Spotted: Subaru Impreza WRX STI, Nissan GT-R Racing Car & Mazda RX-8 Patrol Car

Jusco and Toys R Us have received new shipments of Tomicas for Raya. Amongst the interesting models spotted in Jaya Jusco Sunway Pyramid is the #11 Subaru Impreza WRX STI, a new adventurous hatchback which has surprised many Impreza purists. An even more interesting model is the #50 Nissan GT-R Racing Car, which is the Yellow Hat sponsored Japan GT contender, which recently competed in the Sepang leg of the Japan GT Championship.

Also spotted is the #44 Mazda RX-8 Patrol Car for you police car collectors out there. If you already have the RX-7, then the RX-8 is a must have. Its pretty nifty looking in the police livery and definitely more worth your money than the regular red RX-8. This Tomica Regular #44 was spotted in Toys R Us Subang Parade.

Happy hunting! :-)

Collection: Matchbox Car Carrier

Finally, I managed to acquire my first car carrier! :-) This one is a Matchbox Car Carrier, traded with deblyrie on the local LYN forums. A very nice fella, who was very generous in helping me haul some Tomicas recently.

The Car Carrier is built to, as its name implies: to carry cars. It has a ramp that is extendable and also able to tilt downwards in an angle to allow the car to drive up. A nifty little piece of die cast, this. :-D

I wanted this car carrier because it will give me something to throw in when taking photos of my collections or custom cars. :-D The Car Carrier knew this, and it couldn't wait to get out of its card! So it just busted out on its own! :-P More photos of the Car Carrier breaking out of its card, and carrying the customs are below.




Oh yes, which of the customs did you like best so far? Or do you hate them all? If you liked a particular one, what made you like it best? Is it because of the country the car is manufactured? Is it because of the colour? Or do you have another reason?

Why am I asking so many questions? Because I want you, yes you, to decide for me which cars to custom next! :-) How is it done? So far I have 3 cars in mind, one Japanese tuner, one American muscle and another European supercar. I will create a poll and you will vote for which car to custom, and the car with the most votes will be customized! Look out for more details in the coming post. :-)

What will be the next car custom? You will decide. :-)

Kustom RideZ: Volkswagen Golf GTI

The VW Golf GTI falls under the hot hatch category and is a direct rival to Honda's Civic Type R, Renault's Megane R26 and Ford's Focus ST. A very capable car in real life then. Appropriate for my custom project too, since the previous car modded was an American Muscle Car and the one before that was a Japanese Tuner. It only seems logical that I add a European Hot Hatch to my list of customs. :-)

The car chosen this time is the Hot Wheels casting of the Volkswagen Golf GTI. I find that Hot Wheels took it a bit too far and overdid the Golf, with the somewhat disgusting wide body kit and holes in the hood. So I decided to mellow down the Golf GTI slightly to make it less aggresive but yet keep the edgy, tuner look.

Routine processes first: drill the rivets and take the car apart. As you can see from the picture, the Golf GTI is in an ugly shade of dark electric blue and wide body kit with really squarish and sharp cornered edges.


The body's original paint job is stripped down to the bare metal. Then using a small hacksaw, or a jeweler's saw, the wide body kit is trimmed off the die cast. This is done because like I mentioned before, the edges are a bit too squarish and I would like for the Golf GTI to look more streamlined. The square-ness of the original casting made the Golf GTI look box-like.


Next, the holes in the hood were filled up as I preferred a smooth hood, once again removing sharp corners and box-like shapes from the car. Then this is followed by a coat of primer, then the base paint job. I chosen red because it looks a lot more striking than the dull electric blue. :-) I wanted the car to have a semi-black hood, not entirely black as it seems to be the trend in modding this Golf GTI in real life. I liked it, so I decided to adopt that paint scheme. The areas that aren't black are masked up and then flat black is sprayed on top.


While the exterior body's paint coats dried, I shifted work to the interior. I fabricated 3-point harness seatbelts for the driver to make it look like he has a bucket seat in the driver's seat. Then I fitted and calibrated the wheels to match the chassis, and brake discs are also measured and fitted onto the chassis. As a finishing touch I painted the interior, giving it a chrome silver dash and console.


After the paint job was completely dry, the maskings were removed and detailing work followed. The front and back VW badges and plate number areas were painted and decals were applied onto the front, side and rear. The chassis was also painted and then detailings for the headlamps, rear lights and fog lights were attached and painted before the whole car was put back together and left to dry for the last time.

Then its complete! :-) Pictures of the custom Golf GTI below and I also took out the previous two customs; Mustang GT and Civic Si for the photoshoot. Enjoy the pictures below and I hope you had a good read! :-)


Project started: 16th September 2008
Project completed: 26th September 2008

Work In Progress: VW Golf

I have started on my third custom! :-) It will be slower this time around because I am nearing the end of my university semester so more time is dedicated to studying.

Anyway, back to the car. No further introductions needed for any this already a very famous car I think. It has been touted by Jeremy Clarkson as being able to fetch your kids to tuition and still have fun on the way back. 'Nuff said. I am once again trying out new techniques on this model so lets hope it turns out good. :-) Look out for it soon!

Carded or Loose?

Ah, yes the never-ending debate. Some collectors, like me, like to have our cars carded and mint on card. This is so that it can easily be stored and cleaned, without having to clean out the dust inside the car that are hard to reach. The resale value for the car is better when they are carded, and plus, they wont be damaged when they are still sealed in the card.

So why will collectors choose to uncard their cars?

Some argue there is no point in leaving the cars carded. They are hard to display, you can't play with them as much and photography with the model is pretty difficult since you are restricted to one angle. If you, as a collector, are collecting the model, why would you worry about the resale value in the first place? By uncarding it, you can display it nicely on shelves, racks and also take superb pictures with it on dioramas and custom made backgrounds.

As for me personally, I have a set of carded cars and a set of uncarded, most of the uncarded which I personally hope to customize. I keep some carded because I don't play with them, or have not have a place to display or made dioramas as yet. Hopefully this will change in the near future. :-)

Most 1:64 die casts cars are valid in this arguement: Hot Wheels, most Matchboxes, Jada Toys, etc. However, there are exceptions to the norm. Tomy Tomica cars usually are packaged in a box, allowing collectors the option to take them out and still be put back into the box for storage. I think that's pretty nice, gives flexibility for both types of collectors. It is also worth noting that there are cars that are sold in acrylic cases such as Kyosho and Hot Works, which you can unscrew the car loose and then reattached back to the casing once you are done with it.

What do you think? Do you keep your die casts loose or carded/boxed? Let me know. :-)