2021/03/31

I modified my car and really went too far this time...


It's pretty rare for me to let my interest in Tokusatsu seep out into the real-world. It's not that I'm ashamed or anything, I just hate having to answer questions. When I wear a shirt, I just want it to register as a shirt to someone...not start up a conversation. 

An example of this madness involves one of my favorite baseball caps. I've been shaving my head for awhile so I've accumulated many hats to ward off the skin cancer. My go-to is just a random baseball team. Phillies, Brewers, Cubs, Padres, you name it, I probably have it. Outside the random "Did you catch the game?" nobody really bothers me. 

Except for, unfortunately, my favorite hat... Montreal Expos. First off, everyone assumes I'm Canadian. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the notion, but that always leads to "Well......why the Expos hat??" when I make the correction. OR...when I was in Las Vegas I wore it for two days and the scammers were aggressively trying to get me to their strip clubs/timeshare meetings/cruise giveaways. I switched up to my Dodgers hat the next day and...not a damn soul bothered me.

So I did something totally wild that goes against everything I just said...

In my decades of driving I've never felt the need to swap out my government issued license plates for anything special. No special interest plates...no personalized plates... I don't know what possessed me, but I ended up looking into doing both. Thus began the long process of selecting my new plates.

A blank personalized plate has a seven-character limit. My top two choices that sadly weren't available were "YOKAI" and "PEGASUS", but I did actually have a bunch of options to skim through. Among which were...

"DRCLAW" 
"P440CPJ" (Plate from the legendary lost Mexican McLaren F1...it's resurgeance in popularity scared me away recently)
"SUBRZ"

There was one that stuck with me for about a month...and joy of joys, it was under five characters...which means I could choose from one of my State's special interest plates! Since I happen to be a big fan of the beach, my selection was a no-brainer.

So I was going with a "Shore to Please" (emphasis theirs) plate with personalization. What does it say...?


*nijiiro Crystal Sky intensifies*

I told you...I've gone too far with this!


I ordered this in January and almost three months later it finally arrived! I honestly almost forgot about it since I didn't get any kind of shipping notice from the State or anything. Heh.

If someone ever decides to recreate this card...please, please, please let me know. I will absolute take one!

Better than an F.O.P. card...!

I guess I can sum it up like this...

Ohres to Please


-CC

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From Ultraman to Adman

I'm not going to lie. The thing that drew me to Youtube early on was not the copious amount of copyright infringing materials posted to the site, rather the car videos. Before anyone bothered to edit anything together for original content I was mostly watching old car commercials and whatnot. There was one brand that did it better than any other... Nissan in the 1960s-1980s.

Just check out some of these ads...

There was the series R30 Nissan Skyline ads featuring a very awkward Paul Newman. Then in the 90s we had the R33 Skyline ads featuring Tatsuro Yamashita before the internet invented whatever Citypop is. There are also the infamous hippy-dippy Kenmeri Skyline ads of the 1970s. You've probably watched something at some point that reference that series in some capacity.

Before Nissan dominated the Japanese car ad market in the 70s with their slick lifestyle campaigns, there was one final push of sheer force behind their product.

The Nissan Bluebird 510 Sedan...

It's a car which is the sheer definition of car. Three boxes, four doors, four seats, and a steering wheel. I challenge you to find a more basic looking car. There are certainly similar cars from the era, but this is peak generic car. So how do you sell something like that? A comically macho ad of course! 

They enlisted the help of a gaggle of men, but one of those men was more than a man...he was an Ultraman! There is no mistaking the face of Susumu Kurobe being the lead Gent of the squad of...engineers? Doctors? Ehhh...it's easy to get hung up on details since newer ads give so much plot. This one doesn't! It's just five dudes (conveniently it's a five-seat vehicle) posing over the earwormiest song you'll ever hear in your entire life. 

Style up! Safety up! Accel your heart!!


When it came time for a coupe version of the Bluebird, the band got back together to celebrate it. Beyond that...there isn't much. It's unfortunate that we haven't gotten a better quality version of the ads in all of the years since it's been online, but we'll take what we can get, right?

Beyond the TV ads, there were some print ads featuring Hayate...er...Kurobe.


I just thought it'd be fun to bring up this little blip in the man's career since I never really see it mentioned anywhere. I mean...it's even unconfirmed that it's actually him, but c'mon. He has a pretty unique look and hairline with that widow's peak. He has had such a packed career in the fifty-five years since Ultraman that little footnotes like this really get lost in the shuffle. 

Accel your heeeeaaaaarrrtttt~!

-CC

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