Japanese Love for Avanti
This cap from 1970s was on a bottle from the Japanese Coca-Cola bottler .
Letters on top spell America Letters beneath the car say Avanti II .
Below left , Yushi ’ s 1963 Avanti on a Tokyo street .
A
dozen or so years ago , a gentleman in Japan set about collecting at least one each of the one hundred bottle caps in the “ Cocaco Carla Super Car Crown ” series . They had originally been created during the ’ 70s when super car mania had swept Japan and various super cars were featured inside of soft drink bottle caps . In all there were 100 variations as for each car there was a gold version and a silver version .
Today , Yushi Ichinohe is an AOAI member and proud owner of the real thing , his 1963 R-2 Avanti , 63R-3762 . He sent us a picture of the bottle cap that featured the Avanti explaining that the letters above the car spell America and those beneath it spell Avanti II .
He explained how he ’ d utilized the internet to help his search for bottle caps writing that “ My collector ’ s soul was on fire as I often made a successful bid for the crowns sold at Yahoo Auction at that time . Then finally , around 2010 , I fully completed the super car crown series .” Yushi ’ s photo collection can be found online on Instagram and he can be contacted through the page : instagram . com / yushiclassic /
2 AVANTI Magazine Summer / Fall 2022 Issue 199