Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: fortran wheels

Finish this Finnish Lexus-powered Carina! – Carina Sightings

Some projects turn out to be too big to ever pass the finish line, but this Finnish Lexus-powered Carina doesn’t seem to fit that category. However, it’s still an unfinished project that is almost there.

Unfinished Finnish project: Carina TA60 with a 1G-FE engine
Unfinished Finnish project: Carina TA60 with a 1G-FE engine

The unfinished Finnish Carina project

The ad describes it as follows:
Project carina. 2.0 direct weave from lexus. Immobilizer on, has been tested. A mild project. Not inspected. Good basket.
Normally a basket-case would never be good, but this Carina is an exception to that!

How can you fit a 6-cylinder in a Carina?

Fitting a 1G-FE 6-cylinder engine is possible on the Carina TA60 as the A60 Celica XX also featured the 1G engine family in Japan. Sourcing a cross-member from Japan for it should be possible. However, I’m not sure if the current owner went through all that trouble though.

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I don’t know where to begin with this Fortran Drag Wheels advertisement – WTF?!

This Fortran Drag Wheels advertisement has so many WTF?!s in it that I simply don’t know where to begin. I did feature the Fortran Revolt wheels before and those wheels also had some interesting advertisements. But these Drag wheels, oh boy! Let’s just unravel this ad. Layer by layer, detail by detail.

Fortran Drag Wheels advertisement - I don't even know where to begin...
Fortran Drag Wheels advertisement – I don’t even know where to begin…

Gigantic woman towering the Manhattan Skyline

I think we can first start with the 1980s airbrush painting of a giantic woman which I can best describe standing in a Kiba-dachi stance towering over the Manhattan skyline. Her right high-heeled shoe is standing on top of the water in the Upper Bay or the Hudson River.

Chained up woman over the Manhattan skyline
Chained up woman over the Manhattan skyline

Is she wearing 1970s plateau shoes? She’s holding chains that seem to be coming from somewhere in downtown New York. The chains seem to break somewhere in the middle, but her arms don’t seem to suggest she is the one breaking it with force. On the contrary: she’s just holding them. Maybe the chain is put on a high voltage and now the centre link is disintegrating?

Over the moon and Jupiter

Giant moon and Jupiter. That gravitational pull must be immense!
Giant moon and Jupiter. That gravitational pull must be immense!

Behind the woman on the left, there is a gigantic moon. If the moon were this close to the earth, probably New York would have been flooded by the immense force of Moon-gravity. On the right of the woman, we can see a planet. Presumably, this is Jupiter. What is it doing there?

Another Skyline

Nissan Skyline GT-EX KGC211 floating in the Hudson River
Nissan Skyline GT-EX KGC211 floating in the Hudson River

The Manhattan skyline isn’t the only skyline in this advertisement. At the bottom of the advertisement, we can see a facelifted Nissan Skyline GT-EX C211 with a big golden 2000 GT Turbo sticker on the side of the car. Oy has some huge bubble-shaped over fenders and looks just like it was inspired by its Group 5 contemporaries. Why it’s floating on top of the water we don’t know. What we do know is that the wheels featured on this car are Fortran Drag Wheels. Even the license plate tells us so.

Drag, the Dynamic wheel - Fortan really knew how to create a good tag line!
Drag, the Dynamic wheel – Fortran really knew how to create a good tagline!

Above the woman, we can also see DRAG in bold painted letters and the tagline the Dynamic wheel. Why dynamic is written with a capital D is a mystery to me.

Conclusion

So, what do I make of this?
If you look at all these pieces separately, it doesn’t make sense at all. The chain, the moon, Jupiter, the floating Skyline GT-EX, and the woman over the Manhattan skyline. Nothing makes sense.

That is until I realized the randomness of all these things must have a meaning. The Fortran Drag wheels are called the Dynamic wheel for a reason. They need to be dynamic in any situation: a too-close-for-comfort moon with a huge gravitational pull. Rescuing a Godzilla-sized woman who is being chained down. Floating with big balloon-sized tires on your Fortran Drag wheels. Yes, it all makes sense now!

Why Revolt against Fortran? Japanese mega rare alloy wheels! – WTF

You may think what was he smoking? Revolt against Fortran which are mega rare Japanese alloy wheels? Yes, I wasn’t aware of these wheels myself until I found a brochure for sale on Yahoo Auctions. I wasn’t interested in the brochure, but rather more the big REVOLT on it. This is the brochure in question:

Why would you Revolt against Fortran?
Why would you Revolt against Fortran?
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