I've always wondered who was in the Nissan commercials during the last 90's. You guys will remember the actor from the "Dream Garage" commercial.

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Well, tonight I spent a few minutes doing some research about this guy. Many people mistakenly thought it was the actual Katayama, but, alas it is not. The actor is Dale Ishimoto and is well known for many truck commercials by Nissan. He started the famous catch phrase "Dogs Love Trucks!" as seen in a few more ads below. My original intent (in searching for Dale) was to see if we could hire him for a small video on the site, but, unfortunately he passed away at age 80 in 2004. Enjoy the research and be sure to post more info if you've got it!

You can find some additional information about him on Wikipedia and believe it or not, he was in many movies shown at the iMDb website.

Here are a few more of his commercials:

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the low rider commercial is my favourite. always puts a grin on my face.

To the best of my research, Dale Ishimoto was hired as part of the 'Dream Garage' commercial program which included the Z restoration program (Vintage Z), Z-Store, and Birth of a Legend campaigns. Here they are together, Mr. K and Dale Ishimoto, at the Vintage Z Rally in Carson, California; May 1997.

Here they are together, Mr. K and Dale Ishimoto, at the Vintage Z Rally in Carson, California; May 1997.

Awesome photos of the two guys together! Dale even has the Jack Russell with him.... perfect. I wonder where the dog is these days. Also, we need some long-term-living hints from Mr Katayama. Isn't Mr K near in his late 90's by now?

And, of course I cannot forget one of the most famous Z commercials of all time. Dale shows up at the tail end of the ad.

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Ha, Mike! Mr. K's birthday was September 14th, I think. He is 103? or did he just turn 104?

This a little off from TV commercials but I've been wanting to share this (it mentions Mr. K). It's an informative cartoon in the Sunday's comics about the 240. It's PDF and safe to open.

240Z.pdf