A Memory Stream

Scanned from “Marquis Rubber Catalogue,” 1994.

From “Absolut Ephemera 2000” Calendar, Citizen K International.

In a curious pattern, the top speed of the initial eight drivers in Diddy Kong Racing scales proportionally to their height, while their handling scales inversely with their height, as pointed out in the official Nintendo Power guide for the game.

However, please note that this applies specifically to the height of the renders instead of the characters themselves, as Conker is shorter than Bumper, but his upright tail in the artwork reaches further up. As such, it appears as though the renders may have specifically been designed like this with the speed/handling correspondence in mind, though it also may have been a serendipitious coincidence.

(Note that the renders have not been resized compared to the characters' in-game models, which would have been an easy way to make their heights fit any pattern. The heights in the renders are the characters' actual in-game sizes.)