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cars (Page 15)

Mobile Suit Toyota – Japanese automaker makes awesome anime ad for new Gundam-themed car

We’re sure everyone’s first choice for mode of transportation would be giant robot, but there are times when you need something more practical to get from Point A to Point B. Being behind the wheel of a four-door hatchback doesn’t mean you have to give up your mecha jock daydreams, though, thanks to the newest collaboration between Toyota and anime franchise Gundam.

The automaker has just released not only a special model inspired by charismatic anime villain Char Aznable, but also an awesome anime commercial for it that has higher production values than the original Mobile Suit Gundam TV series.

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The future is (kind of) here – Something not quite right with Toyota’s patent for a flying car

It’s 2015, so where are the flying cars? Sure, we have plenty of cool stuff like lifelike anime girl mousepads and plastic bag swimsuits, but where are the flying cars and floating cities that science fiction promised us would exist by now? I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of disappointed.

Thankfully one car company is picking up the slack: Toyota. They recently submitted a patent for their version of a flying car, complete with diagrams and detailed explanations. Is the future we were promised finally going to be a reality? Or is the only thing soaring in the sky our high hopes? Read on to find out!

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50 things our Japanese reporter learned while driving in the U.S.

Our Japanese-language reporter Go recently returned from a trip to the U.S. While there, he hunted for aliens and sampled the local cuisine, but mostly what he did was drive.

While Japan is filled with winding mountain passes that make for enjoyable drives, the wide-open American road has an appeal all its own. After days of barreling down the highways of the southwest, Go came back to Japan with these 50 experiences he had driving in the U.S.

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Ready for the Fury Road: Our customized Mad Max Yamaha Tricity motorcycle 【Video】

Depending on the genre, a well-made movie can have you howling with laughter, thrilled by the on-screen action, or feeling cleansed after a cathartic cry. But while those are all enjoyable enough, every now and again you run into a film that affects you on a deeper level by helping to teach you some inevitable facet of life itself.

We recently made a trip to the theater to watch Mad Max: Fury Road, and since then every time we look up at the night sky, we’ve been reminded of the certainty that one day we’ll all be living in a dystopian wasteland. In preparation, we’ve already started stockpiling water and canned goods, and now we’ll be able to tour the wastelands in style with our customized Mad Max-style Yamaha three-wheeled motorcycle.

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Driving just became so much more thrilling with this katana-handle shift knob

A while back, we introduced a realistic ninja throwing star origami template for all of you ninjas-in-training, but if you’re more of a sword-wielding samurai-type (and you happen to drive a truck), you can now turn your shift knob into a samurai sword! Or, well, at least half of one…

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Win props and Survey Corps uniform from Attack on Titan film just by test-driving a Subaru!

It looks like car manufacturer Subaru has their hands on some neat swag that was used on set for the upcoming Attack on Titan live-action film and, for some reason, they’re willing to just hand it off to one lucky Subaru test-driver.

You don’t need to own a Subaru or even like Subaru to be eligible to win an authentic Survey Corps uniform actually worn by a character in the film, plus an actual, “working” 3-Dimensional Maneuver Gear set – the piston-operated grappling hook setup that Survey Corps heroes sport in their fight against the series’ titular titans.

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Following several years of building dependable, affordable, yet almost utterly soulless automobiles, Toyota is trying to get back to creating and market cars with a sense of joy and playfulness. After all, it’s a waste to treat driving as just going from Point A to Point B in the dullest way possible instead of the fun journey it has the potential to be.

That’s why in its newest commercial, Toyota is invoking the spirit of adventure with a fleet of yellow hybrids running about the countryside with the musical accompaniment of one of the most instantly recognizable pieces of Final Fantasy music ever composed.

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Breathe easy – Toyota redesigning Prius plug-in hybrid to double car’s all-electric range

Toyota’s Prius is designed for one purpose, and it’s not to deliver the sort of exciting performance that will seduce you into taking a spirited drive through a moonlit mountain pass (that’s another car’s job). No, the Prius promise is that it will get you from Point A to Point B in the most energy-efficient way possible.

But while the standard hybrid Prius remains a popular choice for eco-conscious motorists, sales of its plug-in variant have been stagnant. Toyota is hoping to change that, though, with an updated Prius that can travel roughly twice as far under purely electric power than the current model.

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Car Wars! “X-Wings” is the movie we wish Disney-Pixar would make next 【Video】

Everybody loves a good Disney/Pixar movie (unless you don’t, in which case you obviously hate fun). And (mostly) everybody loves awesome automobiles and methods of transportation. First, we had “Cars”, and then we had “Planes”. The next logical step has to involve outer space, right? (Huh? Trains? Boats? Drones? Ssh…) After all, we all love space movies like Interstellar and, you know, Star Wars.

Now, we finally have the perfect marriage of space hi-jinks and cute animation in X-Wings, aka Car Wars! Wait, what?

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Rolls-Royce’s new sedan, with silk and cherry blossoms, is as luxurious as a Japanese garden

For generations, Rolls-Royce has been the most exalted name in British automaking. Yes, the Mini may have had the most historical significance. Various models of MGs and Triumphs provided immense pleasure for the driver at an affordable price, and Aston Martin did likewise at unaffordable ones. But for absolute presence and luxury, none of them could ever touch Rolls-Royce.

