By The Numbers

Today's post features a baker's dozen of diecast vehicles painted up in racing colors and numbers. Look through them and see how many you can identify. Try to name the company they were made by and the type of vehicle being represented.

And now for the answers:

1. Summer Toyota Celica LB Turbo GR.5

2. Hot Wheels Thunder Roller
3. Matchbox Fiat Abarth

4. Hot Wheels HW Prototype 12

5. Zee Porsche 910

6. Matchbox Ford GT

7. Hot Wheels Turbo Streak

8. Hot Wheels Side Kick

9. Hot Wheels Pro Stock Firebird

10. Hot Wheels Mirada Stocker
11. Ertl Mountain Dew Buick

12. Hot Wheels Shadow Mk IIa

13. Hot Wheels Dodge Charger Stock Car

How well did you do?

Customs I've Made

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:

So, customizing your own cars can be quite fun. It can take as little or as much time and effort as you wish to put out and at any level of effort, you can come up with some nice results. As I said, I'm not really very good at it, but I think they turn out to be some great looking customs that I'm proud to display!

Corvette Mania

I thought this time I might feature some images of the quintessential American sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette. Probably every company that ever made a diecast car has put at least one Corvette into their line, and this post will feature just a few from my meager collection of the fiberglass-bodied speedster. So, please enjoy the show!

Summer 1956 Corvette

Maisto 1957 Corvette

Hot Wheels 1958 Corvette

Hot Wheels 1969 Corvette

Hot Wheels 1980's Corvette

Zee 1985 Corvette

Maisto 1997 Corvette

Hot Wheels 2009 Corvette

Well, I hope you got to see all the sports cars I just presented. Chevrolet Corvettes are fast and if you blinked, you might have missed them!

The Nissan 300ZX

Today's post is about a classic styled car first released in the early 1980's. Nissan introduced it's successor to the 280ZX in late 1983, and named it the 300ZX. During the 6 years it was manufactured, it started out from being popular with the public to an out-dated looking vehicle that needed to be retired. But when it was first introduced with it's angular looks and styling, it caught the public's eye and also the attention of the diecast world. Just about every company that produces 1:64 scale cars produced their own version of the Z-car. Companies such as Tomica, Siku, Matchbox, Maisto, Ertl, Tootsietoy, Road Champs, Hot Wheels, Majorette, as well as the three highlighted in the picture above, Welly, Yat Ming and Zylmex all had their own version of this venerable classic. I'd like to go into a little more detail with the last three brands.

Welly's version, numbered 8380, featured opening doors and an interior with not much real detail. Their version is a copy of the Tomica car, but done in a realistic looking paint scheme. The tires are not too overly big to fit the wheel wells and the base is made out of black plastic. The clear windows show off the interior well.

The Yat Ming version, numbered 1027, is a fairly innocuous model, redeemed by realistic paint and graphics. It's doors do not open, but the windows are clear and you can see the interior in all it's detail. The base on this model is also plastic and the car itself is, overall, a very light-feeling piece. It does have the advantage of having a plastic piece in the back to simulate the rear bumper. The graphics say "Motor Sport" along the top of the roof and hood.

Another very light casting is the model by Zylmex, actually using the company name Zee for this one, numbered D78. The paint is nice, but the graphics seem a little thin and wear off easily. The windows are also clear on this one, but due to the black color of the seats and dark exterior paint, it's harder to make out the details of this interior. The base is gray plastic on this model and the doors do not open. The wheels are a good size and fit into the proportions of the wheel wells quite nicely. All three models sport their companies' typical wheel styles.

The view of the backs of all three models are similar, but there are differences. The base on the Welly mounts through a hole in the rear bumper instead of being riveted in the back. The Yat Ming has the aforementioned black plastic bumper piece and an insert for the tail light and license plate area in red. The Zee model's base is also mounted through a hole in the rear, simulating the license plate area. The stance of all three cars is pretty similar.

Looking through the open doors of the Welly 300ZX into the interior, you can see that there's not much definition anywhere. But, the opening doors are a nice touch.

The graphics along the top of the Yat Ming version are very understated, but nice and realistic. You can see that the interior on this model has much more detail than the Welly, even including the shifter column between the front seats. Two of the three versions simulate the side windows in the down position, this one and the Welly.

With it's thick windows and black seats, it's hard to make out much detail on the inside of this one. It's graphics seem gaudy in comparison to the other two, but overall, the car has a nice look to it's lines.
All in all, each of the three models has features that make them realistic in comparison and scale to the life-size models made by Nissan. These miniature replicas are all on the light size as far as weight goes, but this is typical for toy cars made in Asia. I have to say that I'm glad they're a part of my collection as they have a nice design, one which is quite appealing to my eyes. The choice of exterior paint on all three cars seems to be what could have been on the real models and are not too bright or gaudy, nor unrealistic colors. This is another plus for me.

One last note before I go. Although Mattel released it's own version of the Nissan 300ZX in 1985, it also released a version in it's Crack-Ups series that same year which featured louvers over the back and side windows, and which has not been released since or in their mainline. It was given the strange name of "Speed Crasher" and featured a rear bumper that rotated when hit to simulate rear-end crash damage. This could be something they might wish to look into somewhere in the future with the thought of updating the casting without the smashed rear bumper; as this is the only version with the louvered windows. They were popular back in the late 1970's and 1980's and I think they look kind of nice. As always, comments are welcomed and appreciated! Until next time!