and it's ballin, too. there are a few Toyota century YouTube videos out there showing off its features. good watches if you're a big fucking nerd like myself
carsfromjapan.com or beforward.jp are better options IMHO. However from a cursory glance it appears that the JDM tax has found the Century; these were easily sub-20k cars a couple years ago...
"This car is a metaphor for La Belle Epoque." Insert diatribe that's equal parts Prairie Home Companion, fart jokes and whatever your 7th grade English teacher was going on about
"And that is why Lexus is for the social climbers" Life on Mars cover with lyrics about the Century being the best car ever
Like those youtubers that went to japan and found a 12 cylinder one for super cheap, threw a Brilliant exhaust on it, And proceeded to absolutely troll the everliving shit out of the cops and exotic car meets.
I know right. I just rewatched all the videos they made of the century. I love how they're fully aware of how absurd it is, and lean into it. The yt channel is called effspot if you want to look it up
Yeah, I’m familiar with that and with /r/trees and I can’t remember the exact name, but I swear there was a subreddit named something like Maryjane but it was about trees…
Older used Centuries are cheap as chips, at least here in Japan. A 20 year old Century with the 5l v12 and maybe 150,000 miles on the clock can be found for as low as $5,000. Even a 2015 model with 60k miles is only $23k. Used Centuries are not in high demand in the domestic market.
Dang, they are pretty rare in the US and only old models that can get past the import ban. The ones that do usually get over are very clean and fetch $20k+ USD easily
American non-car-nerds are gonna be very confused.
In Japan, Toyota makes a car called the Century that competes with something like a Rolls Royce. They have a lot more luxurious cars branded Toyota in general, Lexus is a lot less of a thing there/was an exclusively American market brand for like 15 years.
To be fair to you the OP engaged in defaultism as well. They posted in a global/international sub and didn't specify the country they were talking about.
Rolls Royce is part of BMW. Originally Rolls Royce was a car to be driven in. The Bentley was for when the lord of the manor wanted to drive himself. Famously James Bond drives a 1930 Blower Bentley in three of the 007 Novels, Casino Royale, Live and Let Die and Moonraker. Bond drives one of the last Blower Bentleys built, a battleship grey Convertible Coupé, with French Marchal headlamps.
Flesh and blood but I did look up which books he drove the Bentley in. Also in one of the books Fleming goes on about how only a Rolex is good enough for Bond, but in the later movies he wears an Omega.
He wore a lot of different watches on screen, mostly Rolex's in the beginning, but also Connery's personal Gruen. The first placed watches were Seikos in the Moore era.
I forgot about the Seikos. I read the original bond books when I was in highs school so it has been quite a while. But Fleming makes it a point in one of them to write that only a Rolex is good enough for bond, then in the movies they made watch partner deals and he wore whoever paid the most money.
For the Pierce Brosnan version of Bond, I doubt the Ian Fleming Bond would be happy to drive a BMW.
I understand I am being pedantic, but if you are a fan of the books, sometimes the changes the movie makes are hard to stomach and there is too much suspension of disbelief required.
A car to be driven in as opposed to a car to be driven...on?
What I meant was the Rolls Royce was for the rich person to be driven by his driver. The driver is driving and the owner of the car is in the back being driven. Occasionally the rich person wants to drive the car himself. He does not drive the Rolls Royce, the Bentley is used for that situation.
Edit, also Bentleys were used in racing so they had a different reputation than the Rolls Royce. Also fun fact, when Volkswagen bought Rolls Royce they did not realize/know/understand that Rolls Royce did not own the Rolls Royce name for cars. It was owned by the Saudis. So Volkswagen bought Rolls Royce but had no rights to the name. BMW swooped in and bought the rights to the Rolls Royce name. So technically today Rolls Royces are really BMWs that are licensed as Rolls Royces. BMW built a factory in England to build Rolls Royces. Volkswagen has the heritage factory that used to build Rolls Royces and Bentleys. But until VW bought the company you did not hear much about Bentley, VW really resurrected the Marque.
They weren't correct, you were. Rolls Royce (motors) was indeed sold to Volkswagen. However, BMW managed to buy a few trademarks from the firm beforehand, such as the logo and trademarked grille. BMW then used those to force VW to sell RR to them.
RR is now BMW (with all the BMW problems...) and Bentley is VAG, with all the VAG problems. Of course in the past they were British and had endless British problems, so there's that.
It would make more sense if it was a Rolls. Historically Bentley mostly makes cars for rich people to drive and Rolls mostly makes are for rich people's chauffeur's to drive. I think the Bentley brand surpassed Rolls in the 1990s when it became more fashionable for rich people to drive themselves. Most State Cars are Rolls.
I'm not up to date on my "shit I'll never be able to afford in five lifetimes" info, but I've seen a handful of (active) Bentleys in my time, but never seen a Rolls Royce.
They were the same company for many decades, but are still heavily interconnected.
The engine in the Bentley posted is called “Rolls-Royce–Bentley L-series V8 engine” and was used in most Rolls-Royce and Bentley vehicles for many years.
2.8k
u/BigMeanBalls 4d ago
As if you would catch the emperor in a peasant's car like a Rolls-Royce