I estimate that there are currently around 900 scale models of vehicles in the collection of my wife and I. Not shown in the picture below are two additional small boxes. I estimate an average of 48 vehicles in each small box, so that gives around 900 vehicles. Most are Hot Wheels and most are “on the card.”
I recently bought this Maisto Highway Haulers scale model. It doesn’t have a specific name, but I’m calling it a car carrier.
I recently visited the toy store where I usually buy my scale models. There were quite a few beautiful models (from Tomica, Matchbox, and Hot Wheels) but I had to refrain from buying them because they were too expensive or not in the themes I usually follow. But these two models I definitely had to buy.
I fell in love with the 1991 Chevrolet Caprice when it first came out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t sold in the Philippines. But the Nissan Cefiro A31 (produced from 1988 to 1993) was sold in the Philippines, and it looked quite similar to the 1991 Chevrolet Caprice.
This Majorette Nissan Cefiro A31 is the first scale model of a Cefiro that I have seen. This model number 233A-2 is colored black and was the only Cefiro available at the time at the store I bought it from. (233A-1 is red; 233A-3 is silver; and 233A-4 is white.) At around PhP 250, it is quite expensive, but it has an opening hood, and its front headlights are made of clear plastic, so the price seems fair.
The base is black plastic and states that the model is made in Thailand.
I recently went to a MR.DIY store and found this toy robot. Its box is around 14.5″ x 4.5″ x 11.7″ in size. The plastic parts are held together with metal screws. The PhP 430 price (currently around US$ 7.50) seemed ridiculously low for the relatively high quality of the toy, so I just had to buy it. I later found out that it was originally priced at PhP 990.
This Classic TV Series Batmobile (Tooned) looks really cute.
This Hot Wheels Coupe Clip is the simplest Hot Wheels I have ever seen. It seems to be made solely of two metal pieces joined together. (I suspect the inside is hollow. Otherwise, the manufacturer would have made the unit in just one piece.) Even the paint is very minimal: only a small white Hot Wheels logo and a white circle on each side. (The base color is called ZAMAC for Zinc, Aluminum, Magnesium, And Copper.) There are no moving parts—the car has no doors or windows or even wheels. The back of the card shows a drawing of the car used as a key chain; there is a hole at the rear of the car for this purpose.
I have removed my third Majorette Transporter from its packaging. (I mentioned that I might in a previous blog post). It has a scale of 1:87, and I only have very few models with that scale. I decided to nevertheless take some pictures of some of my “free” models (those that have been removed from their packaging) regardless of their scales.
The picture above (“white”) shows three Tomicas: a Lamborghini Countach LP400 (1:61), a Speed Racer Mach 5 (1:??), and a Toyota Vitz (1:57).
The picture above (“Skylines”) shows three Tomicas: a silver Nissan Skyline HT 2000GT-R Racing (1:62), a dark gray Nissan Skyline GT-R (BNR32) (1:62), and a red Nissan Skyline HT 2000 Turbo RS (1:63).
The picture above (“performance cars”) shows a Tomica Subaru Impreza WRX STI (1:67), a Matchbox ’71 VW-Porsche 914-6 (1:60), and the three Skylines from the previous picture.
The picture above (“transporters”) shows the MAN (1:87) next to an M2 Machines 1957 Dodge COE (1:64) and 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona HEMI (1:64).
I decided to include a few pictures of some of my “free” models without the transporter. The one above (“food”) shows four Tomicas: a Suzuki Carry (1:55), a Toyota Town Ace Hamburger Car (1:64), an Isuzu Giga Fried Potato Car (1:???), and a Daihatsu Midget (1:50) in Coca-Cola livery.
The picture above (“construction,” but the combine harvester is “agriculture”) shows a Siku Truck with Trailer and Compact Excavator (1:87), a Tomica Yanmar Combine AJ218 (1:47), a Tomica Sakai Pneumatic Tire Type Milling Machine (1:91), a Tomica Furukawa Wheel Loader FL140 (1:79), a Tomica Hanta Asphalt Paver F1741WZ (1:77), and a Tomica Maeda Seisakusho Mini Crawler Crane (1:???).
I have a few more “free” models, but I didn’t have time to take pictures of them.
When I was a child, I was slightly uncomfortable playing with models having different scales. It was difficult to create reasons why, for example, a motorcycle would be bigger than a truck. I said to myself that when I grew up, I would buy models that have the same scale. Now that I’m an adult, I find out that the only models that have the same scale are the expensive ones that are not being sold in the stores I usually visit. Maybe when I retire, I’ll create my own models that have the same scale.
Around four years ago, I blogged about my Majorette Transporter. Some time after that (I don’t know when), I bought another Majorette Transporter with the intent of removing one from the package. (My memory is getting bad. I thought I had blogged about the second Majorette Transporter before, but it seems that I haven’t.) When I got home, I was a little disappointed to find out that my second Majorette Transporter was not exactly the same as the first one. This meant that I couldn’t open either of them. Before reading further, look at the images below and see if you can spot the differences.
The one at the bottom is the second one I bought. For some reason, it’s more expensive (around 450 pesos instead of around 400 pesos). The front of the card is different (showing two trucks instead of a bus and a truck). The side of the truck cab has black trim but is otherwise plain (instead of having no trim but having white text and decorative lines).
The backs of the cards are slightly different. (The one at the bottom is the second one I bought.) Perhaps the most noticeable difference is the presence of car company logos near the bottom.
The front of the models are also slightly different. (The one on the right is the second one I bought.) The logo’s lion is above the word “MAN” (instead of below it). Other than these, there appear to be no other major differences between the two models.
If you are quite observant, you will notice that the other model in the photographs above is not the first one I bought. (For example, in the first model that I bought, the price sticker covers the image of the headlights. In the first photograph above, the price sticker doesn’t cover the image of the headlights.) The photographs above are actually of the second and third models I bought. I’m thinking of opening the package of the third model soon.
I recently bought three more “ordinary-looking” Matchbox scale models.
This seems to be the first time Matchbox has issued a 1979 Chevy Nova. The metalflake light blue color is really beautiful. (The card shows light blue; the actual color on the model is closer to cerulean, which I like more.)
This 1976 Honda CVCC in white is very nice. There is a metal column in the rear seats to provide structural support for the scale model. As a child, scale models that had this column bothered me a lot, as I tried and failed to invent an in-universe reason for the column’s existence.
I initially didn’t plan on buying this 1957 Dodge Sweptside Pickup because it didn’t look “ordinary.” (It would have looked more “ordinary” if it was in only one color.) But the matte ivory paint and the glossy “red” (more of a reddish-brown, actually) paint was so beautiful that I convinced myself to buy it. I never had a pickup truck scale model when I was a child, and that made me a little sad because I had lots of stories that involved transporting objects and a pickup truck would have been perfect for them. I now have a few pickup trucks, and they’re 1950’s (’56 Ford Pickup, 1956 Powell Sport Pickup) and 1960’s (1961 Ford Ranchero) American makes.
As a child, I only had a few scale models (perhaps less than 20) and one of the “stories” I wanted to play was “traffic jam.” But some of my models didn’t belong to that story (a forklift, a tank, etc.), so I didn’t have enough models to create a realistic traffic jam. I now have enough models to create a traffic jam in theory. (But I would need to remove the models from their packaging for that to happen.)
Joel Reyes Noche 