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These shoes are a chunky-soled slab of Nike history. The brand is 40 years old this year, and the Frank Rudy assisted Air breakthrough was pivotal in establishing their market dominance. That's not to say that Nike were struggling in late 1978 when the Tailwind went on sale at Honolulu stores in time for their winter marathon — they had a whole brace of running favourites with racing and Waffle soles, but Air was a hidden weapon that promised a protective level of bounce to assist a lengthy run. A couple of years later, the Mariah would incorporate a sleeker Air-filled sole, while Phylon would would showcase the next Nike running formula when the Terra T/C hit the market in 1982. Things definitely got slicker in their execution — Nike's keenness to make sure those soles didn't go bang mid race meant that the soles are an oddball addition to that mesh and suede upper. They're thick and high — while a shoe like the Daybreak or LDV-1000 still has some minimalism and flex to them, the heft of the Air Tailwind's sole is a million miles away from 2004's Free experiment.

We probably wouldn't try running in these in 2012, and that expanse of hard foam was at odds with the minimal elegance of the honed Nike running upper of the time. There's barely any difference between the left and right foot either. But all of those ugly elements are part of the Air Tailwind's charm. Without this model, would we have had the Air Max, Air Trainer and Jordan dynasties as we know and love them? For some, the dawn of Air could be seen as the end of an innocent era, but we at CT owe this model a lot.

For all the strangeness, including a faintly roomy feel, that blue on grey colourway is incredibly versatile and these replicas of the 1979 editions use the less metallic nylon mesh from the revised production pairs that ironed out the small matter of metal elements in the mesh tearing the upper of the shoe apart. The Gene Simmons length barely padded tongue (incidentally, Kiss released their excellent Dynasty album the same year that these received a widespread release) and plain blue footbeds compliment the yellowed surface of that groundbreaking sole. We don't think the early release of this shoe in Honolulu's KICKS/HI to correlate with its original December 1978 Hawaii drop got the attention it deserved — that was a low key spot of intelligent drop date marketing to match the outlet-only release of the "Banned" Air Jordan Is. But just as they went global a month or so later, they arrive in the Crooked Tongues store tomorrow as a Quickstrike drop.

The inclusion of a card ad replica is a nice touch too. We doubt the Air Tailwind retro will cause seizures for anyone preoccupied with opening Jordan boxes on YouTube, but we know there's a core that will appreciate these. We decided to shoot them in the local pub because it looked nice and because as they approach their 34th year of existence, the Tailwind has earned some pub shoe status.