And I finally found the silver version:
I think this Chevrolet stepside pickup from the 1970's was made by Yat Ming.
And I'm almost certain that this was the same Chevrolet stepside, but a copy of the Yat Ming model made by another company as a knock-off.
This is a Hot Wheels Custom '69 Chevrolet.
Hot Wheels '56 Flashsider.
Hot Wheels '50's Chevy Truck.
This beauty is a 1968 Chevrolet C-10 pickup made by Greenlight.
Here's a Hot Wheels '83 Chevy Silverado.
Another Hot Wheels, this time a Custom '62 Chevy pickup.
This one is of a newer Chevrolet Silverado, made by Matchbox.
Matchbox Chevrolet Avalanche.
Maisto 1995 Dodge Viper RT10
Maisto 1996 Dodge Viper GTS
Maisto 1998 Dodge Viper GT2
Hot Wheels Dodge Viper GTS-R
Matchbox Dodge Viper GTS-R
To me, there's a certain satisfaction to be gained when you can customize one of your favorite diecast pieces and paint it in a color of your own choosing. That way, it makes it special, and in a sense, a limited piece. Depending on the amount of detail you want to add, you can make them look quite eye-catching! Now, my skills at customizing are not even close to the level I've seen being turned out by some people out there, but I still find it something I enjoy doing. Above is a Summer Toyota Celica LB Turbo GR.5. I had a beat up old one that I acquired long ago and attempted to make it look nice again. Below, you can see my less than stellar attempt. But it was one of the first ones I ever repainted:
Recently, I dug it out and redid it again. Below you can see a transitional state it took before I applied the final coat of paint to it. There was a point that I almost left it with the chrome look because it looked kind of nice:
But, I went on and finished it later and it turned out like this:
Some of the other castings I have customized is one of my favorite Hot Wheels vehicle called a Letter Getter. It is basically a big panel truck with lots of room for the sponsor's logo on the sides. This makes it a nice choice to customize as you can put whatever writing on it that you want. I chose "Kodak" for this one because I like to take pictures and use a lot of Kodak film:
I chose "FedEx" for the side of this one simply because you see them everywhere:
Here's an old piece I had that was all but ready for the trash. I decided to bring it back to life and fixed it up. Here is the shiny, new truck it became:
One of my other early attempts at repaining a toy car was this Hot Wheels Gun Slinger. Originally, it was Army green and had a gun. Well, I had long since lost the gun, so I repainted it black. But, I did keep the Army theme by applying a star decal to the hood:
Another bodystyle I like is station wagons. My parents had one when I was little and ever since then, I've loved them. I've had three real ones of my own since becoming an adult! So, anytime one is released in 1:64 scale, you can bet I try to get one. Here is a Hot Wheels 8 Crate, based on a 1955 Ford station wagon that I started to customize. When it's finished, it will be two-tone, white over red. But for now, here's what it looks like:
Other station wagons I've customized is one put out by Matchbox, an Audi RS6 Avant:
And what some might consider to be a station wagon, a Volkswagen T2 minibus, also by Matchbox:
Matchbox also makes a Dodge Magnum station wagon model, in two varieties. Here is one of them that I am going to stripe and make into an Illinois State Police car:
Here's another Police vehicle I made, only it started out as a Hot Wheels Highway Patrol car and became an Arizona Border Patrol car:
Here is a Maisto Chevrolet Camaro Concept that I painted anodized blue over a chrome base. It is one of the first cars I ever drilled out the rivets and took it apart the right way:
A Hot Wheels '65 Mustang Fastback that I painted gloss black and used the old basic wheels they used to use:
I started customizing this Zee Volkswagen Beetle to look like Herbie, The Love Bug. All it needs are the racing strips and numbers to be finished:
Here's an old Lindberg Line Hertz Truck that I painted black long ago. It's essentially a 1:64 scale model car, so it was easy to take back apart and paint:
My most recent custom is a Hot Wheels Cadillac Seville. They only made it for a couple years and in a couple different paint schemes. For one release, they used the big, rubber tires known as Real Riders. I decided this one needed to be a different color, I had stripped it down to bare metal waiting to make up my mind what color that would be. The other day I decided what I wanted, so I finished painting it and putting it back together. This is how it turned out:
A Johnny Lightning 1964 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser
