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Remembering Japanese cars from the past

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Carina Sightings: what does 19 years Carina driving do to you?

Just have a look at this 1996 Carina commercial:

I thought about how the guy has changed during those 19 years from a tough 70s homie to a 90s salaryman dweeb. So I thought it would be fun to put all Carina drivers before that commercial into a chronological order and see how he evolves. ;)

Early 70s:
Early 70s Carina driver (Sonny Chiba)
Sonny Chiba escaping from motorcycle gang in a Carina coupe TA17

1977:
1977 Carina driver
The cool guy from 1996 commercial in front of a Carina TA40

1982:
1982 Safari Carina driver 1
Safari guy next to a 1982 Carina Road Runner II SA60

1982 Puppy saving Carina driver
Puppy saving dad from the 1982 Carina GT-TR TA63 commercial

1988:
1988 suntanned Carina driver
Suntanned guy in the 1988 Carina T170 commercial

1993:
1993 housedad Carina driver
Housedad in the 1993 Carina T190 commercial where his wife clearly cheated on him

1996:
1996 dweeb Carina driver
Total dweeb in the 1996 Carina T210 commercial

conclusion:
So what happened?? What can we make of this?
Well, first of all if you look at it from the Carina perspective they get more dull on each new generation of the car, but that also accounts for the driver as well.

On the other hand if you look at this chronologically you will notice you start out as a superstud in your late 20s, be a cool guy in your early 30s, get adventurous in your mid 30s, get suntanned in your late 30s, get cheated on in your early 40s and become a loser in your late 40s. I think that sums up the life of a Carina driver pretty much! ;)

I’m pretty glad I’m still in my early thirties (almost mid thirties) and drive the 3rd generation of Carina. So I’m quite safe at the moment. But my next car won’t be a Carina anymore, I can promise you that!! ;)

For the guy in the commercial: lucky for him the girl still remembers him as the cool guy in his late 20s and smiles, so he should be one lucky guy!

How cool can a Toyota Chaser JZX71 be?

Noriyaro posted some amazing pictures again! This time of a typically 80s boxy Toyota Chaser JZX71:
Toyota Chaser JZX71 drifting
Boxy 80s Toyota Chaser JZX71 drifting

I do not agree with him that the car is bosozoku, it is more kyusha kai than bosozoku: it is lowered and it got stretched tires around deep dished rims. No further bosozoku styling (like ridiculous body modifications) or what so ever.

If you’re interested in all pictures of the Chaser, you can find them in this posting on the Noriyaru site:
Nori Yaru’s Chaser

Digidash was a standard feature on the early 3 door zenki AE86!

I did some research into the digital cluster on the AE86 since my blogposting about the Impulse AE86 rebuild. Lucky enough I have both catalogues for the Zenki AE86s: both the Sprinter Trueno and Corolla Levin (which are for sale actually!). ;)

If you’re not familiar with the digital gauge cluster of the AE86, this is what I’m referring to:
Zenki AE86 Sprinter Trueno digital cluster
The digital gauge cluster of the Zenki AE86 Sprinter Trueno

I looked into the options and standard features of both the Levin and Trueno:
Zenki AE86 Sprinter Trueno GT Apex digital cluster default option
The 3 door Zenki AE86 Sprinter Trueno GT Apex had a digital cluster as default option

Zenki AE86 Corolla Levin GT Apex digital cluster default option
The 3 door Zenki AE86 Corolla Levin GT Apex also had a digital cluster as default option

As you can see: both 3 door GT Apex AE86s have the digital gauge cluster as a standard feature. For 2 door GT Apex cars the digital dashboard was only available as an option. And for all other trims and variants it wasn’t even available!

Both catalogues are from S58 (1983) so that still doesn’t say anything about which years it did feature on the cars…

WTF: Nissan Skyline’s mini: Langley

I really had a WTF here: I saw this ad by the same poster as a Carina ad. It is about the Skyline’s Mini, also called the Langley:
Nissan Skyline’s mini ad on Youtube

Further investigation gave me this video:

Wikipedia redirected me upon Nissan Langley to the Nissan Pulsar page and there it was: The Nissan Langley, from 1980, was a more upmarket Pulsar.

Basically what Nissan did was give better looks to the FWD Pulsar, slap some round taillights on it and call it the Nissan Skyline’s mini to attract even more buyers! Sounds to me like the same if Toyota would have sold the 3 door Sprinter Trueno as the mini Celica XX in Japan.

Retro: 1995 Lancer Evo III GSR

You probably think: another 1995 video? When will this end?? I came across this video of the Lancer Evo III on a different way than digging into the dungeons of Youtube. This video was made back in 1995 when the car was hot and new!

Just looking at the car makes me feel this is very 90s! The rideheight of the car is enormous compared to what we’re used to nowadays and the method of registration is more or less documentary like with the long shots and long interviews. Compare that to the modern style of Hot Version:

Ah well, it must be that we’re already 7 evos further, so in another 12 years we’ll laugh our asses off at the Hot Version videos. ;)

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