Fell in love with the nostalgic round-eyed headlights, without reason

Owners of vehicles other than the Nissan Leopard can also participate in the Leopard Open Meeting 2023, which was held on 4 November 2023 at Miyama Park, Okayama Prefecture. Manabu’s favorite car is a Nissan Gloria (10th generation Y33 model), decorated with an array of miniature cars and CDs from the detective drama laid out all over the bonnet. The car, which the 1989-born took twists and turns and acquired two years ago, is presented here.

Car enthusiast since childhood with no memory

Manabu, the owner of a Nissan Gloria (10th generation Y33 model), was born in February 1989. He has been playing with miniature cars since he was a child, although the reason for this is unknown.

“I used to play with my miniature cars all the time, even when the lights were turned off at night.”

So much so that he has been familiar with cars since he can’t remember. Under these circumstances, what remains in his memory are the cars featured in the vehicle-illustrated books he was reading at the time. He liked the taxis and other vehicles in the book.

“I don’t know why myself, but for some reason I was attracted to the round-eyed headlights. I think there was a Nissan Bluebird 910 taxi on the road at the time, and I thought it looked cool. Other things that attracted me were the scenes of Tokyo cityscapes on the TV news, etc. I liked the angular design and round eyes of cars from the 1980s.”

Criminal dramas were inspired by miniature cars

Manabu’s love of cop dramas was evident in the appeal of the Tomytec “Seibu Keisatsu” series miniature cars and “GORILLA” soundtracks that he had lined up on his bonnet.

“I’m not from the generation, so I started watching old detective dramas because of this miniature car collection, and that’s how I started watching the dramas. This Tomytec ‘Seibu Keisatsu’ series had a line-up of not only the leading cars like the Machine X and the Machine RS but also cars that the criminals drove, like the Gloria and the Nissan ‘Laurel’. Of course, there were a lot of round-eyed cars, which is what I liked.”

It was this collection of miniature cars that led him to start watching detective dramas, and he became interested in the Laurel (8th generation C35) that appeared in the remake of “Seibu Keisatsu”. Although it didn’t have round eyes, he liked the sense of design evolution of Nissan cars since the 1980s, but what he ended up buying was a Toyota Cresta (3rd generation GX8), which he got.

“I have more car-loving friends who are Mark II drivers. But there were no Cresta GX8s. And I remembered that the Cresta had appeared in a car chase scene in the first season of ‘Deka Kizoku’.”

As a result, it was decided that Manabu’s first sedan would be a Cresta.