
The differences between the Gloria and Cedric are so minor that with a Bosozoku style makeover you can’t even tell if it is a Gloria or Cedric anymore! But this should be a Gloria
Both Cedric and Gloria were rivals of the Toyota Crown. Apart from the outragous President both vehicles were the flagships of the company.
The Gloria joined the Nissan lineup after Price merged with Nissan. From what I understood the Gloria was the upmarket car and the Cedric more or less the downsized car. In the previous generation of both vehicles this was even more clear: the Cedric featured less chrome and an hood ornament!
Just like its predecessor, the C230, the C330 features pilarless rear door, so there is no B post between the front and rear door. This to mimic late 60s and early 70s American cars even more.
Most cars feature the L26 engine but the L20 engine was also available but mainly used in the taxi variant of this car.
Almost factory stock Nissan Gloria C330
On this picture with almost factory stock Glorias you can clearly see how beautifully styled these C330s actually were! If I were to find one of these beauties in the Netherlands (they were sold here!) I doubt whether I would keep them stock or slam them to the ground Shakotan style!
Also Ken Nomura (Nomuken) features in this video and gives his best shot at a Toyota Crown policecar. He fails (possibly on purpose) and Keiichi takes over the attempt with a 4 door R34 Skyline and he succeeds in drifting it.
The video itself is quite funny to watch, but most probably all setup beforehand since it is a Hot Version video after all. Unfortunately Crunchyroll does not support embedding of videos, so you will have to visit Crunchyroll itself to view the video:
[Keiichi Tsuchiya instructs cops how to drift]
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