You may have seen pictures of cats dressed up bosozoku a couple of times before and probably wondered what the idea behind these pictures were…
Somewhere during the late 80s the Nameneko cats (also called Pelorian) were a really popular hype. The hype was that people dressed up cats in ridiculous costumes and took pictures of it. The most famous creator of pictures and videos of these cats was an artist called Tsudo who called them Nameneko. Nameneko means unlickable (slang for Namen Nayo which means don’t lick me).
This hype was also at the top of the popularity of the bosozoku, so naturally a lot of these cats were dressed up as bosozoku or Yanky.
You may think the Nameneko cats were exposed to cruelty. According to various sources the photoshoots were actually done very carefully without harming the cats! All cats are not looking angry nor freightened and cats defend themselves if they don’t like the situation they are in.
To ensure the cats remained “cute” the shootings had to be done in a very short period. So multiple people were needed per photoshoot to ensure the cats did not start to get angry or bored and only a few pictures could be made per session. In this light some of these videos must have taken months to complete and are a true piece of art!
Nowadays Nameneko cats are still popular in Japan, but due to new technology it is no longer necessary to actually dress up the cats. 😉
Thanks to HachirokuGTV who sent me a link to a blog containing nothing else than pictures of straps and introducing me to the term Tsurikawa!
Tsurikawa (???) literally means strap:
Tsurikawa (strap) standard
To use the word you would normally say something like Tsurikawa ni tsukamaru which means Hang on to the strap.
Of course we all have seen these straps hanging on the Bosozoku styled cars:
Tsurikawa on Bosozoku car
These straps are well known to indicate the ride height of the Bosozoku cars.
It was adopted from the buckets hanging behind cement trucks. They prevented those trucks from spilling cement on the ground while driving. Those buckets were hanging just an inch above the ground and someone thought it was a good indicator of the ride height! 😉
Tsurikawa (strap) modern style
Well, I did find a lot of different straps on the Tsurikawa blog, but I did not find any pictures of them in use under a bosozoku ride… What I did find was the blogger going wild with some of the straps and all different variations on how to hang on the strap! 😀
What I did find was this very cute Tsurikawa I would love to have dangling under my car:
Tsurikawa (strap) cute style
Sorry for the crappy layout, but the blog only posted smaller images of the Tsurikawa!
If you want to browse all the great Tsurikawa used in Japan (and Budapest), please visit this blog:
Japanese Tsurikawa blog
We posted some 11J SSR Mk IIIs before, but they did not have any tires mounted on them like these 14 inch 11Js:
SSR Mk III 14 inch 11J
According to the seller they were mounted on a Yonmeri Skyline C110 and fitted within the rear fenders. I think it must have been done by mounting these rims with massive camber…otherwise I think they would most certainly bump against the fender on each speedbump.
SSR Mk III 14 inch 11J
The mounted tires are Goodrich BFs and according to the seller a bit worn, so see them as a nice bonus. I have no idea what size these tires are, but they are surely nicely balloon-shape stretched…
SSR Mk III 14 inch 11J
In case you are interested in these rims, they only cost 120000 yen ($1350) and can be bought here:
set of SSR Mk III 14 inch 11J at Auctions Yahoo