Forgotten 70’s and 80’s Japs

[angle]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

Looking back those 120a were pretty wild they’re almost like one of those 70’s Lesney fantasy type cars. 

Wonder how many Colt 1000 are left. Or the Daihatsu Campagnolo?

Here's a convertible one what I saw earlier (OK, in a museum which is probably cheating) 

[Sir Snipes]

5 hours ago, sierraman said:

Probably was absolutely rotten, Japanese tin from the 60’s and 70’s used to rot like old fruit. Could be wrong but the level of underbody protection on JDM cars isn’t great.

Nissan seemed to get a grip with the "T" FWD Bluebirds and S12 Silvia, which generally held-up pretty well, but then the Primera and S13 200SX/180SX that replaced them were worse. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

21 hours ago, spartacus said:

Like this...

Aarrgghh they were trying to mimic the Citroën SM!!

[barefoot]

On 1/9/2020 at 10:15 AM, spartacus said:

Like this...

I think that's an F11 Cherry coupe & the one below is an N13 Cherry coupe

[Sir Snipes]

1 hour ago, barefoot said:

I think that's an F11 Cherry coupe & the one below is an N13 Cherry coupe

N10 I think. N13 is a Sunny.

[garbaldy]

I always thought the gold one above was a datsun 100a for the 1 litre and a 120a for the 1200cc one.

[barefoot]

The 100a 1.0 was the E10 

The one in the pic I believe is the facelifted version the 100a F11 - the F10

E10 Cherry - 2dr saloon

F10 - Cherry F11

This one's the coupe, but the front is the same on the saloon.

I could be talking out of my tract on this!

 

[barefoot]

1 hour ago, Sir Snipes said:

N10 I think. N13 is a Sunny.

I stand corrected.

[Sir Snipes]

3 hours ago, barefoot said:

I stand corrected.

I might have the cherry wrong as they're a bit before my time!

[spartacus]

I'll join in for clarification, then go again because it's '90's, but this is an N13...

 

[warren t claim]

Back in 1987 my first job was working my Sixth Form holidays in a cleaning supplies company run by born again christians. As well as running a couple of Ebro (powered by Nissan) vans one of the partners owned a Datsun 140J Violet that was badged as a Plymouth even though it was RHD. 33 years later and I'm still wondering if that was some sort of Aussie import or he just nailed the badges to a Datsun.

[delux]

20171001_184851 by deeelux deeelux, on Flickr

20171001_184910 by deeelux deeelux, on Flickr

20190707_143902 by deeelux deeelux, on Flickr

20190707_140702 by deeelux deeelux, on Flickr

20190707_140542 by deeelux deeelux, on Flickr

20190707_140006 by deeelux deeelux, on Flickr

20190707_103901 by deeelux deeelux, on Flickr

[Sir Snipes]

43 minutes ago, delux said:

 

Both those Silvias are more interesting than at first glance. The GP in the background is odd because the widebody was a European thing and never sold in Japan, at a time when the Japanese kept the more interesting stuff to themselves. I forget which country it was native to, maybe Germany?

The white mk1 in the foreground has the bonnet bulge that, in the UK at least, meant the 2.0 16v FJ motor but it has a turbo badge. It could be a fake turbo badge, or maybe the Europeans got the FJ bonnet with the 1.8 Turbo, or it's a mega rare JDM  2.0 16v FJ Turbo (but I doubt it).

An S12 Silvia is just the sort of thing I had in mind when I was talking about those 80s Japanese cars that are neither 70s "classics" or 90s turbo heroes.

[Spiny Norman]

In the late 80s one of my mates had a K reg Datsun Bluey with an auto gearbox in bright yellow. I think it was the last one I ever saw on the road.

[Conan]

I think the 100a would get less forgotten everyday due to this digital rendition.

 

 

Which is a bit too late because most of them are gone. Somehow the Sunnys and Bluebirds survived better.

[Spottedlaurel]

On 1/7/2020 at 1:45 PM, jonny69 said:

Can anyone identify these and do you know what the story was and what happened to them? This was November 2017. 

99.9% confident they were destined for racing. The bigger stuff was never so popular for export, even back in the '90s when the Sunnys, Violets and Corollas were commanding silly amounts and getting stolen as a result.

Having seen countless examples of these stripped-out for racing over the past 25-30 years, I'm pretty confident that the white bottom middle one is a Nissan 300C,:

1986 Nissan 300C (Y30) x2 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Had these consecutively, and an estate a year or two beforehand.

The rest are Toyota Crowns, bottom left one an early model:

1970/71 Toyota Crown 2300, c. 1994/95 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1978/79 Toyota Crown 2600 Auto, DFH65T (1986) by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

1980 Toyota Crown 2.8 Super Saloon, LDF667V (1988) by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

On the subject of Crowns, here's a real oddity that found its way here. I don't believe these were officially sold in the UK, but they were importing Corona back then so maybe it came across for evaluation?

1967 Toyota Crown Deluxe 1900, PLK990E (1970) by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Interesting to see a few of my photos/scans already on here.......

The Mitsubishi Colt 1100F was never sold in the UK, it seems that an example was brought here and given a road test or two but nothing happened until they started selling Colt (as a brand) around 1974.

1975 Colt Galant 1600 saloon c.1996/97 by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Here's an early one that I used to see around the Stowmarket/Elmswell area.

