Here at the good ship Jalopnik, we like manual transmissions. Automatics can be fun too, and they’re often objectively faster, but it’s just nice when your car has its own built-in fidget toy. It adds to the experience of driving, but why stop at driving? Why not add to the experience of something else you do every day, like writing things down by hand? You still do that, right?
This pen, a proof of concept from creator Maker B, adds shiftable gears to the one activity that’s always really needed them. Shiftable pens are nothing new, but this one uses its shifting for something more interesting than just clicking its ink cartridge in and out: It’s actually a functional mechanic for swapping between different colors of ink, plus an eraser cartridge. Remember those four-color pens from your childhood? It’s that, but with an automotive bent and build quality surpassing your average lightsaber.
We love intricate engineering
The construction video here is a proof of concept to drum up interest for an eventual product run, but even as a solitary item this is just such a neat piece of engineering. I’ll generally watch any YouTube video with a mill and a lathe in it, but this one ends up with a neat tribute to automotive culture in the end. It’s even complete with a clutch pedal to release whichever ink cartridge is active, just to add to the experience.
I love when people build neat little mechanical objects, and this is one of the neater, littler mechanical objects I’ve seen built. The gear shift is just such a fun concept to apply to this kind of multi-ink pen, and it could well make for a better fidget toy than an actual manual transmission. Might be a little wide to comfortably use as your only pen, sure, but how much handwriting do you do these days anyway?
