No time for a wacky intro; head straight to the photos!
April 2018
Big Rob brought in boxes and boxes of oodles and oodles of goodies. The colorful boxes, as you can probably tell, are various Hot Wheels and Johnny Lightning collections and race sets. The beige bombers in the background are chock-full of many, many, many individual HW and JL models in MoC condition.
I see about a dozen reasons you should attend Suncoast Diecasters meetings.
While the vastly overwhelming majority of Big Rob’s collection are of course 1/64th-scale, one particular box held these footlong-plus behemoths. These are RC versions of Sweet 16 II and Twin Mill. Yes, he has the controllers also, in case ya wants ta race ’em.
These are actually larger than a Fiat 500.
Of course I did. You and Suncoast Diecasters have been seeing each other for about twelve years now. So of course I did a special favor for you. Enjoy.
Click below for special favor.
Bill bought two vehicles from Big Tractor Mike. First is this 1983 Fork Lift Truck, which is based on a Lansing Bagnall model.
Buy our fork lift with “Up” feature, and get our exclusive “Down” feature at no extra cost!
Next is this Mercedes-Benz Container Truck from 1981. This version also has dark-tinted blue windows.
Room for plenty more rubber bands inside!
Not to be outdone (though clearly outmatched) in the “bigger than 1/64” department, Tom bought this gorgeous Rolls Royce Silver Shadow from BTM. This is MebeToys model A-26 from Gran Toros.
Elegance.
This beauty doesn’t just get by on looks alone. It also features an opening bonnet (with some rigging), opening doors and an opening boot.
If you look closely, you’ll even see gauges on the dashboard.
Well, well, what have we here? Why, it’s a reproduction of Alan Nash & Co.’s patent for Hot Wheels track connectors.
You didn’t know those purple connectors had over four hundred moving parts, did you?
Oh, and look: it’s Larry Wood’s original sketch for Tri Baby.
If this doesn’t make a toy car collector drool, I don’t know what will. I mean, beside pizza.
Whence come this intriguing images? They’re just two of several dozen such illustrations and photos in this wonderful book, Hot Wheels: 35 Years of Power, Performance, and Attitude. This is how our April meeting started, with Big Rob RAOKing this to Big Tractor Mike. For a host of reasons which should be obvious, I easily declare this book to be Suncoast Diecasters‘ Find of the Month(*) for April 2018.
Congratulations, Mike! And thank you, Rob.
…Aaand with about 15 minutes left, our April update is actually published during April. Let us all cavort!
See you at our May meeting!
~WM
Suncoast Diecasters 