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- Rivera
- Tsukishima-TDUDT
After the first series of Japanese Grand Prix events held through the mid to late 1960s, the racing scene absolutely exploded in Japan, with amateurs and professionals alike hurriedly taking to local tracks in order to experience the joys of driving quickly.
Living on an isolated island means that enthusiasts were forced to improvise, especially when it came to sourcing spare parts. For sports car and formula racing, it would be even more difficult to get parts—especially body parts. For those, a number of small constructors took to their own sketch pads and created everything from wings to entire cars from fibreglass. One such person was Masao Watanabe, an engineer by trade who was swept up in the racing craze and was found to be very skilled at creating and setting up Formula 3 cars.
In 1970 at the 3rd annual Tokyo Racing Car Show, 2 Watanabe-created vehicles were exhibited, the Flying Pegasus (Griffon) and the Lycaon. This marked the beginning of the super obscure Carrozzeria Watanabe.
The Lycaon was inspired by the stag-beetle.The body is the actual beetle and you can see the mandibles at the front. The car used a tuned Nissan Skyline 1500 engine, which delivered 140 hp.
Differently from the Griffon, the Lycaon was a one-off.
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Vote for the Watanabe Griffon here:
