Separate timer and wood side panels sounds like Sony, all right, but it will not be a VHS machine then. If it is a VHS machine, though, there were numerous brands of top-loading, mechanical-key machines between 1977 and 1979-80. All of them had the timer built in, though, as far as I remember. (Built-in timer was one of the three advantages of the first VHS VCR over the competing Sony Betamax. Can anyone here name the other two?
)