The largest problem with the set though was that it only came with two cars and they looked shit.   I was having none of that so I bought a couple of HotWheels cars to go with it instead;

Mazda RX7 S1 & BMW 2002 Turbo

I’ll not have any relation of mine putting up with shit-house pretend cars, sure.. he’s two, he’ll smash them up but at least they’ll look realistic.   Interestingly, the RX7 has JNC and JDM Legends decals on it.  I tried to find the HotWheels C110 so he could play with a car like his uncle owns, sadly they had none there and I don’t want to give him the one I bought ages ago, hahaha.

-Michael

From 1:18 right down to 1:89 scale.

the level of detail on the 1:18 Autoart is nothing short of breathtaking, especially when you have the Real Thing parked in the garage to compare it with. Check out some detail shots of it here.

A shame that my other 1:89 model, a Seibu Keisatsu Machine-RS, has gone missing. It used to be parked on my desk at the office but mysteriously disappeared one weekend. I blame the cleaners!

Ewan said I was gonna chuckle heartily upon seeing the box my stuff was packed in, and he was right. Problem is, so did the rest of the office!

my t-top shades arrived from Japan. In this box. People got the wrong idea.

inside the goofy “Leg Wing” box I found a mint pair of AW11 MR2 t-top shades as ordered… plus a couple of extra goodies as a gift for ongoing custom. As per Michael’s update Ewan had similarly warned me that my brain would most likely explode from the coolness contained within, and he was right: the extras comprised a G-Works magazine similar to Michael’s but the latest issue (Oct ’09), and also a tiny diecast of Machine RS-3, one of the famous Seibu Keisatsu KDR30s – complete with swivel-out machinegun.

Machine RS-3; yes I know it looks like a fuzzy red blob, my phone camera sucks.

Apologies for the abysmal picture quality, but my phone was all I had in the way of image capture devices, and I don’t often tend to use it for that purpose. might grab some decent scans of the magazine in the next couple of days if I happen to be up at my folks’, but no promises.

Also, no photos of the shades – but if anyone was wondering, they’ve been installed and are now doing a fine job of, er, shading things, without sagging or falling down every time I go around a corner or hit a bump in the MR2. High five!

I think I may have just found my new favourite magazine.

tried taking a few snaps of the content within, but got infuriated with the quality of the phone camera and gave up after the first couple of photos. Kinda wish I’d taken my point-and-shoot to work… but I wasn’t expecting the parcel to arrive for a few days yet.

A comparison between the early RS sedan and facelift RS-X coupe. My Japanese reading skills aren't the best, but I'm sure the text reads 'Iron Mask > Uglyfront'.

More comparisons.

I found this page slightly uncanny, as a few days ago I'd actually been on the ESCORT-JAPAN website compiling a list of items to buy for squid's eventual FJ21 build - rods, pistons, headgasket, manifold, everything.

From flicking through the rest of the magazine, it’s chock full of just about every kind of modified J-tin retro ride you can think of, from Geminis to S130 Fairladys to slammed Crizzes, and the technical articles look fairly informative as well – driveshaft/UJ strength testing, how to restore old rims, even a primer on rotary engine apex seals! As Michael said, it’s a shame publications of this sort don’t exist in NZ, and what we do have is of dubious quality at best. I’m sorry but “How to do a handbrake D1″ simply doesn’t cut it as far as technical articles go.

Once again, many thanks to Ewan @ hayatonka for sorting out my latest order, and for adding the extra items without any hesitation and at no cost – just another example of the company’s stellar shipping service!

Later that day I got an email from Ewan (www.hayatonka.com, the link on the top left column) to tell me he’d sent the last little die-cast I had bought a while ago, as well as a few other little goodies that I might enjoy, as a gift for the extra traffic his website has received from mine and from the people I’ve directed towards him.   I was of course, happy to help and expected not to receive such things in return so I was intrigued as to what they might actually be!

The next day (being I have been ill the last few) I scurried down to the CourierPost depot with the tracking number my brother had txt me and claimed my parcel from Japan, scurried back home and ripped it open to find many fine things, starting with the little die-cast I had almost forgotten about;

So genuine right now.

Sweet box too, all collectors and such, but which Prince?

Well, that would be the Prince Gloria BLSIP-I

The first Gloria, released in 1959, shared the Skyline shell and chassis with just a few more “Deluxe” tweaks so it was more luxurious and shiny.

Stunning quality 1/64 die-cast.

Tomica Limited series, really does have some of the most beautiful and well crafted miniature scale cars available.  My other TL is an S54B race car that shares the level of detail and clarity.  Simply magic considering the scale cars I grew up with, they were always a little out of proportion with funky wheels, so even if you knew it was them, they still weren’t quite there and were nothing on what these are now.  The result of modern tooling techniques, I guess.

Presentation Box

The good thing about items like this is their competent packaging.  If I could read Japanese properly it would be even better, sadly I only know a few.  I relly should have continued it in High School.  Curses.

Anyway!  Other participants in the box of magic were some things that are sitting at home which I didn’t get images of, namely 3 tiny little cars of about match-stick length.  1x R32 Calsonic GT-R, 1x R33 GT-R Road Car in Midnight Purple, 1x Mazda Cosmo 110s as well as a CUSCO L.S.D Sticker.

What I did bring in to scan was a G-Works magazine (the keen of eye may have spied it underneath the Prince Box).

It has several awesome Sunny feature cars which I will scan and send the way of Chris Cain (beeoneoneoh.wordpress.com) for his infatuation to be furthered but in the meantime, here’s a sneak peak!

KB110, B110 2-door

Sunny B122 Utility and Sunny VB10 Van

In addition to these and a engine timeline for the Sunny, was things of a higher interest to such as myself;  Like so…

Awww yeah, Butaketsu.

Well modified and tuned L6 cars.  That’s the stuff dreams are made of;

Garage Masuda's Track C110 GT-R Replica

R31 GTS-R

There’s also C10′s, of course and a few more Laurels here and there as well as a rotary powered AE86 Levin Track Car, and many, many more little gems, it’s a fantastic magazine and one of many available in Japan.  Strange that they have so many available and yet come up with awesome content despite the large numbers of magazines for every potential scene and yet we’re stuck with the likes of “Performance Car”.  Ahh well, thems the breaks I guess.

The other gift included in the magical box was a couple of expired JAF membership sleeves, with window sticker, membership card, etc.

Curses! Membership Expired!

Now who will come to my rescue when I’m stuck!?

Hah!

Awesome.

Anyway, that’s it for this entry.  HUGE thanks again to Ewan, the master of Yahoo! Auctions Japan as well as any other Japanese site you may wish to purchase from.  CHECK HIM OUT!  You’ll not regret it!

http://www.hayatonka.com/

-Michael

1962 Prince Skyline/Skyway Shop Manual

More on that in a little bit, my other recent acquisition is this;

Takara TOMY - Nissan Skyline KPGC110 RC Car

A little toy car that was brought to my attention by Lochlan, an oldschool.co.nz member who lives in Japan, he asked if I would be interested in one, which I most certainly was.  I had completely forgotten about it when it arrived and I was well stoked.  I bought some AAA’s on the way home from work and proceeded to terrorize my girlfriend’s cat with it.  It was most amusing!

So I must thank both Lochlan and Josh again, cheers guys, you’re both legends for thinking of me when you stumble across various Skyline memorabilia.  I’ll be forever grateful.

Before I get onto the scope of the Prince manual, here’s a few shots of the RC car, it has working front and rear lamps.  The headlamps turn on when you’re going forwards;

Off

On

Which obviously means that the tail-lamps turn on when you go backwards, as such…

Not On.

Not Off.

I had to put the fender mirrors in and the stickers on myself, so they’re not ideal but they’re good enough for me.  Thanks again Lochlan.

The Shop Manual, sadly could not be used to terrorize the cat as I’d not dare risk throwing it at it, simply because the content and coverage is quite thorough.  The only thing that’s a bit of a shame is that’s it’s for the 1st Gen. model previous to my own.  Still, it’s not without it’s uses given the shared components.  Here’s some shots;

Prince Motors, Ltd. Rights Reserved you say?

One page (of Three) of the Models it covers

Distributor Chart Maps

Measuring Toe Angles

Full Colour Lube Chart

Sweet.  Coupled with my Parts Manual, they’re an impressive collection of 60′s Automotive Documentation for the 1st Gen. Skyline.

Huge thanks and praise to Josh for the Shop Manual and Lochlan for the Radio Controlled 110GT-R

-Michael

]]> http://blog.retro-classics.co.nz/?feed=rss2&p=1927 3 http://blog.retro-classics.co.nz/?p=319 http://blog.retro-classics.co.nz/?p=319#comments Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:23:54 +0000 kyteler http://retroclassics.wordpress.com/?p=319 Over the years, the availability and quality of die-cast cars has increased greatly, due to increased exposure via the Internet and tooling methods used.  It is now possible to cheaply attain high quality, highly accurate representations of a lot of cars, in particular classic Japanese ones. A good demonstration of this in the 1:64-72 range ...more]]>

Over the years, the availability and quality of die-cast cars has increased greatly, due to increased exposure via the Internet and tooling methods used.  It is now possible to cheaply attain high quality, highly accurate representations of a lot of cars, in particular classic Japanese ones.

A good demonstration of this in the 1:64-72 range is the TOMY Tomica “Limited”.  The accuracy and detail of these vehicles is usually quite high.

Tomica 'Limited' Prince Skyline S54B

If you’re interested in what’s currently available new in the “limited” range then visit the TOMY website;  Sadly, it’s all in Japanese so unless you can read it, you’re likely out of luck, translation tools will miss most of the site in that it’s mostly images as opposed to standard text, though with a bit of perseverance you should find your way around fairly well.

TOMY Tomica Limited

Of course you could always get something from the TOMY Tomica standard range, their detail suffers a little but the range of cars available is quite a lot larger.

TOMY Tomica 30th Anniversary KPGC10

TOMY Tomica 30th Anniversary KPGC110

TOMY Tomica 30th Anniversary KDR30

I should apologise now for the lack of variety in the models shown, they’re all from my own collection which is predominantly Skyline based.

Another type to look out for are the TOMY sets, they’re usually filled with cars from the regular range but getting them in appropriate sets and packaging does add to their appeal.

TOMY Tomica Set

Beyond the average car sets are the more specialised ones, ie. the Masahiro Hasemi “Skyline History” set, as shown below;

TOMY Tomica Hasemi Set, Cover

TOMY Tomica Hasemi Set, Inside Cover

TOMY Tomica Hasemi Set, Car Collection

Outside of the TOMY range, Konami released a few different volumes of “Nostalgic” cars, again the accuracy is quite high given the size and the range they’ve covered over the sets make lovely additions to anyone’s collection.

KONAMI Prince Skyline Sport

KONAMI Prince Skyline GTB

KONAMI Isuzu Bellett GT-R

Getting away from the contemporary standard look cars.  Aoshima released a series of modified, “bosozoku” or  “garuchan” type of vehicles, the initial release was a selection of Toyota’s though there’s been a few more since then, that include the staple C210 Skyline Japan, amongst others.

AOSHIMA 1st-Series Cars

As you can see, each car came in three different colour schemes and wheel options, all wheels from the SSR range MkI, II & III.

AOSHIMA Toyota Celica Supra XX MA61

AOSHIMA Toyota Soarer MZ10

Not to be out-done in accuracy and quality is Kyosho.  Though they’re now quite hard to get from shops directly in NZ due to problems with distributors, they are still available through Australian and Japanese websites.

KYOSHO 1969 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R PGC10

KYOSHO 1971 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R KPGC10

KYOSHO 1973 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R KPGC110

Going beyond the smaller “matchbox” scale; Kyosho, AutoArt, Biante and Minichamps make some fantastic 1:43 & 1:18 scale cars;

KYOSHO 1:43 Nissan Fairlady 240ZG

KYOSHO 1:43 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R

KYOSHO 1:18 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R Works Prototype

KYOSHO 1:18 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R Works Prototype

KYOSHO 1:18 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R Works Prototype

KYOSHO 1:18 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R Works Prototype

KYOSHO 1:18 Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R Wors Prototype

Here’s a few shots of a small section of a collection that belongs to a friend of mine;

GMP McLaren CanAm Cars

Minichamps; Denny Hulme McLaren F1 & Capri RS3100

If you’re interested in this sort of thing and have no luck finding anything locally, then a good place to look for many die-casts, especially those out of manufacture is any number of online auctions sites like eBay, trademe, Yahoo! Japan, etc. Of course if you’re more interested in buying new and the manufacturer websites don’t have an online store facility then you’re best to visit other websites, such as;

HobbyLink Japan.

Biante Model Cars.

Happy hunting!

-Michael

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