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Spotted a Nissan Exa

September 3, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

Today I spotted a Nissan Exa while driving through town. It stopped at the junction which I was passing and followed 50 meters behind me for two or three blocks so I only got a good look at it at the junction. Of course I didn’t have my camera with me, so once again a cameraphone would be quite handy in these occurrences.

Normally the Exa is quite rare here in Holland since it was never sold here and normally was only imported from the US. However this model had a very distinctive front spoiler, so I looked it up and it appeared to be a Grand Prix edition which was only sold in Australia. Hmmm… Forgot to look if the driver actually was on the right side of the car…

The Exa looked like this:

As you can see the front looks very similar to the S12, but actually I think it looks rather more a like the Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno. Too bad it looks horrible at the rear and that it is wwd. ;)

While searching for Exa info I also found this great Nissan Sunny Turbo picture:

Notice the mirrored “Turbo” writing on the grille. Imagine cruising and all of a sudden some car rushes in very fast. All you can see in your mirror is “Turbo” written on the grille… I love those small details on 80s cars… ;)

Thanks to the Nissan Exa club for their info about the Exa Grand Prix.

Carina Sightings: nothing in Hungary

September 2, 2008 / banpei / 2 Comments

I’m back from holiday in Hungary and I didn’t spot any A60 Carina at all. :(

However I did spot a red A60 Celica in Szombathely and in Körmend a silver USDM AE92 Corolla GT-S (JDM version would be a Sprinter Trueno). Unfortunately both times I didn’t have my camera with me… These are the times I miss a camera on my phone. :(
I told my girlfriend that the silver AE92 would be the successor of my previous car: the good old AE86 Corolla. In fact it would be not entirely true since my good old Corolla used to be a SR5 before TE71Corolla converted it.

This is what the A60 Celica looked like:

But then a bit more shabby and used. Well, what would you expect from a 26 year old Celica. ;)
The Celica did feature normal rims, so no Celica Supra or Pizza Cutter rims. It also featured the first generation popup-lamps so I suspect it was a TA60 Celica ST.

This is what the AE92 Corolla GT-S looked like:

But then in Silver of course…

I did spot some other special rwd cars, like a Nissan S14, Lada rallycar and a Datsun 1800. Maybe I’ll spot a Carina A60 next year? Who knows…

Carina sightings: spot the Carina A60!

August 25, 2008 / banpei / 2 Comments

According to the poster of this original 80s footage it should contain a Carina A6.
So, let’s spot the Carina!

It could be at 0:19 or at 0:44 or at 1:03, but IMO all three cars are the same Mark II GX61 Hardtop coupe. Taillights are definitely not Carina and match more or less this Mark II:

I must say that they look quite the same so I understand the mix up.

Video is a bit boring nowadays while back then it was supreme action. Maybe we’re getting used to all that D1 action from Jaan. Nice stock AE86 and Skyline RS-Turbo R30 though!

2007 A60 Meeting in Asagiri

August 18, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

I came across this website some time ago with a lot of Toyota Carina A60 pictures of several meetings.

One of the last meetings on this page was an A60 meeting in Asagiri

It is amazing how many Toyota A60 cars can be together:

Too bad we will never have such huge meetings with A60 owners. Maybe some Toyota or Japanese Classic meeting can get this huge.

Oldskool sticker tuning on AA63 Carina

August 14, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

I found this enginebay image on a carprofile at Minkara:
Oldskool sticker tuning

The car itself is an AA63 Carina with an almost stock 4AGE in it, nothing fancy at all. However, as you can see all stickers are on the inside of the enginebay and not on the outside of the car, like for instance on the fender as it is done a lot nowadays. Must probably be the influence of examples taken from movies like The Fast and The Furious…

This car profile is of an owner who at least owns the car since the early 90s and these stickers look like they are from that era as well. Look at the Option sticker: it’s from before they started doing videos as well! So I assume this is really oldskool sticker tuning! ;)

Hilarious: Automan

August 3, 2008 / banpei / 0 Comments

Last week my colleague told me about this hilarious TV series from the 80s:

Automan is about a computer wizzard working for the police creating an program which makes him an Artificial Intelligence hologram which fights crime, with a sidekick called Cursor which is a thing that can draw polygons into holographic images as if they were real! Take Superman, Knight Rider, Airwolf, Battlestar Galactica and Tron, mash it together and you have Automan!!

Hilarious enough Cursor becomes a Lamborgini Countach quite often in the series and he drives Automan around town and takes cornes square with any speed!
Cursor brakes, you hear the tires squeal, but he brakes instantly. Amazing!!

Of course you can’t hurt a hologram, so bullets have no use:

Amazing! I wonder why the Dutch television never picked up this high grade tv series while we were stuck with The A-Team, Knight Rider and Airwolf!

Ofcourse this is hilarious now, but back then my colleague really loved this series, just like I loved Knight Rider or The Dukes of Hazzard. Nowadays you really see poor quality on those series as well. Even the first movies of Shuto Trials look rediculous nowadays: what use is doing 180s forward and reverse on driving on the Shuto Expressway? And those action shots are all shot doing 100km/h and then doubled in speed.

What would people think of Initial D in 10 or 15 years time? Would they think it was rediculous as well? In some ways I already find it rediculous and the CGI of the first stage is really outdated nowadays and that will only get worse in 10 or 15 years of time…

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