New Finds 12/08/2012

Ahhhh the local Wal-Mart and Meijers stores have robbed my wallet again! It seems like every time I go I find at least a dozen new cars! Well here is the break down of some my latest finds.

The first two are sweeter than ketchup on a giant meteorite turd. They are Joe Dirt star cars from Greenlight's latest Hollywood line. Joe Dertay's 1969 Dodge Daytona and Kid Rock's character's 1979 Trans Am.

Both cars been used before in Greenlight's other series (the T/A is the same casting used for the S&TB II car) but they have movie specific paint schemes. 

Greenlight really nailed the patina on the Dirt Daytona. It looks awesome!

Johnny Lightning fell off the wagon for a while in the late 90's but they have really turned around! These two are from the Forever 64 collection. The '67 Fury is a demolition derby version with no windows and paint across the wheel and tires. The '55 Chevy is a great casting and is made to look like an old firecar with classic gumball siren. 

I'm a big Grave Digger fan and the truck's 30th anniversary has been good to us collectors. I have nearly all of the 1:64 scale Grave Diggers that have come out this year and most of the 1:24th scales. The two 1:64ths are special edition holiday versions that are sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. The faux snow and white chassis really make the trucks look snowy. 

I did score some "regular line" HW as well. I picked up a few of the new 2013 release cars too. I got a 70' Toyota Celica, BMW 2002, Subaru WRX STI, Ford Focus RS, Ford Thunderbolt,  Tarmac Attack and a Team HW Ford Fiesta rally.

The Celica has some really nice details with the headlight area being one of them. The headlights are the same smoked plastic as the windshield and really help tie up the front end.

This next find really got my excited as I have been looking for an orange car carrier for some time. I'm a huge Dukes of Hazzard fan and often try to remake scenes from the show in 1:64th scale. These are the shots I have been trying to replicate that use an orange car hauler:

This truck is an M2 brand auto hauler purchased at a local Wal-Mart. It costs $17+ dollars, so they're not cheap, but look great and have excellent detail.  

It's not exactly the same style as the Dukes hauler, but it's a good start!

It also came with a Chrysler 300-C that looks like it came straight off the assembly line and drove right onto the truck.

Rare Yatming Monaco Military Version

Being a big TV/movie car fan, there is no denying the popularity of the Dodge Monaco or Plymouth Fury. There are hardly any shows or movies from the mid 70's - 80's that don't feature a Monaco as a pursuit or baddie vehicle.

This 1977 Monaco is from die-cast manufacturer Yatming. I have quite a few of these in police, safety and stock versions but this is the first military version I have seen. My guess is that it came in a multi-car set, but who knows? If you have one of these or know how it came packed originally- let me know!

New Finds 11/08/2012

It is crazy how fast time goes! It is already November and 2013 Hot Wheels are coming out! For 2013 Hot Wheels redesigned the logo with a black outline and the four "Team Hot Wheels" members behind it. It looks like HW has changed stuff up a little with new models being put out in "line" packages and are only marked with a yellow starburst as being "NEW FOR 2013".You can see the new packaging on the blue Camaros below. Some of the Treasure Hunts aren't even marked as so and will make collecting more interesting to say the least.

I went to K-mart this past Saturday after the new cases came out and found a few new ones. I found a Volkswagen Gulf GTI Showroom Series, a Ferrari 458 Spyder Showroom Series, two 1969 Chevelle SS 396 with awesome blue and black paint jobs, a Showroom blue and yellow Buick GSX, a Gallardo Superleggera, a new 2013 Mustang GT drag car, a imagination Scorpedo and a few 2013 Hot Wheels Special Edition Camaro.

The Hot Wheels Edition Camaro is such a good looking car and I can't wait to see them rolling around on the streets. The real car features Hot Wheels badging, Redline style wheels and paint, Hot Wheels logo seats and hardcore flat black stripe down the center.

Check out this video of the actual 2013 Hot Wheels Edition Camaro. Agh!!! I want one!!!!

                                        

The 2013 Mustang is a race inspired casting and it looks really good. The clear hood shows you the eight fuel injection stacks and body looks stretched like a funny car.

There is a local toy show happening Sunday so hopefully I'll find some good post material there!

10/14/2012 Finds

The new cars are rolling in! Hot Wheels released a few more new castings for it's Boulevard series and they do not disappoint. I was lucky enough to have scored a few of the new ones this weekend at a local Target store. I haven't had the best luck at finding cars at Target, but this time I managed to find a few I had been looking for.

The finds include the awesome AMC Rebel Machine, a Vector V8 Twin Turbo and a Matchbox Chevy Stepside.

I love the AMC Rebel in full scale and loving this casting. Johnny Lightning came out with one version a while back but they always had the oddest color combos and stance. The Hot Wheels casting looks pretty darn good!

I have been a fan of the Vectors and was am pumped now that there is a good casting available. In the mid-90's, Hot Wheels released a Vector AVTECH WX-3 casting, but that was the more rounder car and 

looked more futuristic than I care for. The new casting looks very sharp and has a bold " TWIN TURBO VECTOR" screen printed in white on the front window.

The last find is a regular line Matchbox Chevy truck. I think this is the better looking paint job of the current choices as the other style has farm graphics on the side. Another "filler car" for my Dukes of Hazzard/TV show towns!

I got 2nd place in the Greenlight Collectibles Photo Contest!

A few weeks ago Greenlight Collectibles announced ,via Facebook, that they would be having a photo contest for whoever could take the most unique picture using Greenlight brand products. Since Greenlight has some of my favorite castings ever made, I knew I had to enter.

I spend hours going through my 1/64 collection and pulling Greenlight brand cars out. I set them up all over and even used my Greenlight tools and accessory set to help make some of the photos more realistic. Here is a small sample of the shots I submitted:

You can see all my entries HERE. I have quite a few so be sure to scroll down to see them and all the other awesome entries submmited!  

There was some really stiff competition! People took some super nice shots and own incredible car collections. After all the entries were in and reviewed, the winners were announced......

And I got second place in Greenlight's Facebook Photo contest! Yeehaa!!!

Here is my second place photo

I'm so pumped to even get second as there were so many talented guys who submitted entries. A huge THANK YOU goes out to Greenlight Collectibles and all the participants!

See the full list of winners and their photos at http://greenlighttoys.com/photocontestwinners.html

New finds 10/06/2012

Boy has it been a busy week! I did manage to pick a few new cars up while was in Illinois over the weekend and scored a few at local stores and off Ebay too.

Here's the few I got in Illinois. They are a GreenLight County Roads 1975 Dodge Monaco and a Greenlight Hot Pursuit series 1968 Corvette and 1975 Dodge Monaco New York State Patrol car. Greenlight makes some of the most accurate cars and their Monacos are one of my all time favorite castings. What's funny is the single car was $5.99 and the two car set was $6.99!

I also scored two more Greenlight Hollywood series Blues Brothers 1975 Dodge Monaco Chicago Police cars. I have about a dozen or so of these but they hardly ever show up in stores! I grab them every time I see them!

I have been looking for this next find ever since I saw it on Ebay a few weeks back.I finally found it at a local Meijers store. It's a 2012 Hot Wheels Motor Cycle Batcycle. It's 1:64th scale (of course!) and has a really nice Batman figure on it. I'm not a big motorcycle collector but anything Batman is awesome!

Next up is a hard to find Johnny Lightning Dukes of Hazzard Enos Dodge Monaco. I won this little gem on Ebay and got it for a good price too! Most of the time these JL patrol cars go for $15-25 a piece! I like the Greenlight Monaco casting better but this one is decent. 

Besides the packaging, you can tell the difference between the JL Rosco Monaco and the JL Enos Monaco is that the Enos Monaco has the light bar reversed (the red side goes on the drivers side in the show) and has the 83502 license plate for the deputy car.

New AMT Ghostbusters Ecto Model

This is a new model from AMT that I scored at a local Hobby Lobby. Well, it's actually a re-release but has't been available since the late 80's. It is a very nice, stage 2 kit. Even though it is only a 1/25th scale, the car is pretty long due to it being such a large car in real life.

The car is really detailed and is better than the original for several reasons. One of the reasons the re-release is improved over the original is because it includes the parts and decals to make both the Ecto and Ecto A-1 from the individual Ghostbusters movies.

This is a very cool kit and I can't wait to build it!

Back with Some New Finds

It has been a few weeks since I posted last, but I'm back!

Here are some new finds from local stores like Kroger, Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart.

Here's the first group:

These are mostly common cars but cool cars none the less. From left to right they are a Kroger only yellow ZL1 Camaro HW, three Z06 Corvette HW new models, a Matchbox classic Seagrave fire engine, 2 Matchbox Land Rover Discoverys, 2 Matchbox BMW R1200 RT-P Police Motorcycles, a 2011 HW BLVD. BRUISER and Buick Grand National with Redline wheels (which are both Wal-Mart exclusives but I found them at Kroger....), a HW A-team van, a team HW '70 Challenger and 70 Chevelle, a Matchbox 2006 Dune Buggy, a HW DC Universe Batmobile, a Matchbox Blizzard Buster, a HW Hot Ones 71 Mustang, a 1970 lime green Dodge Charger and a HW Galaxie 500.

This is a smaller batch but and also has some repeaters.The first one is a JL 1969 Lincoln Continental two door. It's all black and very gangster looking. Next is a 1981 Chevy Citation. This is a really odd-ball casting, I mean who goes to the store hunting for Citations? I bought it as a filler car for my various scale car towns. I bought the next car, a 1965 Impala SS as a filler car as well. The two green ones are more of the 77' Dodge Monaco.

There is also a 1977 Dodge Monaco Matchbox police cruiser, a newer BATMOBILE, another BWM police bike and an additional Seagrave fire truck.

Here are a few shots of the Matchbox and JL Monaco side by side for comparison. The Matchbox has a better front grill but the JL has a better rear bumper area.