Today is day two of LaLD Car Week, for white cars. As most of my material is Matchbox and Tomica, today we’ll take a look at a Tomica. This is Tomica 17-2, the Nissan Cherry FII 1400 GX . This casting entered the range in December 1975, remaining until August 1979. This was a golden age for Tomica models, and this casting shows the quality:
This is a high quality item, with ample fine casting line detail. The Cherry and model data badges cast into the rear fenders, in accurate script, are excellent - Tomica really knew how to do this. As expected for a Tomica of this vintage, there is crisp glazing, springy suspension, and snappy door action. Scale is claimed to be 1:56, likely accurate - the real world version isn’t large, and this is scaled up to be just a little chunky. We’ll call it 1:64 for Car Week. From all angles, it is an unusual and uniquely styled little car:
Doors open to reveal a detailed interior and accurate steering wheel:
Front and rear have similar high quality detail. The quirky shapes of the headlights and taillights are evident:
The base is metal, which adds heft and a quality feel, and contains ample detail:
This model is lucky enough to live in its nice original black box:
I am happy to have this model in my collection. I like the oddball Japanese cars of the 70s, and as these were sold as Datsuns in NA, I have seen these in real life. It is a piece from an era that seems like another world:
And some 1:1s from motorauthority.com, TTAC, oldcarmanualproject.com, autoviva.com, and pinterest (I included the last two pics as they are actually from the state where I live, and the composition with the cat is good). This was an era of Japanese styling I have seen called “atomic cockroach” or “astro boy” - Nissan/Datsun in particular had a knack for some really odd stuff in the mid 70s, and this is a prime example. These were sold as the Datsun F10 in NA, and I remember seeing these as ordinary cars in the 80s. Once neglected and discarded, these are being saved today:
