Toyota official Kazuo Kobayashi was giving American...

Toyota official Kazuo Kobayashi was giving American auto writers a peek at the company’s test track on the Japanese island of Hokkaido recently.

Even though it was new, some of the lanes had uneven surfaces. Just as Toyota had requested.

The irregularities were intended to duplicate various highway surfaces, Autoweek magazine reports.

Naturally, L.A. was honored with one stretch.

“Here we are in the United States,” Kobayashi said as he drove over one especially bumpy portion, “on Interstate 91 and the Harbor Freeway.”

Couldn’t have been the same without a line of red tail lights in front, though.

Our car culture (cont.):

Anyone desiring class schedules from Glendale Community College may, for the first time, purchase them Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 at a drive-in booth on campus. Please bring the exact change ($1).

Classes, for the present, are still walk-in only.

Summa con laude: Val Rodriguez of Signal Hill spotted a van that was carrying a sign in back that said:

“My son is on the honor roll at San Quentin.”

List of the Day:

A 1921 study estimated the animal population of L.A. to include:

1--35,000 cats

2--35,000 dogs

3--650,000 chickens

4--7,500 cows

5--1,500 goats

6--500 sheep

7--42 lions

Pooches and felines probably exceed 400,000 each in the city now, says an Animal Regulation Department spokesman.

Figures for most of the others have probably decreased as L.A. became more urbanized (and Michael Jackson moved his menagerie from Encino to Santa Ynez).

But there is hope for a slight resurgence of chickens in Southern California, now that the Inglewood City Council has passed an ordinance prohibiting the tossing of objects that cause a “disruption of sports and/or entertainment events” at public arenas.

The bill was needed, city officials said, because some Kings hockey games at the Forum “have been disrupted by individuals throwing live fowl.”

The welfare of ducks, meanwhile, is being guarded at Cal Poly Pomona, as the accompanying photo from Gloria Lothrop illustrates.

Getting back to the Kings, the team’s press guide lists a new staff position: “massage therapist.” Our first reaction was that it was a Hollywood touch. After all, Madonna has her own m.t.

Then, again, maybe the Kings were tense from having to dodge all those chickens.

miscelLAny:

In the biography “Golden Boy,” author Bob Thomas writes that as a teen-ager, actor William Holden used to delight in walking on his hands along the outer railing of Pasadena’s Colorado Street bridge, also known as the Suicide Bridge.