26 posts tagged “japan”

I remember at the time there was quite a lot of excitement around this car—then as the years went by, we realized it was another boring bread-and-butter bubble. All the Ford Telstars made it on to Autocade today, and here they are. This is, as far as I can tell, more accurate than the claptrap on Wikipedia.

Ford Telstar (GC/AR/AS). 1982–7 (prod. unknown). 4- and 5-door sedan. F/F, 1587, 1789, 1998 cm³ (4 cyl. OHC). Mazda Capella (GC) with new front and rear ends and Ford badging. Mechanically the same. No coupé. Five-door badged TX5. Big technological advance on Cortina, which it replaced in Australia and New Zealand, though in the latter market, a station wagon variant was missed. Popular and a welcome all-rounder in the mid-sized market at the time, and Ford’s main entrant through most of the Asia-Pacific, but more seemed to be affectionate toward its predecessor. Sold at Autorama dealers in Japan.

Ford Telstar (GD/AT/AV). 1987–96 (prod. unknown). 4- and 5-door sedan, 5-door wagon. F/F, F/A, 1587, 1789, 1998, 2184 cm³ petrol, 1998 cm³ diesel (4 cyl. OHC), 1789, 1998 cm³ (4 cyl. DOHC). Mk II Telstar, introduced alongside Mazda Capella (GD), and with a stronger resemblance to the donor vehicle. Station wagon for the first time from 1988, but sold only in Japan and New Zealand; sedans appeared more mature, larger. Five-door still called TX5. DOHC and four-wheel-drive models for this generation, as well as a larger 2·2-litre unit. Improved on its predecessor in terms of quality and refinement, but more of a domestic appliance. Station wagon continued as part of closely related GV series after 1991, while sedans went to GE platform that year; GD wagons were still assembled in New Zealand into the mid-1990s.

Ford Telstar (GV). 1992–7 (prod. unknown). 5-door wagon. F/F, F/A, 1789, 1998 cm³ petrol, 1998 cm³ diesel (4 cyl. OHC). Instead of coming up with an all-new wagon for the GE-series Capella and Telstar, Mazda put the GD through an extensive facelift, and sold the result alongside GE. The effect was somewhat incongruous—bumpers and plastic trim looked like afterthoughts and blended poorly with the original shape—but GV kept the company in the mid-sized wagon market in Japan for much of the 1990s, when it faced financial difficulties. Mid-term revisions in 1994.

Ford Telstar (GE/AX/AY). 1991–7 (prod. unknown). F/F, F/A, 1789, 1991 cm³ (4 cyl. DOHC), 2497 cm³ (V6 DOHC). Another variation on the Mazda Capella (GE)—Mk III for want of a better term—as before with relatively few changes from original Japanese model. Overall a bread-and-butter bubble with typical rounded styling of the late 1980s–early 1990s. Telstar II launched in Japan in 1994 and overlapped standard GE run. GE built also in South Africa by Samcor, 2·0 and 2·5 only.

Ford Telstar II (CG). 1994–7 (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan. F/F, 1789, 1991 cm³ (4 cyl. DOHC). Odd amalgam of rounded centre section of GE-series Telstar with formal front and rear ends favoured by traditional Japanese sedan buyers. Mechanically a GE four-cylinder. Same sheetmetal as contemporary Capella. Introduced in Japan after Mazda’s multi-brand strategy collapsed, and front end meant to ape Mazda Sentia; Ford simply took what was available for the Japanese domestic market and badged it a Telstar.

Ford Telstar (GF/GW). 1997–2001 (prod. unknown). 4-door sedan, 5-door wagon. F/F, F/A, 1840, 1991 cm³ (4 cyl. DOHC), 1998 cm³ diesel (4 cyl. OHC), 2497 cm³ (V6 DOHC). Final Telstar, but very conventional. Mazda Capella (GF) twin was developed as a reaction to the company’s overambitiousness of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and resulted in a very plain car. Telstar had four-door sedan and wagon; no five-door. Diesel from 1998. Sold in Japan, and not widely exported as Ford shifted to promoting the Mondeo and Contour in most markets.

This was a bit disappointing. What is the 900th entry on Autocade?

Ford Telstar (GC/AR/AS). 1982–7 (prod. unknown). 4- and 5-door sedan. F/F, 1587, 1789, 1998 cm³ (4 cyl. OHC). Mazda Capella (GC) with new front and rear ends and Ford badging. Mechanically the same. No coupé. Big technological advance on Cortina, which it replaced in Australia and New Zealand, though in the latter market, a station wagon variant was missed. Popular and a welcome all-rounder in the mid-sized market at the time, and Ford’s main entrant through most of the Asia-Pacific, but more seemed to be affectionate toward its predecessor. Sold at Autorama dealers in Japan.