For its latest showcase model, though, the carmaker with a history as English as high tea looked east for inspiration, and the result is the Serenity Phantom, a car decorated in silk and cherry blossom motifs that looks like it’d be as appropriate for transporting a member of the Japanese imperial family as a British royal.

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How to double the value of your $10 car: Spend 30 minutes adding racing stripes!

Some of you may remember the fateful day last spring when our Japanese-language reporter Go bought what was probably the cheapest car in Japan by acquiring his current ride for just 980 yen (US $8.30). Nine months later, not only is his 1997 Mitsubishi Minica still firing on all three cylinders under its hood, but it recently passed its mandatory biennial safety inspection, called shaken in Japanese.

In celebration, Go treated the Minica to a wash for the first time since he drove it back to Tokyo from Nagoya. With a fresh coat of wax, it was looking better than ever, but Go still wasn’t 100-percent satisfied with the car’s appearance. See, Go believes the Mini is just an overall cooler car than the Minica, so he set out to transform the latter into the former using the finest vinyl sheets and magic markers he could find.

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Drive off In an official One Piece Nissan Serena

Nissan is collaborating with One Piece to offer a limited edition Serena Highway STAR S-HYBRID. Dubbed the “Thousand Serena,” a play on the Straw Hat Pirates’ Thousand Sunny ship, it features a special One Piece car wrap and hubcaps.

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Toyota, being the largest, most internationalized of Japan’s automakers, tends to do a pretty decent job steering clear of picking car names that sound weird or shocking to non-Japanese consumers. Sure, its product lineup briefly included the Emina, but that only sounds gross if you’re too impatient to carefully read the letters in order.

Until now Toyota hasn’t had anything as unintentionally startling as the Mazda Bongo Friendee, Daihatsu Naked, or Nissan Fairlady. But if you’ve taken a look at Toyota’s Japanese website recently, you may have found yourself doing a double-take as you noticed one of its current offerings seems to share its name with a well-known jihadist rebel group.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Toyota Isis.

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Aside from the costumed characters and colorful parades, one of the things that makes Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea so popular is the stellar customer service they offer. Even in a country where service is almost universally prompt and polite, the Tokyo Disney Resort goes above and beyond the norm in providing an unrivaled level of hospitality to guests.

As a matter of fact, Tokyo Disney Resort employees are so dedicated that not only will they make sure you enjoy yourself during your stay, they’ll even help ensure you have a safe trip home, as one park attendee recently found out when the parking lot staff performed a spot check of her car and alerted her to a potential safety hazard.

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Get ready for yuru-kyara car plates! Japan to lift ban on colourful regional license plates

In larger countries like Australia and the United States, vehicle registration is carried out at the state level. This has long allowed each state to produce distinctive designs, including slogans or iconic imagery on number plates. In little Japan, however, vehicle registration is issued by the national government, so car owners have had no option to show their local pride with a regional license plate…until now.

The Ministry of Transport has announced that from next year, local authorities will be free to put colourful character designs on car number plates. Let’s have a look at some of the potential ways to pimp your Japanese numberplate!

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Mr. Sato goes to Tokyo Auto Salon 2015, forgets to take photos of the cars…

While Japan makes some rather unique cars, itasha aren’t the only custom cars in the country. From oni-kyan wheels for drifting to Chibatman, it sometimes seems like half of the vehicles in the country have been modified to extremes. But to get an idea of just how popular custom cars are in Japan, you’d need to head to Tokyo Auto Salon, which saw nearly 300,000 attendees last year!

This year, not wanting to miss out on all the fun, our brave Mr. Sato donned his most garish, chinpira outfit and headed down to look at some cars…and the women who get paid to stand next to them.

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Indian man still insists on driving backwards at full speed after eleven years

There’s a particular type of male who when in possession of a vehicle strives to make it the most outstanding machine on the road for better or for worse. This generally involves painting obnoxiously loud colors onto their cars, which have been fitted with even more obnoxiously loud speakers. The result is a visual and audible horror show only appreciated by those with a similar mindset.

And then we have Harpeet Devi of India who has reached new heights of annoying car customization. He had his transmission customized to have four speeds in reverse and only one speed forward so he can drive backwards everywhere he goes.

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Japan’s hydrogen fuel cell stations begin to open, but are they worth the switch?

With Toyota’s first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV), Mirai, now available, many wait to see if this revolutionary car with take off or fall flat in Japan. On 25 December, JX Nippon Oil & Energy began selling hydrogen for these new vehicles at a cost of 1,000 yen per kilogram (US$8/kg – $3.60/lb).

So is that worth giving up the pumps for…whatever hydrogen comes out of?

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Dirty Car Art is the perfect excuse not to wash your car ever again

Have you ever doodled in the dirt on your car before you finally got around to washing it? Or perhaps when you were younger you wrote something rude in the dust on the neighbour’s rear window? American artist Scott Wade took his doodling many steps further and now creates this stunning Dirty Car Art that you’d never want to wash off.

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Hugh Jackman stars, sings J-pop cover, and speaks Japanese in ads for Toyota【Videos】

When you get to be as big a company as Toyota, you can afford to go out and get A-list talent for your commercials. Over the last few years, the automaker’s created a series of ads starring boy band SMAP’s Takuya Kimura and film icon Beat Takeshi.

In the commercials, collectively known as ReBORN, Kimura and Takeshi play historical figures Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, reincarnated in modern Japan. The latest installment even has a special guest star as Hugh Jackman, Wolverine himself, shows up to help spread the word about Toyota’s newest eco-friendly cars.

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