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Another company I found, not sure of their name, makes darn good 1:64 scale models of average to high end cars. They're less expensive than Hot Wheel or Matchbox, and they come in the normal square boxes with windows like old Matchbox used to be (not blister packs).
I bought a version of my C240, for about a buck, and the detailing is as good if not better than Matchbox.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I don't look at modern toys/models so much as I can never find any of cars I like, so I rarely bother. What you describe sounds familiar though, I remember some small models where the black window detailing was decent.
First, there are Maisto and MotorMax. Their products range from not very good to very good. They have a few lines (labels) for different markets. MotorMax has the "Fresh Cherries" line that has been mentioned lately. They also produce the "American Grafitti" lines and their own MotorMax lines. The "AG" line has tended to be more a hot cars line and includes some true hot rod styles. Maisto has been making some of the more common vehicles too, at similar prices but I am not sure of the labels.
Priced a bit higher is "Johnny Lightning". "Johnny Lightning" are generally a bit better quality and often "limited" production runs specifically aimed at collectors. Johnny Lightning sometimes rebrands cars produced by other makers. Recently I saw a Johnny Lightning 70's Barracuda and when I looked under it, it was a "Hot Wheels".
Lastly is "Jada" which is focussed mainly on hot rods and tuners. They produce some regular street vehicles, but usually limited to car fan markets (lots of Mustangs, but I do not expect to see a Ford Fairlane). They did produce a nice 1939 Chevy sedan a year or two ago. If they see a growing market in the ordinary car market they might move into it.
Yat Ming's 1970 Rambler Rebel in 1/18>
Sun Star's '52 Nash Ambassador in 1/18>
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
There's a company that's called Fast Lane I think that make cars from old Matchbox casts but worse in quality. They remind me of some of the old Matchboxes I had, but I haven't bought them, as they're realyl budget looking.
I like Jada's stuff and have some of their toys too. Johny Lightning is probably my favourite as they have lots of different themes including TV and movie cars (I have someof the Simpsons cars).
i like Jada's "For Sale" collection that features beat up and aged cars. Very realistic but i have none of them.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I think the last 1:18 car I bought was around 1996, when I bought a Revell 1:18 300SE fintail. Since then, I have bought mostly vintage items.
1958 Buick Limited hardtop
UT 318iS
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
Reminds me, the second-to-last 1:18 car I bought was a Kyosho Supra. It's a very nice model.
I have noticed the excellent company Minichamps has a lot of ordinary 60-80s European cars in their lineup, but no fintails that I know of. I do have an excellent 1:43 560SEL by them, along with a few cars I bought in the 90s but I think are stored away in my mom's attic today.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
Oh come on now. The Torino could not have been *that* bad. Uh, was it?
:-)
Oddly, I realize that I have never known anyone with a Torino. It might have been a neighbourhood thing. Where I lived, Fords tended to be Mustangs and eventually Mavericks. I have no idea why.
Speaking of Walmart and this "ordinary cars" stuff, I have been in Walmart this last week and they seem to be in their seasonal changes, and some new stuff showed up.
I bought a MotorMax Maverick for my friend. It is a 1/64th scale, which is probably the best choice. He is not a big car fan, and I just thought that he would enjoy having it, sort of like a picture of his mother's former car, but in 3D.
I also bought an American Graffiti 1939 Chevy Coupe police car. I saw this '39 Chevy last year in their regular lineup with a regular paint job (a very nice looking brown as I recall), but I passed it up. When I saw this one, I thought about it again, and for now, I think it is as close as I will get to the '37 that I really want, so I decided to take one. There are no police car modifications on it. There is only the black and white paint job and "Highway Patrol" markings. If I want to, I can repaint the doors later and it will be a plain Coupe again.
On the website, they also have a 1/24th 1948 Chev fastback in police car trim. I might buy one of those too to sit on the shelf with this one. The '48 is not particularly special to me for any reason, but it is a nice looking car.
Majorette Mercedes-Benz 450SEL. At least I THINK this is it. It had seperate red lenses for the taillights which I thought was a nice touch compared to a lot of cruder replicas.
The W116 was made by a number of makers in the smaller scale...Matchbox had one too, along with Tomy.
