It’s Swag Swensday! That’s when we kick down some sweet, sweet swag to Autopian Members, the cool-kids club for car people that you really should have joined already. What’s the holdup? You can get in on the fun with a Cloth Tier membership for a mere seven bucks a month (or break off $50 to cover the year, which works out to way less than five dollars a month). There’s even more fun with the Cloth, Velour, and Rich Corinthian Leather tiers. Become an Autopian Member today!
Here’s the thing: I have way too many Hot Wheels cars. It didn’t feel like a lot when I was buying them in ones or twos or threes based solely on “Oh, that’s a cool one,” but man, have they added up. During my recent Office Clutter Purge, I boxed up all the little die-casts, still on their cards, and it’s gotta be a good 50 pounds of metal and plastic – and a nice chunk of change for Mattel that I never even felt because it was just an extra $1.25 each time I went out for milk or Minute Rice or whatever.
I’m swimming in so many Hot Wheels and Matchbox over here that I can easily toss a few sets of ten randomly-selected cars to randomly-selected Autopian Members without flinching, and what you see below is the latest ten-car grab going out to a Member. Now let’s see what I pulled outta the Hot Wheels Box …
Alrighty, we’ve got the Toyota Land Cruiser complete with GReddy and Fifteen52 logos on the rocker panels; the Dodge Van with go-kart in the back, love that (and it’s a Ryu’s Ride, bonus); and a ’15 Mazda MX-5 Miata counterbalancing a somber grey paint job with an exuberant rear wing. Moving on!
Lots of deco and a heaping helping of off-road action with these three. I really like the Custom Ford Bronco casting and those big tires, though I do wish Mattel molded them in black instead of mud brown. Next, that Chrysler Pacifica in full overlanding mode is the perfect blend of rad, lol, and wtf; and the Volvo XC40 Recharge is ready for alpine excitement with a pair of snowboards on the roof. Gotta say, it really looks tough on those beadlocks!
Whoa, looks like I hit a vein of green in the die-cast car mine. Paging Matt Hardigree, we got a Ford Escort RS2000 up in here! – plus a Mighty K in metallic seafoam on gold wheels, and an ’85 Honda City Turbo II, another from the Ryu’s Rides line. You can’t see it here, but the City’s got a teeny-weeny Motocompo in the back!
… And one Matchbox makes ten! The 2016 Toyota Tacoma is a really nice casting, especially in that tri-color paint. The camping rig is removable, and the underside is full of detail, including frame rails, transmission and oil pan, and a rear axle with diff housing. Neat!
This gang of cars might land in your mailbox soon if you’re the lucky Member chosen by Jason’s random number generator program thingy. If you’re not a Member yet, you can join today and you’ll be on the potential swag-getter list for these cars and all the Swag Swensday gear dropping in the future. Become a Member now!
Oh, one note before I go: I’m not researching these cars at all, so if any of ’em are super rare or desirable or trading for big bucks on Ebay or something, don’t tell me! I don’t wanna know!
These diecast toy cars really are insane value. They were usually $.99 45-50 years ago when I was a kid collecting them, and it’s not unusual to see them for that same price today, even if some places get $1.25 for them. Admittedly, those Matchboxes and Hot Wheels of 50 years ago were a little nicer and less plasticky than todays, but still… And of course, I could KILL my grandmother for giving away my entire collection of these, LEGO (huge plastic totes of LEGO), and Star Wars stuff while I was away at college. Some of it would be worth bank today. Sigh.
I will buy an exceptionally cool one every now and again, last one being the Matchbox Jaguar XK-120 in light blue. I almost picked up a box set of Porsches for $4.99 at Aldi the other day. Was very tempted, but I am trying to avoid more clutter in my life. I have a big collection of 1/18th scale cars at my place in Maine, but I haven’t bought one of those in 20 years. Though I have two that were gifted to me, one on each of my Euro Delivery trips. A near matching 328i wagon from the BMW Welt gift shop when I picked up that car that my friend who went with my bought me (I got him his plane ticket with miles), and a Peugeot 504 my mother bought me at the Schlumpf Museum in France.
I used to pick up whatever looked cool – usually focused on 70’s Japanese cars and some muscle cars.
Now I’ve limited myself to Batmobiles. It’s worked out pretty well, and it creates that “hunt” excitement when I go to the toy aisle at the grocery store to scan the edges of the hang-cards.
I limited myself to permutations of a single casting (Saturn Ion, since I used to own one). I have ’em all, I’m happy.
(…Then there was this one Jurassic Park Jeep, and…)
Oh, I absolutely know the slippery slope LOL.