Own your own Panda-mobile

Panda-Bus-street
A while back wrote about the free-shuttle Panda Bus* of the Asakusa temple district of Tokyo in the 3Yen report: Animal busing in Japan

Today I stumbled across the official website of the “breeding facility” of Panda buses—the coachbuilder TECNO First of Yokohama.
Think if it! You could buy a Panda Bus if you wanted! Underneath the fiberglass bodywork of TECNO First’s smaller model, the Panda Bus is actually a regular Toyota stretch van. Read a funky machine translation of TECNO First’s official description of the buses here…
panda bus for japanese kindergarten

Besides Panda buses, TECNO First makes a variety of animals buses—lion bus, tiger bus, dog bus—for Japanese private kindergartens. According to the company these vehicles have, “eyes on all the models of buses with a ‘wink’ feature that appeal to kids and strongly motivates young mothers to enroll their children.”

PS: Don’t miss the Panda-mobile’s matching perfectpanda pants in the Comments....
japanese-panda-pantsEmbiggen.

*Here’s a link to the official website of the Panda Bus (funky machine translation) with more photos as well as the bus’ route map and schedule.
Panda-Bus-logo..

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Taro

I'm a pale, alien, quadruped who has worked for 25+ years at "Maybe-the-Largest Inc." in Tokyo.

7 thoughts on “Own your own Panda-mobile”

  5. Biofuel boffins pimp panda poo
    —Breaking down the tough stuff—
    The Register | 31st August 2011
    Pandas are famous for a restricted and difficult diet: the bamboo they favour takes a lot of digesting to yield enough energy to keep them going.
    Naturally enough, then, the tricks that the panda has evolved to survive turn out to be quite potent at breaking down plant material – and according to the American Chemical Society, that could make them an unlikely hero in the development of biofuels.
    Dr Ashli Brown of Mississippi State University reported to the American Chemical Society’s national meeting that bacteria present in panda droppings could help pave the way to using “difficult” plants like grasses, wood chips and waste.
    In particular, Dr Brown says the bacteria are promising in breaking down the very tough lignocellulose, a combination of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. If high-lignocellulose materials could be used as biofuel feedstock, it would reduce the industry’s reliance on food crops...more...

    panda-poo-useful
    Photo thanks to Avlxyz‘s flickr | creative-commons notice

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