[REVIEW] Tomica Datsun No. 1

Land of the Rising Sun-day, also Tomica time, is here again. Today we look at a type of Tomica casting I have yet to review, a model of a then-vintage car. This is Tomica 60-1, Datsun No. 1. This casting entered the range in April 1973, and had a long run, remaining until December 1981. It is something unique, yet a piece of its time:

This model is simply named “Datsun No. 1", or on Pocket Cars packaging “Datsun’s First Car”. The first Datsun passenger car was the Type 11, and that car appears to be the basis for this model. The casting has fine casting line detail, and appears to be accurate. Scale is a claimed 1:49, seems a little large, so I might have a little skepticism, but the real world version was tiny, apparently shadowing (but not an outright copy of) the diminutive Austin 7. There’s no springy suspension, crisp glazing, or snappy door action on this model - I suppose the attraction is that it is a nicely detailed vintage car. Tomica had a small range of vintage castings in the 70s, I think many of them were intended to be used in shadow boxes and kept on shelves as collectibles, as was a fad of the time, so opening luxuries weren’t needed, and weren’t present on most vintage models. I remember back in the day, a friend of mine’s mom had a shadow box full of miniature nicknacks, and among them was a silver Tomica Datsun. Most of these seen today are Pocket Cars versions, almost always in silver. These seem to always have simulated spoked wheels somewhat resembling “old wheels”. The version I have here is different from any I had seen, which is why I bought it (and, it was cheap). With these thick spoked wheels, and green-gold paint, it is probably uncommon. For a simple item, it still has some presence, and like many old cars, some charm:

Front and rear have a similar level of detail:

The base is plastic, and has some detail:

This example is lucky enough to live in its nice original black box:

An interesting part of this box is a sticker, in Japanese. Possibly from a special event, I have no idea what it says, as I don’t read Japanese - but the “50" might mean 50th anniversary, perhaps:

I am happy to have this in my collection - the vintage cars, while not my first choice to collect, are a part of Tomica history, and this one appears to be an unusual variant. Most Pocket Cars variants seem to be silver with silver grille, and my reference book also lists white and creme colored versions along with a shiny metal finish variant, but only one like this. It was also cheap, I am sure no more than $20, so that makes it even better:

A couple of 1:1s (or likely the same car) from deviantart.com and kochinews.co.jp - the wheel design here appears to mildly resemble the the actual car: