Road Construction Bonus

Just a little bonus - a 1:64 scale steam roller framed by the real-life version in the background.

Diecast Copies

Did you know that there are diecast companies that copy other companies' designs? Sad, but true. Rather than go to the expense of creating their own original designs, they'll just copy somebody else's that has already been released. Personally, I can't conceive how a person or company in a creative field such as this could ever even think about copying somebody else's work. Where's the joy of creation? Anyway, it does happen more often than you'd think, so it will probably continue to happen for just as long as diecast cars and trucks are made. Here are a few notable examples.

Above you will see a fine Porsche 911 Turbo cast in 1:64 scale, made by Tomica. Below, you will a pretty good copy of the same exotic car, only this one was made by Welly.


Here's an ambulance model made by Hot Wheels, called an "American Ambulance." Below you will see an almost identical copy, even down to the tampo design, made by Maisto. You tell me, was this intentional or not?

This is the Deora, made by Mattel in 1968. Below you can see a copy of it from Argentina. It was made by a company called Muky, and as far as I can tell, they named it "Furgon."

Pretty similar, eh? If you like copies, some of them are quite well made and sport features sometimes not found on the original versions. So, keep your eyes open as they "send in the clones."

Diecast Mystery Trucks

I was going through my old diecast vehicles and came across two different trucks of indeterminate age that I had forgotten all about. I can't remember where or when I got them and they have no company name stamped on the bases. The first one was just the semi cab of a tractor-trailer rig and it was in pretty rough shape. It was so bad, I decided to restore it and bring it back to life. I would, however, like to know what company made these two trucks, or even what real-life models they are based on. If anybody can help me, please leave a comment. I will post a few different views of each truck for help in identification purposes.

Here is the first one, just the cab of a semi rig. It was originally painted bright red, but most of the paint has been worn off. The axles are rusty and the chrome on the face of the wheels is rubbed off.

This top view shows more of what the original paint looked like. There was still some left, but not much.

Here is a view of the plastic base. Just to the left of the tiny hole toward the top left, there were the tiny words "Hong Kong," so I'm assuming it was made there. The tiny hole was the secret to getting it to come apart so I could strip the old paint off and give it a general cleaning, inside and out. By putting a tiny screwdriver in the hole, I could disengage the grille unit, which pushed out the front of the truck.

Here is what my unknown truck looks like with 3 coats of paint. I have one more final coat to go, some detail painting, and then a coat of gloss finishing paint. It's already starting to look much better! I think the new wheels really set it off, what do you think? Again, if anybody recognizes this model and can tell me who made it or what it's based on, please let me know. It looks like it's based on an American-made truck of some kind to me.

The second truck was in much better condition. It's a box truck with opening doors in the back. Everything about this vehicle was shiny, non-rusted or clean, so I'm not going to be doing anything to it. The "ice cream" decal on the driver's side was slightly askew, but that's the way it came.

On the other truck, there was no emblem on the front of it. But, this one has a flying wings symbol just above the grille. I'm not sure whether it represents the company that made the original truck this one was patterned after, or a logo for the toy company that cast it. Either way, maybe somebody can recognize it. The truck itself resembles an Isuzu or a Hino, to me.

On the plastic base of the ice cream truck were the words "Made In Hong Kong." They are a little hard to see, but they are stamped in the area right between the two rear axles.

The passenger's side decal was straight and looked much better. If anybody recognizes what this truck is supposed to be or who made it from this profile, please let me know. I hope these views are good enough for someone to be able to identify these models. Perhaps the style of wheels will give a clue as to who produced them and when. If nothing else, please just enjoy looking at these two heavy duty workhorses in 1:64 scale!

March 8th, 2009 Update: Having cast out various threads onto the internet, I think I can now safely say I know what these two vehicles are. The first one, the red one I'm restoring, was made by Universal in the early 1980's, and represents an International Transtar. The second one, the yellow ice cream truck, was made by Welly, and is supposed to be a Japanese Hino. Thanks to everybody who helped out on this!

A New Station Wagon On The Block

This is just a short post to show off a new Hot Wheels Station Wagon model that came out. It's a '70 Chevelle SS Wagon and is pictured below (it is on a used station wagon lot in the front):

8 Dead In Illinois

I have sad news to report in this blog. There have been more notable deaths here in my home state of Illinois and it's a sad occasion to write about. Over the weekend, there were two separate fatal incidents involving cows and automobiles and I just had to tell about this senseless tragedy.

At approximately 7.50 p.m. on Sunday, January 11th, 2009, cows belonging to West Farms got loose onto Route 141, at the intersection at Cottonwood Road. In the first incident, a van with six occupants collided with the herd of cows, leaving 5 dead and 1 injured. No injuries to any of the motorists were reported, but one cow, who should have been life-flighted for further attentions, was dispatched by one of the responding officers. Then, later in the night and further down the road apiece just east of the first scene, at approximately 12.20 a.m., a second crash occurred involving a tractor-trailer which hit and killed two cows. About a dozen cows were loose in the second incident and officers from four different departments, including one fire department, were employed to corral the loose cows and reroute traffic. Illinois Department of Transportation crews were on the scene the next morning to retrieve the bodies of the dead victims. Pending notification of the families of the deceased, no names have been released except one. Bossie the Cow, aged 5 1/2, was one of the victims of the second accident and will be missed by all who loved her and her milk. Your ever-roving photographer managed to capture this image at the scene of the second tragedy:

Now, if I can just locate Crosby, Stills and Nash's e-mail address. I have a good song idea for them.

They're Not Just Toy Cars Any More!

Lately, I have been excavating through my Hot Wheels collection and finding out that there are some old ones I have that are worth quite a lot of money! I found a Hot Wheels Road Grader, still in it's original package, (like most of mine are), and the price sticker was still on it. When I purchased it in 1988, it cost me .77 cents. Today, I have seen where it's worth $45! So, what I thought was just some old diecast cars that I couldn't part with might turn out to be a collection actually worth something! Now, they're not all Hot Wheels, of course. I have some Matchbox cars, and other brands such as Road Champs, Johnny Lightning, Sun Toys, Zylmex, Yatming, Corgi Junior, The Lindberg Line, Playart, Summer Toys, Zee Toys, Majorette, Ertl and my newest discovery - Maisto Diecast cars. I even have some that are so inexpensive, (i.e. cheap!) that they don't have the name of the manufacturer on the base!

So, having figured out that I need to think of them as more than just toys, I have started photographing my collection and posting them here and there on the internet. You probably remember seeing a few of them on this blog in past post. But, taking pictures of a tiny car or truck just sitting there can get somewhat repetitious and boring at times. So, to jazz things up a little, I have been thinking of themes and backgrounds for various cars and posing them in such a way as to make them look more like real cars. This is probably why I like models that look like real cars rather than custom cars that were either one-offs by customizing kings like Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, George Barris and Boyd Coddington, or just made-up designs to look fascinating. Here are a few that turned out interesting and I'll tell a little bit about them underneath each image.

Here is a Hot Wheels Dairy Delivery truck that I photographed just last night. I even created the Milk Advertisement seen on the billboard behind it! I thought it was pretty good, so if the Milk Council feels a need to use it, feel free to contact me about it!

The first car I ever bought, back when I was 17 years old and still in high school, was a huge, mile long 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood. They made less than 3500 of this model and had I only known it was so rare, I probably would still have it today. But, nevertheless, I have always had a fondness for Cadillacs, so I wanted to make the Hot Wheels Cadillac V-16 Concept car above look classy. I posed it on the big city streets like they use in the current crop of Cadillac commercials on television.

I liked those big city streets, so I put a Hot Wheels 1964 Lincoln Continental in the same setting. Don't you just love convertibles!?

This is a Hot Wheels Dodge Charger Stock Car. What better place to find a model such as this but on the racetrack!?

Here is a Hot Wheels 1957 Thunderbird. I own a Ford Thunderbird, so I thought this one would look good on the track as well.

This is a Hot Wheels convertible truck known as a Dodge Sidewinder. I tried to photograph it in such a way as to make it look like it was travelling through the city at a great rate of speed.

This one is a Hot Wheels casting of an Airport Rescue vehicle. Where else would you find one but on some airport runway somewhere? Hopefully no flights were landing when the picture was taken.

Speaking of flying vehicles, here is a Police Helicopter from my newest find - Maisto Diecast. They are quite interesting and have some rare models. I just discovered them this year, so I suspect Maisto is a fairly new company.

I have also taken to buying 2 or 3 identical models of cars I really like so that I can have one for my collection and at least one to customize. Pictured above is a Hot Wheels 1965 Ford Mustang Fastback. I have several of them and this is one that I drilled apart, stripped the paint and repainted it in gloss black. For a hot car such as this, I figured it would look good making a pass down the quarter-mile dragstrip. Hence it's blurred wheels as it sped past me.

And lastly, a set of Hot Wheels that were released in 2003 called the Wild Wave Series. You had to buy each one separately and when you had all five, you had the complete set. Since they featured a surf theme, complete with surfboards, what better place to photograph them than at the beach? Here they are all posed by the shore, with their boards drying in the sun. It looks like their owners just finished surfing and have went to the hamburger stand for some food. This was the first scenic picture I took of my cars and the pleasure of coming up with a theme and a picture for the cars continues to grow. I have lots of fun trying to think of a theme for certain cars and the next one I have in mind will feature a military Jeep flying over a sand dune on it's way through the desert. If you want to see more of my cars, you can check out the Hot Wheels Wiki, the Matchbox Cars Wiki and a wiki I started myself, the Maisto Diecast Wiki. These are all interactive sites where anybody can add and change content. It's a great place to hang out and study the cars or add new information and pictures of vehicles not already represented there. So, be sure to check those places out sometime!
And remember, you can find all kinds of 1:64 scale diecast cars and trucks like I do at lots of places other than Wal-Mart.