Sanyo is a Japanese electronics manufacturer, founded in 1947 in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It exists today as a subsiduary of Panasonic.

The company is mainly famous for consumer electronic items such as transistor radios and portable cassette players. Anyone who was a teenager in the late 1960s or early 1970s had at least one Sanyo device - and it was generally a good-value, unflashy, well made, item that did sterling service. Perfect for tormenting your parents with 'Trout Mask Replica' played at a volume far higher than the tiny (tinny?) speaker could handle.

Sanyo's first ever product, however, was a bicycle dynamo, and Sanyo remained an enthusiastic manufacturer of electrical and electronic cycle products throughout its history. In the 1970s Japan evolved a very strange sub-culture of urban bicycles which were festooned with electrical gadgets and styled like 1950s Cadillacs. These bikes had multiple front and rear lights, turn indicators, built in radios, sirens, speedometers and god-knows-what else. Visually, the whole melange was informed by a 'jet fighter' ethic - with wildly impractical forms reminiscent of delta wings and jet engine after-burners. Sanyo was a key player in this wacky world.

One of the more extreme examples of this genre was a late 1970s Maruishi model called the 'Young Holiday PC' (insane model names were also a feature of Japanese bicycles of the time). This model not only had twin pop-up headlamps, it also sported Maruishi's PC derailleur system. This involved an electrical gear lever controlling a large electro-mechanical box mounted on the rear carrier. This box, full of cogs and switches, interpreted the signals from the lever to then physically pull the appropriate amount of bowden cable to operate a conventional rear derailleur. I believe that the PC system was initially developed by Maruishi, but I also believe that Sanyo refined it to be production ready, and Sanyo manufactured it for Maruishi. You could validly consider the Maruishi PC to be the first 'electronic' derailleur system.

Despite being offered in 5-speed and then 6-speed versions, and despite having a plethora of possible levers, including some with a 5-speed 'gate' reminiscent of the manual gearbox on a car, the production life of the Maruishi PC was mercifully short and notably uncelebrated. Which makes it perfect content for this web site.