When I first learned about the Montblanc Turbo, I was in the midst of discovering the brand’s pre-snob era of actually interesting pen designs. The five sided Leonardo, the super sleek S-Line duo pens, the fidget-friendly lever actuated Ball Pix series… and of course, the Turbo line from 1978.
Now I wasn’t 100% sure it had anything to do with the preceding Carrera series, but when I hear ‘Turbo’ my mind instantly recalls the iconic whale tail spoiler of the Porsche 911 Turbo.
To be sure, I was not knowledgeable about all of the 911’s history and got a bit confused by the model numbers and nomenclature. The ‘internal model number’ for this car was the 930, but to the world, it was a 911 Turbo because… well, it looked like it couldn’t be anything else. The 911 silhouette had become that distinctive.
And as for the Montblanc’s styling, I believe the wire and ball clip design must be inspired by the stick shift in the 930. I’m not so sure what the ‘dimple’ grip corresponds to. But then again, design doesn’t always have to have meaning behind it. Sometimes it just has to look cool.
Yes, I came to discover this too–internal number versus the series number, 911. There are a few exceptions. The Porsche 959 is so extensively altered that it’s never really referred to as a 911.
We used to call those “whale tails”. Personally, I thought they were too aggressive looking. And as future designs reflected, that much of a spoiler wasn’t really needed. They’re less than half the size and retract now.
Oh, the 959 is a different beast altogether. That was my dream car growing up… I’ll have a good pairing for it once I locate a suitable miniature!
Sometime in 2023 I’d won a Turbo for much lower through YAJ but the seller wouldn’t honor my bid. Oh well. Turned to eBay and found a reasonably priced example from a seller in Thailand and here we are.
Man, you keep dropping names of pencils I don’t know again and again… Will this trend ever stop?
If you care to point at some references, I’d be very happy to learn more about such oddities: I see many Montblancs popping up on websites, but they rarely look “different” than the standard, black, torpedo-shaped “big guns” which go for exquisitely high figures — an exception is the orange/black model you were writing about elsewhere on this board (not the price: that is still too high for my taste).
I happened to find a tiny, scratched Montblanc Pix at a “retiring-owner shop” (and I got it for very little), and I bought a not-exactly-cheap twistaction bakelite Montblanc at a pen show years ago, both precisely because they did not look that “Montblanc-ish”, but maybe I should start looking more deeply on some search pages…
Luckily my little coterie of atypical Montblanc pens was all in one place. L-R:
• Turbo
• S-Line 2-color pen
• Carrera 590
• Ballpix 782
• Leonardo
• M rollerball by Marc Newson. The FP is reportedly made by Pilot for MB. It has a magnetic cap that snaps into place so that the clip is always aligned with the logo at the scalloped end.
Delightful! I was confused because I know the Leonardo Sketch Pencil, and I did not remember the five-sided body — it is round instead — but this seems really worth a search.
Also, any five-sided writing implement reminds me of that Palomino Blackwing (modern) edition of wooden pencils with five-side barrel and pink-ish lacquer, and it always puts a smile on my face when I remember those.
The M rollerball is cool as well! Thank you for posting!