I remember I had several Majorette cars, and the detail impressed me. I remember a MB 190, a Volvo 740, a Peugeot 205, a rounded T-Bird, a 5-door Saab, among many others. Majorette cars were good for foreign looking street scenes, as they made other-market vans and trucks too. Sadly, all were played with and I don't think I have most of them anymore.
I had a couple of those Majorette limos, one was green and the other was a pearl white. Long gone too.
My parents, being involved with antiques, always had a couple treadle sewing machines around, along with weird old tools etc. Those treadle machines will destroy a small diecast car if you get the base part moving fast enough. I remember my Majorette Saab was claimed that way - without my knowledge. Didn't make me happy. But then they became junkyard or disaster scene props for the Lego town I built.
Many early Matchbox survived because of HO layouts - the scale is not perfect, but they were far superior to other small models 50 years ago.
Matchbox had panic when free-rolling Hot Wheels designs hit the market, and they overreacted. Gone was the fine modeling and detail, replaced by new wheels and crazy designs. It took until around the time of the 1982 collapse of Lesney for the ship to be righted. I always looked at each brand as very different when I was a kid, and they should have kept more of that.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
1964 Chevrolet Impala taxi
1964 Cadillac Sayers & Scoville ambulance
That 64 when found with grey wheels is a high rarity and is worth a tidy sum.
Those 60s models were from their pinnacle of detailing and proportion, pretty much perfect models for that scale.
1958 Cadillac Sixty Special
I have one of those, but it's a beater.
1960 Pontiac Ventura convertible
1964? Pontiac Grand Prix
I was never a fan of Majorettes as most of the ones in late 80s had funky looking big wheels, and the play sets that came with the cars were not to scale, or at least the figurines. The people looked way bigger than the cars.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I remember Majorettes having varying scales too, so they never looked right together. Some cars would be 1:53, others like 1:68. But they made many oddball cars, and that lured me in. The mass market makers didn't make stuff like Ford Transits and Saab 900 5-doors and Volvo wagons etc. Maybe that started to change with models introduced by the late 80s. By 1990 or so, my obsession was quickly waning.
OTOH the 917L with the spectacular Martini&Rossi LeMans markings was about a hundred bucks>
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
And Dinky had an even wider line of American iron - dozens of models, here are just a couple of their less common later Yank tanks:
All cars pictured are vintage to the time the real cars were new, and are ca. 1:43
They sure were, the only saving grace of those early Buragos and Jouefs was that they could readily be disassembled for super detailing. I still have my Burago 1/18 300SL Roadster which had the right shape so I took it apart and added a bunch of underhood detail. I'll post a photo of it soon.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I know which Rolls Camargue you were talking about fintail, becvause when my cousing visited me in Italy in the 80s, we bought him one as a gift, and some pieced broke off it as well. It was cream white in color, 1:18 scale, iirc.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
It's not a 1957 model, but a very nice 1959.
It appears to be a 1961 Cadillac Series 62 four-door hardtop
I think the hood ornament on my Camargue lasted about a day. I remember I saw it in a catalog and had to have that model, for the detailing. It didn't seem bad when I got it, but it is stone age today.
I remember my first non-Matchbox style car too. When I was 5 or 6 my dad let me choose a model car from a gift shop, I guess these would have been 1:24 cars. I chose a BMW sedan, as it had a very detailed interior, including the floor shift - I had a fixation on manual transmission cars with floor shift when I was young. I dont know who the maker was. I want to say the car was painted like a rally car too.
From wikipedia.
From what I can remember I had the following 1:24s:
Black Ford Mustang GT cop car (1985)
White BMW 635 (mid 80s) - still have it
I had the Porsche 959 too, I believe it was silver
Silver Rolls Royce Silver Shadow - still have it
Black Golf GTi (cheaper version of Bburago 1:24 scale)
Porsche 924 same as above
Austin Metro hatchback
and a few more I can't remember.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Shame what happened to them...forced to compete with sweatshop labor, broken down, and then eaten alive by the competition. Globalization :sick:
Anyway, they were about 1:43 scale, cost around $32 each, (in 1975 dollars) had jeweled headlights, (I thought they were diamonds to justify the high price) and were obviously made in West Germany as a police car had "Polizei" on the sides. Does anybody know the likely manufacturer of these diecasts? I never found out as when I asked my Dad if he could buy one for me, I instead got a profanity-laced lecture on microeconomics!
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I'd like to have that magazine library, I'm more impressed by that than modern models.