Adidas Formel 1 Shrank Down for a Japanese Pepsi Campaign

Adidas Formel 1 Pepsi Japan Promotional Bottle Cap (FOML-1)

A Pepsi Cap with a Miniature Sneaker on Top

This is a promotional bottle cap produced for a Pepsi Japan × adidas cross-brand campaign, most likely during the late 1990s to early 2000s. The base is a ridged, translucent blue plastic cap — designed to attach to a Pepsi bottle or be distributed as a campaign giveaway. Mounted on it is a precisely detailed miniature replica of the adidas Formel 1 sneaker, complete with three-stripe detailing, an “adidas” logo near the sole, and “FORMEL 1” text on the side panel.

The product code FOML-1 is understood to abbreviate “Formel 1,” and suggests this piece is one entry in a numbered series — though the full lineup remains unconfirmed. While technically a beverage promotion piece rather than a food toy (shokugan), Japanese collectors treat both categories as overlapping, and bottle cap figures like this one circulate through the same communities and display cases.

The Adidas Formel 1: From Running Track to Street Culture

The adidas Formel 1 is a sneaker from the late 1970s and early 1980s, originally designed as a performance running shoe and later adopted into streetwear culture more broadly. The colorway reproduced on this bottle cap — black upper with yellow three-stripes, midsole, and heel — is one of the model’s recognizable combinations from that era.

The miniature captures the essential design markers: the model name on the sidewall, the adidas logo near the sole, and a small label on the tongue reading “DEL” or “DEI” (the meaning of this label is not certain). At bottle-cap scale, the level of detail reflects the craft that Japanese promotional toy production consistently brought to even small giveaway items.

By the time this cap was produced, Japan’s late-1990s sneaker boom had already sparked renewed enthusiasm for vintage adidas silhouettes — the Stan Smith, the Superstar, and models like the Formel 1. Placing a miniature of this classic shoe on a Pepsi bottle was a way of meeting collectors exactly where they were.

Where Two Collector Worlds Overlap

Pepsi Japan was one of the most active participants in Japan’s bottle cap figure boom, running multiple campaigns with collectible miniatures tied to various licenses — a Star Wars series among them. This adidas collaboration fits squarely within that tradition. Because the campaign was domestic to Japan, there was likely no official distribution outside the country, which gives pieces like this their Japan-exclusive context in international collecting circles.

This bottle cap sits at an unusual crossroads: it draws interest from Pepsi promotional memorabilia collectors (a community particularly active in the United States and Europe), from sneakerhead communities with an affinity for vintage adidas, and from Japanese bottle cap figure collectors pursuing complete series runs. The manufacturer of the miniature figure portion has not been confirmed from available information — typical of the category, where Japan’s promotional toy output was distributed across a wide range of producers, from major toy companies to smaller specialists.