The coupe version looks great:

Colt Galant Coupe by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

I could break AS with the amount of photos and cans I have on this sort of rubbish, so for now I'll just leave this here:

February 2016 Line-Up by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

Four years later, only one of them has gone (LS400, still around though I believe?) and the rest are still here and working even if the Camry and Laurel are currently SORN and in need of being MoTed.

[Sir Snipes]

@Spottedlaurel do you have any pictures of a Brown Celica Supra Auto that appeared on the usual forums about 10 (maybe 15) years ago? I think it was wine red, maybe bronze, with mahogany bodykit and beige interior. I hated it back then but now it sounds like the best thing ever.

I found one for sale on C&C before Christmas and was wondering if it is the same one;

 

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1081955

[JeeExEll]

[lesapandre]

On 1/9/2020 at 3:50 PM, mat_the_cat said:

Close, in the way that Ben Nevis begins with a B, and the nearest town to this is Barmouth (North Wales...)

Beautiful spot though, and where we camped on NYE this year. Could be an idea for a couple of hours drive out from Shitesteddfod?

 

Camped on NYE. Sounds fun but tough.

[georgeinabz]

Always wished my 1978 1.4 lancer would go like this , never realised Andrew Cowan passed away in October


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[JeeExEll]

 

^

Forgotten.  1977 Corolla 1200 coupe.

[red5]

On 1/7/2020 at 10:12 AM, JimH said:

Obscure memories of an obscure television programme where an obscure Japanese car was mentioned.

I have a recollection of many years ago seeing something on telly where a copper was talking about solving a case where a child had been abducted. According to the copper the only thing they had to go on was what little the kid could remember about being bundled into the back of a car which had no rear doors, vinyl seats with funny stitching and wind up windows in the rear. The copper pointed out that it meant that it was clearly Japanese and could only be one car sold in Blighty. He named the car and said after that solving the case was a doddle.

What was the car? I cannot remember what it was and it's been sort of nagging for years and years for some reason.

it was a Sapporo. early one iirc.

[red5]

On 1/8/2020 at 9:58 PM, georgeinabz said:

It gave you 6 speed as 1high was about 2 low and 3high was about 4 low if my memory serves me correctly , their argument was that the engine ran’ backwards’ so needed a shaft to reverse , why not make it sliding and have 2 cogs , reduc3d the number of cogs required over a 5 speed. Good fun , mine was Kermit green used as John Clark’s Spanish run around


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It didn't run backwards and need two cogs - it just has two primary drives so to speak. You could use both primaries in all gears. reversing then changing into Economy was great fun - 'it's got two reverse gears' etc 

 

The earliest fwd 5speeds were actually the 4 speed with a vac operated 5th - 1,2,3,4 Power then 4 Economy. if you reversed the pipes 4th was lower then 5th...:^^

[junkyarddog]

1 hour ago, JeeExEll said:

 

^

Forgotten.  1977 Corolla 1200 coupe

Look back a few pages 

[JeeExEll]

Forgotten again.

[garbaldy]

2 hours ago, georgeinabz said:

Always wished my 1978 1.4 lancer would go like this , never realised Andrew Cowan passed away in October.

Yes he was the president of our motor club and on the return of  this year's jim clark rally  all cars wore a commemorative rally plaque in his honour,

I wonder what will happen to his excellent car collection, 

[georgeinabz]

It didn't run backwards and need two cogs - it just has two primary drives so to speak. You could use both primaries in all gears. reversing then changing into Economy was great fun - 'it's got two reverse gears' etc 
 
The earliest fwd 5speeds were actually the 4 speed with a vac operated 5th - 1,2,3,4 Power then 4 Economy. if you reversed the pipes 4th was lower then 5th...:^^

More info pics on linky


https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.uk/discover/heritage/explore-mirage-colt


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[georgeinabz]

More info pics on linky


https://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.uk/discover/heritage/explore-mirage-colt


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Glad we didn’t get the booted version , ugly


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[martc]

On 1/7/2020 at 11:26 AM, sierraman said:

For real out and out luxury you need a Mitsubishi Debonair. Only 1 imported, whatever became of it?

36 JMM is on a 2016 Maserati (sad face).

But here's some writing about the above (note, on my PC at least, the website is more or less broken, you need to go down a bit to get to the meat) - https://www.newscabal.co.uk/throwback-thursday-1987-the-mitsubishi-debonair-v/

[lesapandre]

On 1/10/2020 at 4:05 PM, barefoot said:

The 100a 1.0 was the E10 

The one in the pic I believe is the facelifted version the 100a F11 - the F10

E10 Cherry - 2dr saloon

F10 - Cherry F11

This one's the coupe, but the front is the same on the saloon.

I could be talking out of my tract on this!

 

The E10 Cherry saloon picture is very sad really. There behind is the Morris main agent  somewhere in about 1973 - all stone and columns and dark green paint and proper - probably been these since the late 1930's. There would have been mechanics called Alf and Fred in the workshop, and a lady called Doreen in reception. All been there since the 1950's themselves probably

They would have sold the Minor when it was new, and Oxfords and the new 1100 in the early 60's. Image the excitement when these cars turned up - people in the business and customers too

However in 73 there is the future driving by. Your columns may be Doric main dealer and happy your memories but by 1973 Morris had nothing to sell really and nothing truly competitive or innovative or even desirable. 

And there goes the future driving by...and a whole world ending.