Once Again, Drug Store Die-Cast Cars Do Not Disappoint

I think for many of us, modernity hasn’t exactly delivered on the promises it made when we were young. Instead of flying cars or jetpacks or pills that turn in to pizzas when you squeeze a droplet of water on them or cures for cancer and baldness we have drones and AI that tells us lies online and can’t seem to figure out what written language looks like. It’d be depressing were it not for one crucial mitigating factor: those little die-cast cars you can buy in drugstores continue to innovate and impress.

You know the cars! All us gearheads do. We’ve written about these before, of course. They’re 1/32 scale, I think, much larger than a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car, and they often have some surprisingly unexpected types of cars, some legendary iconic cars, but also some surprisingly mundane cars, stuff that normies drive every day, and even some genuinely unexpected cars. And they’re only like $6.99 or so!

The level of detail is impressive on these things (even if it’s sometimes just wrong) but generally these are quite accurate and the level of attention and detail is deeply satisfying, especially for a cheap thing two aisles over from the enemas. I was thinking about this because I happened to be in a drugstore where I saw this orange Toyota AE86:

It’s a pretty nicely done little ’83-’87 AE86! Decent detail, the turn indicators and cornering lights are nicely painted, there’s a fetching black stripe, some nice wheels, it’s badged as a Trueno (the name used in Japan, coming from the Spanish word for thunder), and the doors open. It’s a satisfying little model.

The rear is well done, too, with a nice heckblended set of taillights that are less blurry in person, I promise.

I’m not sure how accurate the underside is, but you can see the catalytic converter there, along with the name of the company that made this one: Caipo. But here’s the detail I really want to point out and donate some props to Caipo about:

The pop-up headlights! Almost every cheap die-cast car I’ve had of a car with pop-up lights has just had closed headlights, only delineated by a little grooved cutline in the bodywork, a fake suggestion of what was actually there. But this cheap little model? The lights actually open! I saw this one, and my eye was immediately drawn to how deep and dark the lines around the headlight covers looked.

Could it be? Dare they?

It could, and they dared. The lights, once levered up with a thumbnail, revealed some nicely rendered stickers of a sealed-beam headlamp (maybe a modernized version with a round LED portion?) – the effect was fantastic. I was so impressed!

Sure, my squeals of delight may have alarmed the buyers of deodorant and laxatives, but I made sure to seize those people by the upper arm, with an unintentionally but excitement-fueled firm grip, and loudly explain how cool this is, what an unexpected delight it was to see something so accessible handled so well, with such care and such detail, my explanation getting louder and louder, more breathless and emphatic, my grip on other customers’ arms tightening and getting sweatier, until the security guard was forced to pry the car out of one of my hands whatever other customer’s arm out of my other, and fling me to the pavement outside of the store.

I’m currently banned from all Walgreen’s, so if anyone is going into one, maybe let me know if  you can grab me one of these? I’ll Venmo you the seven bucks! The Walgreen’s people recognized me even with my fake moustache.