Do you remember ‘DATSUN’? Growing up in the late seventies my uncle drove a metallic blue DATSUN 100 – a modest car that introduced me to the brand. So when I first saw the DIACLONE toys in the local Yaohan and Isetan stores, the red and blue Fairlady Z struck a chord with me waaaayyy before ‘Transformers’ was a thing.
Back then, the chunky appearance of those early car robots did nothing to deter young imaginations. The inclusion of real life details like racing numbers and decals brought those inarticulate hunks of plastic and metal to life even without the aid of any cartoons or jingles.
As for Pilot, I didn’t encounter mechanical pencils until I was older, around grade 7 or 8. But boy was it glorious! A classmate had a 2020 Young shaker and I recalled another who flashed a grey H-515. Those shaker MPs were really exotic and drool worthy for an impressionable teenager. It would take another 15 years or so before I would seek them out as an adult.
As for the DATSUN, research showed that the No. 38 ‘transformer’ was actually based on a real No. 83 race car driven by Don Devendorf, who won the 1979 GTU Championship. A true champion in real life as it was in my childhood dreams.
