Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: carina ta60 (Page 3 of 5)

New goodies: kouki Carina AA60 tail lights!

After missing out a couple of auctions on Carina AA60 tail lights, I decided I really had to get them the next time and contacted Ewan from Hayatonka. He understood the pain and difficulties, and did his best for me. After nearing the scary deadline the price rose quickly, but we managed to win the auction after all!

After being on a boat for four weeks the tail lights finally have arrived at my doorstep:
JDM Carina AA60 tail lights
A pair of zenki Carina AA60 tail lights, mid console and some other small stuff included in the auction. The lights basically look like they are brand new, so that was a very luck win!

The difference between the Carina AA60 and AA63 tail lights is that the AA63 ones are smoked. This means the AA63 ones look a bit blackish, while the AA60 are just normal ones. I can live without that I guess. 😉

Here you can compare how different they look from the zenki ones:

Continue reading

Carina Sightings: Hukkapätkä!

As far as I understood hukkapätkä means “a piece of waste” in the Finnish language. Perhaps Isokorpi Customs was thinking about that when they created this monstrous Carina, but I have to disagree on that!
Carina TA60 by Isokorpi Customs
They probably used a Carina TA60 as the base of this monster and put something more powerful in it.

Judging from the gigantic intercooler it is probably something turbo-ed: Continue reading

Carina Sightings: Belgian pre-production Carina GL


I was going through the collection of Carina brochure pictures and one small detail stroke me on this brochure:
Belgian Carina GL
Belgian Carina GL

The Carina in the bottom picture is a Belgian Carina TA60 GL. Now that isn’t that weird, but the brochure is Japanese and dated as S56-9 (September 1981). The Carina A60 lineup was released in September 1981 so the Carina on the brochure must have been a pre-production model.

This was done by Toyota before, just like the Levin and Trueno AE86 European tour in 1983 but we’re talking about a left hand drive Carina here.

Also in this picture you can see the front of the car is actually featuring quad headlights:
Belgian Carina GL
Belgian Carina GL

Now it gets even more confusing and more and more questions arise!
Why did they feature a LHD pre-production car in Belgium in a JDM brochure? And why does it have quad headlights while all European models did only have the normal headlights? And where is that car now?

DOTS: Toyota Carina GL TA60

Just by that: a Carina TA60 in my own hometown! 🙂
Toyota Carina GL TA60
Toyota Carina GL TA60

When cycling to work I spotted the rear end of a Carina on a (closed) parking lot of an office building on the other side of the parking lot of the local fire department. I stopped and a fireman opened up the window asking if I was able to find whatever I was looking for.

So I explained I spotted exactly the same car as mine in the parking lot behind the fire department. He told me how to get there and I made a few snaps with the ancient phone I’m currently using (my own got stolen last week during a break-in). I also made one with my old analogue camera, but I’m still waiting for the black and white film developer chemicals so I can’t show it to you yet…

The Carina was registered in 1983 as a beige car. It looked quite solid to me, didn’t have too much rust (except on the steel rims) and believe it or not: it is, just like mine, an automatic as well. Only big difference is that this car is a GL, so it features a more comfortable interior. 😉

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