"What I done was put my stuff on KiwiRail," says Scott.
Car designers who made a name for themselves
According to More Curious Questions by Max Cryer, the Mazda brand was founded by Mr Ju-jiro Matsuda. The Japanese name for the Zoroastrian "God of Reason" is Mazda so Mr Matsuda's name was adjusted to Mazda to name the car. Three men investing in another car's manufacture, were Mr Den, Mr Ao-yama, and Mr Take-uchi. Their initials made up the convenient word 'dat' - which by happy coincidence sounded like datto ... Japanese for "running fast". Later models were designated to be Dat-son (son-of-Dat) but the suffix "son" is similar to a Japanese term meaning "lose money" ... so the spelling was changed to Datsun, honouring the sun on the Japanese flag. Isuzu cars are named after the Isuzu river, and Mitsubishi means "three diamonds" - part of the founding firm's family crest. Subaru is Japanese for "unite" but is also the name of the star constellation Pleiades. Three well-known brands are named after their founders - Mr Honda, Mr Suzuki, and Mr Toyoda (changed slightly to Toyota which is easier for non-Japanese people to say) Rather more prosaic are Nissan (an abbreviation of "Japanese industry") and Daihatsu (meaning "generator manufacturers").
I'm not taking him for a spin
A reader writes: "Driving into Hamilton this morning a hitchhiker had his thumb out to me as I drove past him at Gordonton. I could see him in the rear-vision mirror as I passed, seemingly puzzled that I hadn't stopped for him. He might have fitted into my small car, but for some reason he had a top-loading washing machine on the road beside him. Really?"