   Well, at least, unlike the Wikipedia entry on the car, it’s accurate.
   A hundred to go and then I’ll announce the site more widely.

I have driven past this Toyota billboard a few times and thought, ‘Isn’t that Adobe Systems’ slogan?’

   It’s a bit far away but it reads, ‘We believe if you can dream it, you can do it.’ Adobe’s was identical save for the first two words, which were missing: ‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’
   I have seen ‘Nobody does it better’ for everything from Air New Zealand to Pioneer, but I can understand how that could be reused unwittingly. It’s a common phrase.
   Less common, however, is ‘The pursuit of perfection’, used by Toyota division Lexus. However, ‘In pursuit of perfection’ was used by Jaguar for years.
   I suppose Lexus wanted to ape other brands when it first started, so changing a word in a slogan of a company competing in the same sector might have been part of the strategy.
   I might have hated the ‘Everyday’ slogan for Toyota that was used for some time (who touts their products as ‘everyday’? But then, Toyotas can be boring), but cutting others’ slogans a bit too closely doesn’t sit well with me. Even shortening this one to ‘Dream it—do it’ might have worked, and be a bit more distant to the Adobe one.

If you can’t get Japanese food during your stay in Auckland, the airport (the domestic terminal) is your next best bet. Hayama does a good wakame udon for under NZ$10.

This gizmo got me. The lights flash and it vibrates when your order is ready. I’m sure others have seen this before, but it was novel to hick little me.

My friend Doug popped by today and we spent an hour or so watching videos like this on YouTube. Amazing stuff.

Fortunately, Doug could translate for me.
   This was also impressive:    I have driven a regular 997 (not a turbo) and was impressed, so how much more amazing is the GT-R?
   Finally, you don’t see this on Cobra 11: Takayuki Kinoshita testing the GT-R in Germany (speedometer in mph, on account of the vehicle being US-spec).

I had been under the impression that Red Chinese automaker BYD was a Toyota licensee, though in Autocade I stopped short of making this assertion since I had no proof of it. I did think it was odd that BYD has Mitsubishi-derived engines. It turns out there is no connection, but when you see things like the below you have to wonder.
   Two years ago, BYD issued this photograph of its upcoming model, the F1. It since renamed the car the F0, because it claimed it didn’t to get into a legal dispute with the Formula 1 people.

   Look familiar? While BYD might not want legal trouble with F1, it doesn’t seem to mind legal trouble with Toyota. Here’s a publicity photograph for the Toyota Aygo:    BYD’s general manager, Xia Zhibing, has been quoted as saying, ‘The BYD F1 is a model developed by ourselves and we hold the intellectual property right for it.’
   I guess there’s no shame at BYD, and that the ideals of truthfulness in Confucianism haven’t made a return to parts of Red China.
   Come on, Mr Xia, the only contribution BYD has made to the 2007 photo is in Adobe Photoshop! If you are going to lie about it, don’t make it so obvious by using someone else’s publicity pic first! At least use CAD to generate something new!
   Or this could be some form of getting war reparations from Japan, but that Toyota hasn’t been informed.
   And this is the company that Warren Buffett has put money in to. Somehow I think that if any BYD cars ever make it to the US as Mr Buffett intends, Toyota’s going slap a big court order on them, and not a single one will make it on to the market.
   If you look at the F3 and F6, BYD’s larger models, the doors look identical to those of the Toyota Corolla E120 and Toyota Camry XV30, but the front- and rear-end styling has been modified to resemble some of Honda’s work. I understand the dimensions are slightly different but that an expert should be able to prove objective similarity in the shapes of the doors—or enough to stop BYDs from going on sale in many markets.
   The F3 hybrid, the world’s first plug-in car, beating Chevrolet with its Volt, might have an innovative powertrain, but what is the likelihood that has come from somewhere else?
   BYD shows how out of touch parts of Red Chinese commerce is with, well, honesty and decency. I’m happy to deal with mainland Chinese firms, but only those that I am connected to by blood or referred to by family—and governments should not be signing things like free-trade agreements with the Politburo in Beijing till some of these intellectual property issues can be sorted out.
   New Zealand, of course, is a trifle too naïve, with its free-trade agreement.

I don’t think Robin will like this. It’s ANZ’s new web ad, running at the moment on Digg in New Zealand. The broken-down car (the wheel comes off first in the animation) is clearly a Fiat Punto. Couldn’t they have come up with something more generic?

