Back in the box - my Porsche "Supertune"
How do you feel about vacation souvenirs? I'm always amazed at all the stuff you can buy at the usual tourist destinations. I practically grew up with souvenir stores, and in a tourist stronghold like Lucerne there are plenty of them. They advertise the most famous sights nearby, such as the wooden Chapel Bridge or the Lion Monument. However, I have only visited them once in search of a pocket knife for friends abroad.
As you can see here, my souvenirs usually look different. Of course there are some pretty postcards from the Pays d'Enhaut, more precisely from Château d'Oex, and perhaps other things too. But I'm rarely interested in them. My souvenirs preferably have something to do with cars or they are cars: miniatures or models. Sometimes you find them unexpectedly in places where you wouldn't expect them. A few years ago, this was the case in a stationery shop in the place in question. The words Supertune and the logo of the French toy manufacturer Joustra shone down from a rack. Joustra was still producing great plastic models in the early 1980s, and only recently I was able to take delivery of a rather large Matra Rancho (is it scaled down to about 1/12?) from Joustra from my colleague Paul Krüger. Joustra is the combination of Jouet and Strasbourg, so it is also clear where they come from. It is unclear whether Joustra is still in production. The owner Heller, known for his model kits and now based in Germany, does not state anywhere on his website whether and how Joustra is still present. A corresponding search there brings no results.
My Supertune was also a mystery to me at first, but it was certain that I would buy it. Anything of a certain age that was or is still manufactured in Europe rather than China is of interest to me. The car, a Porsche 928, is an electronic game in which the aim is to find and rectify faults. There are various buttons under the hood that represent the battery or the spark plugs. A screwdriver and a wrench are also included, which are connected to the car with cables in the engine compartment. Instead of a tailgate, there are LEDs and three pushbuttons on the parcel shelf.
These can be used to select three different programs. In the race against time, the aim is to find the cause of the changing noise. Pressing a spark plug, the battery or the air filter under the hood leads to a "repair" and the noise returns to normal. I assume that the Joustra Porsche 928 Supertune came onto the market in the 1980s.
So, after I had a reasonable grasp of the operating instructions for the toy, which had probably been stored in this store for at least 30 years, and had obtained the appropriate batteries, I was ready to go. Pressing a button on the dashboard starts the engine, then the car begins to hum, suddenly the sound changes, at some point it goes out, diodes light up and the player frantically presses the buttons in the engine compartment with his tool.
This suddenly made me realize something: Apparently all my cars - as soon as they are of a slightly more complex nature - are familiar with the same problems. But I certainly don't need a "Supertune" to fiddle around with tools in the engine compartment! I don't need to play with this situation either, it's reality! So I neatly removed the batteries again and put them away, as I wanted to prevent them from leaking, rolled up the battery crankcase again and put the tools under the hood away. Then I put the Porsche back in the polystyrene carrier and in the box and packed it away. No, I'm not selling the Porsche, it's a nice piece of recent toy history. But I already have enough repair projects, thank you! Since then, I have inextricably linked the word "Supertune" with Château d'Oex - a souvenir!
