Iconic Taito Cabinets?

[wweumina]

So I've been toying with the idea of building a dedicated (or at least dedicated in apperance) cabinet for one of my favourite games - Champion Wrestler.  As far as I've been able to find out it was a conversion only and there was never a dedicated cabinet.

Over the years I've got an original bezel and marquee (the actual marquee pictured on klov judging from the matching sticker residue) and I figure I can create a cpo and maybe instruction card with a similar theme. 

My main question is what you think the cabinet itself should look like? A search on klov for taito games around that era (1989) shows most games don't have cabinet pictures.  Of the ones that do, some are very funky but obviously not suitable for a normal 2 player layout.  The 3 that I think might be close are Double Dragon, Superman and Nastar Warrior (pictured).  They are pretty standard (boring).  Should I be going for something like this or are there any iconic taito cabinet designs that I'm missing (Space Invaders not a consideration)?

[novamatt]

I found a list on wikipedia of Taito's games here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Taito_games

There are some pretty popular games there that some people may consider iconic (Elevator Action, Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, and such).  That said, Double Dragon was pretty huge at the time, and that's a good looking cabinet.

[Vigo]

Yeah, Taito generally had only a couple cabinet designs for their standard upright games in the 80's, and they would be cabinets with generic Taito Artwork. There really isn't a whole lot to choose from, so it ends up being the standard love 'em or hate 'em designs. To my knowledge, I think anything outside of the styles you already found would just look a bit weird.

I have always been a fan of the curved cabinet used on the Nastar Warrior. That's the cabinet used for games like Qix, Elevator Action and Zookeeper. I think they look nicer in person than in picture as well. It's kinda early 80's design.

The double dragon cabinet isn't bad either. It probably is more fitting to mid to late 80's as well and a more angular cabinet might fit the feel of a wrestling game better than curves anyway. Yeah, it is pretty standard though.

[boardjunkie]

The N Warrior is likely a conversion. That cab is the Zookeeper type.

[wweumina]

Good to know.

I've found some more Double Dragon pics and it is probably the pick of the designs.  Were there other Taito cabs the same?  With the same side art?  I might keep the side art design but change the color to something that fits better with what they may have had for Champion Wrestler had they ever made the cabinet.