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Monday, April 25, 2016

Can a new Matchbox "Superfast" late '60s Cougar beat the original Superfast Cougar?

What a comparison opportunity...  The new Matchbox "Superfast" casting of a 1st Generation Mercury Cougar, in a pea-green, with super-fast-esque wheels and painted trim.  A pretty nice car...!

Except, that oddly, Matchbox had already made a "Superfast" casting of a 1st generation Mercury Cougar in almost the same pea-green color - 40 years ago.... 

2 almost identical castings - made by the same company - 40 years apart...  Sounds like an ideal opportunity for a comparison test.  Can the new casting compete with the vintage casting...? 

Of course, you all know the answer...  There is no possible way that the new casting can compete with the vintage casting, made in the golden age of Matchbox models.  But its still a fun comparison.

While the new one looks nice on its own, with nicely painted backlights and headlights, when it's set side-by-side with the vintage model the inadequacies jump out...  What once looked nice now doesn't anymore.  The new one is larger than the vintage original, with a plastic base, plasticky grill, cast shut doors, cheapy-wheels, etc.   This all in stark comparison to the proper scale, metal based-vintage car with heavy gauge die-cast grill, opening doors, and the sweet "Superfast" suspension and wheels.  There is just no comparison, at all.  Except that the 2 cars are both castings of the same model, in the same color, by the same toy brand...  

Price-wise, the new-ish one isn't cheap, with prices at $2.99 or higher.   But on E-Bay if you hunt, you can probably find a fair-to-good condition vintage model for about $5-8 plus shipping.  Trust me, while the new one looks nice in pictures, the vintage one is way nicer in actual feel - and easily worth the upcharge. 

Matchbox also released new castings of other previously done 1960's cars, such as Lamborghini Miura, a Lotus Europa, a VW transporter, a Jaguar E-Type, a Cadillac Ambulance, a Ford Mustang, etc.  These new models are all fine models (except the Cadillac - which feels SO plasticky that I just can't stand it).  But in 100% of the cases, you'd rather have the vintage original superfast (or in the case of the E-Type, the regular wheels version since it didn't come in a Superfast variant).   Trust me.  You want the original.  And they aren't that hard to find on E-Bay...

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