Moving away from the autobahn and into the concrete jungle, this week I want to share about the design collaboration between Mitsubishi’s BOXY and Honda’s super compact CITY Turbo from the 1980s.
I’d originally learned about the Honda CITY not from collecting BOXY goods but from…. TRANSFORMERS! If you are a TF fan you might be aware that the original toys (the so called G1 series) were actually from a different toy line called Diaclone made by TAKARA. Amongst these was a CITY Turbo that eventually became the Transformer known as Skids. Me and my brother were lucky enough to have owned and played with some of these TF progenitors in the 1980s… what a time to be a kid!!
And so, when I started collecting BOXY in earnest, I was pretty intrigued to find numerous CITY and CITY Turbo branded goods in the line up. I picked out these items to match the silver-red scheme of the Tomica miniature that I acquired:
• BOXY CITY TURBO pen case
• BOXY Shorty M5-205 0.5mm in silver / red
• BOXY uni 5-508 0.5mm in steel with 2 versions of markings in red
I thought it was really cool that all the items had the declaration: Design approved by Honda.
Looking back, I feel that this was a truly spot-on brand collaboration. The CITY Turbo was fun, stylish, sporty and energetic… everything the BOXY brand stood for. I think I will be revisiting the CITY Turbo in the future if I manage to find the right mini car in the right color(s).