   Not unlike the Michael Keaton film Gung Ho (or Working Class Man) in 1986, about a Japanese car company buying a US plant and the inevitable culture clash. The cars being made by this fictional company were Fiat Regatas, from Italy.
   Note to Chrysler: don’t show this film during merger talks.

Every once in a while, I pop into Autocade to see what the most popular pages are. This is what the site reports back.

   The numbers are still very low but bear in mind we haven’t publicly announced this site yet and there’s still a ‘beta’ tag on the front page.

1. Main Page ‎(22,492 views)
2. Toyota Corolla (E100) ‎(2,193 views)
3. Toyota Corolla (E70) ‎(1,706 views)
4. Austin Allegro 2 ‎(1,683 views)
5. Nissan Bluebird (910) ‎(1,621 views)
6. Chevrolet Caprice (1977–90) ‎(1,607 views)
7. Toyota Corolla (E120) ‎(1,546 views)
8. Toyota Corolla (E110) ‎(1,443 views)
9. Current events ‎(1,443 views)
10. Ford Cortina Mk III ‎(1,424 views)

   The first bunch doesn’t have many surprises. The Toyota Corolla has been the world’s top-selling car for many years, and there would be a lot of people searching for more information on the model. The E100 was made from 1991 to 1999, and hobbyists and owners might not find as much information on the web for a 10- to 20-year-old car compared with more recent ones. The E70’s situation is even more acute: that was made from 1979 to 1987.
   Interestingly, the E70 page has risen a lot. Formerly, the E110 page held third place.
   What is interesting here is that the fourth place is taken by a car considered a massive flop and one of the reasons the British car industry was severely weakened in the 1970s. The Austin Allegro 2 was a revised version of the original Allegro, considered by some to be one of the country’s worst vehicles.
   I discovered that the Autocade Nissan Bluebird (910) page was linked at Wikipedia, which probably accounts for the 1,621 views there.
   The Chevrolet Caprice was built for a long time with a similar body shape, and this is sixth place. It was also a very early page on Autocade and may have been “grandfathered” by the search engines a bit. Interestingly, it is the top American car on the service, ahead of all the classic Ford Mustangs already on the site—possibly because there are already many Mustang pages online and Autocade won’t have ranked that highly in Google by comparison.
   Corollas take seventh and eighth, just through basic searching or links from the E100 page, I imagine.
   And it took till 10th place before a European car emerged: the English Ford Cortina Mk III. While essentially a British car, there was joint development with Ford in Köln, Germany.
   I can’t draw conclusions as firm with 11th through 20th:

1. Toyota Corolla (E150) ‎(1,386 views)
2. Toyota Corolla (E90) ‎(1,374 views)
3. Rover 200 (R8) ‎(1,112 views)
4. Nissan Sunny (B14) ‎(1,062 views)
5. Ford Taunus 80 ‎(1,033 views)
6. Toyota Corolla (E80) ‎(984 views)
7. Volkswagen Passat (B1) ‎(975 views)
8. Toyota Corolla (E20) ‎(938 views)
9. Nissan Sunny (B11) ‎(893 views)
10. Nissan Primera (P10) ‎(864 views)

   Vox reports these with the wrong numbers in its list, so you’ll have to add 10 to each of the above. Toyota Corollas take 11th, 12th, 16th and 18th, probably through regular searching and linking. Another British car—more highly regarded this time than the Allegro—is 13th: the Honda-based Rover 200. The Corolla’s arch-rival for many years, the Nissan Sunny, only manages 14th (and 19th): the B14 was a contemporary of the E100 Corolla, and is probably searched for on Autocade for much the same reasons. (Nissan Sunnys should rank lower as it was sold under many different names around the world, such as Datsun 120Y, Datsun 310 and Nissan Sentra.)
   Another European Ford—this time more Köln than Dagenham—comes in at 15th, but the first proper, all-European car without much concession to the British market comes in at 17th: the Volkswagen Passat, a.k.a. the Dasher to our American friends. Finally, another Nissan rounds off the top 20—this model was called the Infiniti G20 in the US.
  

Above: Rhonda Grant, representing New Zealand at Miss International, with Japanese students prior to a national costume parade.

[Cross-posted from Lucire] It was nice to hear from nutritionist Rhonda Grant, one of our Miss Universe New Zealand runners-up, who represented her country at Miss International in Macau.

   The competition took in some very interesting places: Tokyo, Kyoto, Macau and Hong Kong.
   ‘The best part for me was the whole cultural exchange thing: getting to see three other countries, meet girls from 63 countries, and make some really nice girl-friends who I can’t wait to visit,’ she said. Continued at Lucire.