Nissan Atlas Loco

When I was a kid, I wasn't keen on letting friends play with my toys. Video games solved this brilliantly — we took turns or each had a controller — but for a long time I had to grapple with the question of, well, why a kid in a safe environment playing with friends would feel that way at all?

Let me ask you this: how glad are you that your Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) heroes are being exported far away from their native lands?

Does seeing your dream cars being modified in North America or Europe make you happy or, in young Michael's case, anxious?

The antidote isn't positive thinking or mental gymnastics, it's taking stock of reality. They're just machines. We wouldn't have automotive culture without people. To use a vehicle is to destroy it. Maybe it's with someone who can truly appreciate it. It's not my money.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Seeing a JDM Nissan Atlas Loco delivery van, slapped up on some Instagram post of a shady-looking dealership, now rhino lined matte black (or worse, a camper conversion done in North America) I allow myself to shoot daggers from my eyes before remembering I actually have no need (yet) for an Atlas Loco, and no reason to care.

I first learned of the homely dolphin-nosed Atlas Loco van on YouTube, of all places, where I stumbled on its highly sexualized advertising campaign. Featuring the van, a cringe man in a red suit, and a woman wearing practically nothing as they demonstrated its features, each short commercial emphasized how wacky it was to have this living doll to pose in and around an empty work van.

Now that I've typed that out I can see the vision and yet still get the ick from the results. See it for yourself: