New box of 12 Tomicas... Which is best and which is worst?

The problem with buying cars on-line is that you can't really see what they look like, the way you would if you got to see it in real life before you chose to buy it.  So when you open up your shipment, you are always curious about how the cars will actually look.

Today I got a box of 12 new Tomicas, fresh from Asia.  Most are new 2020 castings.  Some are great castings!  ...and some are not so great.  So for your benefit, I thought I'd rank them in order of how much I like them, from 12th (last place) up to 1st place...





























Tomica makes some winners...   ...and some losers.  In this group, there was an obvious loser.  This maroon Toyota Supra.  Its just a very uninspiring model.  Nothing about it that makes you want to play with it.  The window tint is so dark that at first it appears that Tomica really cheaped out and didn't even put in an interior (they didn't, there is an interior, you just have to look REALLY hard to see it).

The ONLY interesting thing about this model was that Tomica also made it's platform sharing mate (the BMW Z4 roadster - pictured in the back of this photo) and painted it in the same shade of maroon.

Other than that, its not a great model.  Its not as bad as the mid 2000s Mazda RX8 (in the running for the worst ever Tomica model), but its definitely not great.  It takes last place by a fairly wide margin.

11th place:  Nissan Note Police.  Tomica's micro cars are probably my least favorite genre within the Tomica range, and frankly, this one is no exception.  While it's ahead of the Supra, it still remains well behind 10th and better places.

10th place:  Nissan skyline.  If Tomica's micro cars are my least favorite genre, then Tomica's large Japanese luxury cars are probably in a tie with minivans for my favorite genre.  But this isn't the best Skyline sedan that they've done...  Its a little too narrow, with no opening doors.  On the other hand, the glass headlights are a nice touch, and I like it more than the previous Skyline sedan.  Overall, its good enough to be a solid casting and to just barely be edged out of 9th place.

9th place:  Ferrari F8 Tributo.  I'm a bit torn about this model.  From 1 perspective I like it a lot - especially the detail with all of its hood scoops.  On the other hand, it just seems too large - especially from the back - like it's out of scale.  Granted, the F8 has a BIG rear end (I was following one on the highway the other day), but this model might be too large.  I'm just not sure what to think about it...

8th place:  Isuzu Erga Personnel Transport.  This one is an interesting model - probably the first prisoner transport model ever made in 1/64 scale...  Although you can't see it well in the photo - all of the windows are heavily barred.  It may be the most interesting coach bus made by Tomica.  (Coach buses are ALSO a less favorite Tomica genre, since the scale is SO small...). 

7th place:  Toyota Supra.  This is part of the Dream Tomica series - and is painted like the Paul Walker 10 second car from the first Fast and the Furious movie.  The picture on the box is awful.  Frankly, even this photo doesn't make it look very nice.  But in the metal, it actually looks nicer than in the pictures.  Note however that its still not as nice as the (super nice) silver Supra from the Premium series.

6th place:  Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera.  This car is part of the more expensive (2x normal price) Tomica Premium series.  As such, the wheels are accurately modeled, there is lots of detail, etc,  Overall, while I'm not a big fan of newer Lamborghini models, this is a reasonable and typical example of the (very nice ) Premium series.  FYI - the green paint is super cool. For this (6th place) and higher models, I highly recommend that you buy them if you don't have them already. 

5th place:  Toyota HiAce Communication Satellite car.  I liked this HiAce when it first came out last year.  I already like Tomica minivans, and I liked the HiAce, though I thought it was a little plain.  But dressed up with the satellite dish, it turns a nice model into a great model.  Although I ranked this as 5th place, it is definitely set apart from 6th and lower places.

4th place:  Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato.  Wow.  This is a GREAT model.  It's one of the best Tomica models EVER.  Its large, solid, with opening doors, wonderful detail, beautiful rich paint, glass headlights, etc.  I love this model.  You need it too!

3rd place:  Nissan Gloria Gran Tourimo Ultima.  This car is part of the Limited Vintage series, and as such is VERY expensive, about 6X the price of a typical model.  But I bought the car in red, and loved it so much that I ante'd up the cash to buy it in white as well... 

Some limited vintage models let you down with slightly smaller than normal scales, and make you wonder whether the excessive price tag is worth it.  But this is one of my favorite Limited Vintage castings, and the only 1 that I've liked enough to buy in multiple colors.  (Note that my favorite Limited Vintage is probably the Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero). 

2nd place:  Cattle Transporter.  This is part of the extended length series - and is definitely my favorite model in that series.  The longer size allows it be (slightly) more accurately scaled, though it still claims to be 1:90 scale.  The truck comes with 8 cows (4 black, 4 white) and an opening ramp door in the back. 

1st place:  Aston Martin DB5.  This model is again part of the premium series (2x the normal Tomica price), and is 1 of the nicest models in that series.  Taking it out of the box I was stunned at how beautiful it looks.  At how metallic it looks.  At the incredible detail of the grill.  The solid opening doors.  etc.  It was a no-brainer to pick this car as the best car of the 12. 

Writer's note:  It's interesting that this set of12 cars includes my first 2  Tomica Aston Martins, both of which are amazing models.   As a real life Aston owner, I'm proud that the Tomica Astons are such faithful and beautiful models. 

Mitsubishi Montero (Pajero) - is the Fast Lane Montero a good Montero - and can it compete with a Tomica?

I recently vacationed in Costa Rica.

Vacations always cause me to evaluate and regard and see ordinary cars differently.  For instance, Beijing China was filled with beautiful Volkswagons, with black early '00s Passats functioning as limousines, and mid '80s generation Passats functioning as funky-cool police cars.  It made me want to have one of my own - which was odd - since I ACTUALLY have a blacked-out early '00s Passat...  But somehow, the Chinese Passats in Beijing just looked cooler than my suburban commuter Passat... 

In Costa Rica, the car that really caught my eye was the Mitsubishi Montero.  These cool looking rugged 4X4s were the high class limousines of Costa Rica.  Never mind that in Chicago these are 150,000 mile $4K used car specials, in Costa Rica they were GOLD.  Never mind that I have a nice '09 Mercedes Benz GL500, I NEEDED to have a Montero.  So guess what I started searching Craigslist for...?

 ...and of course, this got me thinking about Matchbox cars, and whether I had a nice Montero...  ...which I in fact
do - a "Fast Lane" (drugstore brand) Montero in teal...


I normally have no respect or patience for Fast Lane cars, but this one looked nice, and was a casting of a seldomly modeled car.    

There is a lot to pick at about the casting...  The cheap wheels, the overly shiny plastic for the grill, the plasticky roof rack, the plastic baseplate without even a word on it, the teal color, the odd graphics, etc.  A lot of collectors wouldn't even give it a 2nd glance...

But on the other hand, there is a lot to LIKE about the casting...  Its nicely sized - REALLY nicely sized, big in the same way that a real Montero is big.  It's nicely detailed - a pretty reasonable model in its own right.  It looks cool dressed up with the pusher bar and the roof rack.  And of course, its a Montero when I have very few other Monteros...  This is a cool model - even though its from a cheapo-manufacturer!  Overall, a nice and valued part of collection! 


But how does it compare with other Monteros?  My other Monteros are Tomicas, which given the high quality quotient inherent in most Tomicas, is bound to make the comparison a little difficult for this Fast Lane... 

I have 4 Tomicas badged as Pajeros (Monteros), though 1 is a Pajero junior and 2 more are short 2 door vs. full 4 doors.  Only 1 is a real full size 4 door Montero/Pajero, in silver with a green stripe along the side.  It has opening doors, and large wheels (that I'm actually not very crazy about).  But overall, it is a very nice casting, correctly sized, with great detail.  If you don't have it, you should get it.  There is no doubt that its nicer than the Fast Lane, in almost every regard.  (But that doesn't mean that I don't like the Fast Lane casting...).   So no, the Fast Lane Montero CAN'T compete with the Tomica Montero - though both are highly regarded castings in my eyes!

 The other shorter Monteros are also nice pieces.  I have 2 that are non-Pajero-Juniors, one in silver and one in green with a light on the roof.  I don't like the wheels, but I love the classic Montero big front ends...  But I can't help wishing they were full 4 doors vs. 2 doors. 

The Pajero junior is a police truck, though I think I have another (older) Pajero junior casting in green that I wasn't able to find for the photo shoot. 

I like all of the Montero castings.  The 4 door Tomica is easily my favorite, but the Fast Lane is still a nice casting... 

How to store a Matchbox car collection... (or maybe, lessons on visualizing how big sixty-five hundred is...!).

If you're a toy collector, chances are you struggle with questions like:  "How much is too much", or "I like so many types of cars, how do I decide where to set my boundaries" or most especially, "if a Matchbox car is so small, how does a collection of them manage to take up SO much space!!!". 

20 years ago, pre-kids, and having only (a paltry!) 2000 cars, I had the luxury of having an entire room devoted to my hobby...  but those days are long gone.  Now my collection lives mostly in an attic closet, under the eaves of the roof, with a few more boxes scattered throughout the basement and in other closets.  When I want to find a certain car for this blog, I start pulling out case, after case, after case, after case...   Pretty soon my room looks like these photos (or in many cases, much worse!).  And pretty soon after that, my wife gets upset about what a mess it is, or about how much "clutter" I have, and I try to cram it all back into a closet and pretend to be a normal 42 year old again... 

These photos give a glimpse of what part of a roughly 6,500 piece Matchbox car collection looks like... 

I'm convinced that I learned basic math skills from a Matchbox case.  They almost always had 12 car trays.  Most cases either held 2 trays (a 24 car case) or 4 trays (a 48 car case).  Later, when the see-through Plano "Jammers" came out, they also held 48 cars, preserving the case logic.  When Matchbox sold the red "Matchbox Across America" 50 state cases (top of the big pile in the foreground above), they advertised it as holding 50 vehicles.  In my mind they were cheating, assuming you could double up some motorcycles and other small cars.  In reality, the cases had 4*12=48 slots...

Occasionally you saw a 72 or a 36 or a 12 car case, but they were rare.  Rarer still were the real oddballs - the 40 car cases, or the steering wheel shaped 20 car cases.   So most cases held some multiple of 12 cars.  Even now, when multiplying 12 times 6, I think about the trifold 72 car cases (spread out on the right side of the floor in the photo) and get to my answer. 

The 24 for small/48 for large numeric consistency also makes it easy to estimate collection sizes when your collection moves from monstrous to overwhelming...  Just round up by 1 or 2, and count by 25s and 50s...   By that logic, the biggest stack of cases in the center rear of the above photo has roughly 550 cars in it.  The slightly smaller stack to its left has roughly 400 cars in it, as does the tall stack in the foreground.  The smaller stack to the right (again center foreground) has only 200 cars.  The assorted cases scattered around the remainder of the floor and table have another 950 cars in them, for a total of roughly 2500 cars. 

Now that those 2500 cars were out of the closet, I could actually crawl into the closet, taking the below photo...:  


There are 30 Jammers style cases there (a few are hidden by other cases or out of range of the camera angle, holding roughly 1500 cars.  The various cardboard boxes shown hold probably another 300 cars.  Then there are 13 smaller Rubbermaid containers, each with about 100 cars individually wrapped up, for about another 1300 cars.   A few more smaller containers in the closet add on another 100 or so cars, for a total of about 3200 additional cars. 

In other places in my basement and closets I've got a few larger Rubbermaid containers of unopened MIP cars, (maybe 300?), plus another several boxes of cars (500?) that I plan to sell someday - junky cars, cars I don't like, duplicate cars, etc.   These add maybe another 800 to my estimation, for a total of at least 6,500.  I work with numbers and statistics for a living, I don't think I'm estimating overly high.  If anything, I'm probably low.  I'm sure that if I really thought about it, I'd remember a few other places that I've stashed cars... 

6,500+ cars?!?  Yikes...  Please don't sign me up to be a candidate for the TV show "Hoarders"! 

On the other hand, if the 10 year old version of me could see this collection, I would be very, Very, VERY happy with myself...! 

 

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...

Top 30 Vintage Yatmings of All Time (or at least - of my Yatming Collection...!).

Yatmings...

To many collectors, the Yatming name conjures up images of cheap drug-store cars, plasticky, with low levels of detail and garish tampos, the Maisto of the 1980s.  They are the filler cars in cases of cars that you purchase, the cars to discard that fill the difference between the 15 Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars vs. the 24 total cars that are actually in the case.

Or perhaps, if you are a discerning collector, the Yatming name represents an intriguing opportunity to get uncommon castings, of uncommonly-modeled cars, with metal bases, opening doors and Tomica-esque levels of quality...

So what's the real story?

Brands are powerful in that they represent a certain quality and price point...   Nike, Hyatt, etc.  When you buy a "Mercedes Benz", you have an idea of what type of quality, reliability, luxury and status that you will have.  And when you sell a shirt on EBay, saying that it is a Tommy Bahama brings an entirely different cache to the sale vs. only saying "size large button-up shirt in a tropical print"...

The same is true in the die-cast world...  Matchbox and Hot Wheels are the brands that dominate, the brands that everybody knows, even those people who know nothing about die-cast.  And along with that name, there is an expectation of the type of quality, detail and heft that you'll get.  There literally are people who believe that if a car is not a Matchbox or a Hot Wheels, it isn't worth collecting...  (and they are VERY wrong!). 

After those 2 major 1st tier brands, I define 2nd tier brands, that have equivalent or better quality than Matchbox and Hot Wheels but don't have quite the same name recognition.  In order to be 2nd tier, I require that the brands have been around for several decades, that they have a numbering sequence of their models, that they print their name and the car's name on the baseplate, etc.  That criteria yields 4 brands:  Tomica from Japan, Majorette from France, Siku from Germany, and Corgi Juniors from England.  These brands all have been around for at least 30 years. In fact, all four brands were around when I was a kid in the '70s and '80s, and all brands (aside from Corgi Juniors) are still around today.  The vintage models from these brands represent tremendous finds for collectors, due both to the wonderful quality of the models coupled with the relative scarcity of those models.  The biggest difference between models of these brands vs. those of Matchbox/Hot Wheels is simply the name recognition (the fact that non-collectors don't know about them) and the unique castings offered...

After the 2nd tier long-term quality brands, you have the 3rd tier brands.  These are brands that again offer high levels of quality, but who just haven't been around long enough to have the cache of a Tomica or Siku.  Brands like Impy, Johnny Lightning (who started in the '60s, died in the '70s, and was re-born in the '90s), Green Light, Racing Champions, etc. make it into this tier.

And after this, you get into the bottom tier brands.  Brands that are sold in drug stores.  Brands that were poorly detailed - so much so that some cars are unrecognizable as a real car (sedan, coupe, pick-up truck rather than Impala, Monza, F-150).  Brands that were plastic in a time when the competition was metal.  Etc.  In today's world, Maisto and Fast-Lane are the poster-children for bottom tier brands.  30 years ago, those brands were Tootsie-toy, Midge-toy, Ertl, Zylmex, Fast-111s, Playart, Kidco, and, you guessed it, Yatming.

Except of course that these brands were not universally bad.  Some of these brands offered suprisingly detailed and accurate models, but the fact that they were interspersed with other poor-quality models dragged the entire brand down into the 4th tier.

Of these brands, I like Zylmex and Kidco.  I really like PlayArt.  And I love Yatming...  You just have to be willing to sift through the junky stuff in hopes of finding the high quality treasures.  For Yatming, it is the earlier castings that are higher quality, with metal bases, opening doors, and fine detail, while the newer castings often suffered a dramatic decrease in quality and detail (however still occasionally feature models not modeled by any other toy maker).

The nice castings are great, while the worst are deplorable.  In the odd case of the Mercedes 450 SEL, Yatming inexplicably has two completely different castings of the same model - one that is nice, one that is less nice.  In the case of the Fox Body Ford Mustang, they have a great casting, and a less nice casting which is simply a less-detailed version of the great casting... 

So which of these Yatming castings are the nicest?  I started off planning to feature the top 10 castings.  But I had a tough time limiting it to just 10, finding more and more castings that deserved to be featured.  My top 10 turned into a top 15, then a top 20, a 25 and now the top 30 (and even so I cheated a bit - including additional castings in some of my comments and photos).  Most of the castings chosen are from the earlier era, with metal bases and opening doors.  But I also included a few later plastic-based castings when the casting was either well done or very unusual...

With that, here we go - the top 30 Yatmings of all time (or more accurately - from my collection):

#30:  No. 1085 - Pontiac Firebird (mid 80s);  Metal Base, opening doors.  Pretty OK casting, but in 30th position since its been modeled many times by many toy companies.  If it didn't have the opening doors it wouldn't have made it into the top 30... 

#29:  No. 1084 - Chevrolet Corvette (mid 80s);  Metal Base, opening doors, nice size.  I actually like this casting a lot, but again a very, very, commonly modeled model.  This one feels somewhat similar to the Corgi/Hot Wheels version (Corgi made it, then sold the molds to Hot Wheels) but with opening doors.  I was torn about whether to rank it closer to 20 than 30, but it ended up in 29th place...  

#28:  No. 1065 - Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (early '70s);  Metal Base, opening doors, I have it in 2 colors - white and gray.  Interestingly, the blue car in the photo is a casting of a later-model C3 Corvette - and an entirely different (and slightly smaller) casting with a metal base and opening doors - which would have been in thirty-first position... 
 

#27:  No. 1602 (and 1608 in the roofed / opening hood edition) - Jeep CJ-7;  Metal Base, opening hood (only on the roofed edition).  Somehow a Jeep like this again feels like a common casting, and I don't like the cheapy-feeling wheels.  But still, a nice full metal casting.   For some reason that I can't quite figure out, I prefer the open roof 1602 version over the closed roof 1608 version, even though I lose the opening hood...

#26:  No. 1015 - Ford Wagon;  Metal Base, but no opening parts.  Why did Matchbox, PlayArt AND Yatming all have to model the same Ford/Mercury wagon?  Couldn't anyone have done a Pontiac or a Plymouth wagon...? 

This ones' not anywhere as nice as the Lesney Matchbox Mercury Commuter, and is a little smaller, but I think its nicer than the similar PlayArt car.  The police version is much nicer than the plastic-based blue version (same No.) in the background - which lost massive amounts of detail and whose grill is no longer even the same shape as the metal-based version...

#25:  No. 1029 - BMW 320i;  This is one of a few plastic based castings that made it into the top 30, mostly because of their being uncommon castings.  It's hard to find an early 3-series like this, although it is in no competition whatsoever by Matchbox' MUCH nicer 320i cabriolet.  But it still looks nice and so makes it into the top 30... 

#24:  No. 1017 - BMW 2800;  Another plastic-based casting - with questionable detail - but the ONLY example I know of a BMW 2800...  My example has a broken axle holder so the back drags - this is a very common problem with Yatmings. 

#23:  No. 1018 - Opel Admiral;  Another plastic-based casting - again with questionable detail - but the ONLY example I know of an Opel Admiral - and one of the very few castings ever of Opel sedans...  Again - no competition whatsoever for Matchbox' superb superfast Opel Diplomat.  The detail is only so-so, and my example is very beat-up...   But good enough for 23rd place!   

(I'm kind of wish that I'd given positions 23 - 25 to the nicer quality but more commonly modeled cars in positions 27-30...  If you value unique castings you'll agree with my current placement - if you value quality and detail - you may disagree...). 

#22:  No. 1077 - Camaro Z-28;  Metal base, opening doors.  The stripe tampos aren't great - but otherwise a very nice example of a commonly-modeled casting.  Nicer than the ubiquitous Hot Wheels version.  If you are into quality castings (which I am) - or 1970's Camaros (which I'm not) then you need this casting...

#21:  No. 1008 - Ford Thunderbird - mid - 70s;  By most accounts this one SHOULD have been in the top 10...  A metal-based model of an unusually (never?) modeled car... 

However when I was ranking the models, this one just didn't make it on the "gotta-have-it" scale.  There are no opening doors, and the car, while reasonable size, just isn't quite big enough to be in true scale (the real Thunderbird is enormous).  Also the brown paint is kind of ugly.  In short, it sounds great, but it is let down a bit in its execution.  So it doesn't even break the top 20... 

#20:  No. 1078 - C2 Chevrolet Corvette - mid - 60s;  The nicest of Yatming's Vettes, again with metal base and opening doors.  Roughly equivalent to the mid '80s Hot Wheels casting (which didn't have opening doors - although in one version had an adjustable height rear axle). 

#19:  No. 1005 - Toyota GT 2000;  Another plastic non-opening door car - but a very rarely done model (at least in vintage times - it WAS made later in the '90s and '2000s).  The detailed metal-work on it looks great - enough to catapult it into the top 20... 

#18:  No. 1064 - Chevrolet Blazer;  In case you haven't noticed from my postings, I like full-size SUV models...  And this is a great one (though my particular model is again rocking a broken front axle).  Not quite as nice as Hot Wheels mid-80s Bronco, but nicer than Matchbox' police car off-road Blazer, made even nicer with opening doors and a metal base... 

#17:  No. 1700 - Chevrolet LUV pick-up;  I've never seen anyone do a Chevy LUV pickup - a car I remember well from my childhood.  This is another example of why Yatming fills such a void for collectors.  This casting has a plastic base and no opening doors - but its available in at least 3 colors - with further minor tampo variations. 

 #16:  No. ? (no number on the baseplate) - Chevrolet Stepside pick-up;  This casting is a too small for a full-size pick-up (similar to other 1980's 4th tier makers of full-size pick-ups).  So how did it beat the LUV...?  Simply put, the metal base helps a lot.  Plus, although its hard to see in this photo, it has a working tailgate, a VERY unusual feature in any diecast - let alone a non-premium casting (I think I've only seen working tailgates in Racing Champions pick-ups from 10-15 years ago). 

#15:  No. 1302 - Ferrari Grand Prix car, also No. 1303 March Grand Prix and No. 408 Lotus John Player Special Grand Prix cars (The nomenclature on the baseplate is different for the Lotus, so 408 may not be the actual model number); 

 

OK - I know this is cheating - to have 3 different castings included in 1 position - but I couldn't really choose between them - and I didn't want to list them 3 times.  I have other later Yatming Grand Prix cars that just look plasticky.  But these three?  Metal base and lots of detail get them into the top 15! 

#14:  No. 1078 - Jaguar XJS;  Opening doors and metal base, a bit small to my eyes which might have kept it from the top 10.  A fairly frequently modeled car, more like the long and thin proportions of Hot Wheels mid '80s Jaguar XJS vs. the fat and squat proportions of Corgi's XJS.  This particular example again has a broken rear axle...

 #13:  No. 1016 - Porsche (911 or 912) Targa;  The highest ranked of the plastic base cars.  Given how commonly 911s are modeled, I'm not sure quite how it got to 13th place vs. the LUV and other models....  But its got a pretty nice "gotta-have-it" factor which got it to 13th place.



#12:  No. 1057 - Plymouth Duster;  a great car, never modeled (particular these nasty mid '70s versions (unappealing full-size cars can be very appealing 1:64 cars!)), with opening doors and a metal base...   ...and some ugly stickers.   Includes custom side exit exhausts. 


 #11:  No. 1062 - Datsun 280Z;  .and now we start to get into the SERIOUSLY nice castings...  at first glance this one looks like a Tomica (though in fairness, the actual Tomica 280Z is just a bit more svelte and petite - where this one is a little chunky and high).  Metal base, opening doors, nice detail, etc. all make this a must have for your collection.  Available in at least the 2 colors shown! 

THE TOP 10!!!

#10:  No. 1055 - Toyota Crown;  another Tomica contender (in part since no one else models Japanese market sedans like the Crown...).  This one has the quality you'd expect from Tomica - but in a casting you won't find from them...  I just wish my example was in nicer condition!

#9:  No. 1060 - Pontiac (Firebird) Trans-Am;  This one SHOULDN'T have made it into the top 10... How can a car that was modeled AGAIN and AGAIN by just about every toy company on the planet - make it into the top 10 in a list where unusuality of casting is a major criteria...?  I guess by just doing the very common casting very, very well...  Available in at least 3 colors with excellent trim and metal work - and chrome metal headlights from the baseplate....  Not quite as nice as the super nice Tomica firebird (perhaps the best '70s Firebird ever modeled) - but plenty nice in its own right!  I actually prefer this car over my mint condition Johnny Lightning's from about 5-10 years ago. 

#8:  No. 1087 - Mercedes Benz SLC;  A hard to find model of a favorite 1:1 scale car (remember Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse...?).  Nice feel and nice heft.  The picture doesn't do it justice. 

The Matchbox 500SEC is one of my favorite Matchbox models of all time.  While this Yatming isn't THAT nice (and is a little smaller) - it is still a nice one to have in your collection...

#7:  No. 1067- Ford Mustang Turbo Cobra;  Like the Firebird, this one is of a more commonly modeled car, so you wouldn't think it'd make it into the top 10...  But in the metal, it just feels nice.  This is a quality piece... 

Focus on the beige one.  The white one (No. 1028) is a plastic based casting with doors cast shut.  While the cheaper casting is obviously based on the nicer one - it loses the hood scoop and gains the rear wing.  Avoid it and go for the quality beige version - you won't regret it! 

#6:  No.1053 - Cadillac Fleetwood Broughham;  This one is actually one of the most common of the nice Yatming models - its pretty easy to find on EBay.  I have 3 of them - all in the same wine/burgundy color.  But full size Cadillac castings are hard to come by in general  - and this one is a beauty - with wonderful heft.  And its even got a nice size from a scale perspective - not quite as large as I'd like it to be - but still definitely a big car relative to other Yatmings...  If you don't have it, you need it! 

THE TOP 5!

#5:  No. 1061 - Mercedes 450 SEL;  This model was featured in my 450 SEL comparison a few months back, and while it didn't win it, it still gave a good effort.  In that article I commented on how it tried to out-Tomica the Tomica model.  This one might actually be better than the ubiquitous Matchbox version...  450SELs are a pretty commonly modeled car (Majorette, Tomica, Zylmex, Matchbox, etc.), which is the only thing that keeps this casting from even better than a 5th place finish. 

Note to collectors - Yatming actually made 2 versions of the 450 SEL.  This is by far the nicer (and larger) version, though the other one (No. 1012) also can have a metal base and opening doors.  You want 1061, not 1012....).
  



#4:  No. 1088 - BMW 6 Series;  As a kid, the 635i/M6 models were one of my dream cars, but for some reason they were seldom modeled by toy companies.  I've got a Siku version that is too large (typical of Siku models), and of course I have the earlier (and unfortunately over-scaled Matchbox 3.0 CSI), but I think that this Yatming is the only correctly scaled version of the '80s 6 series. 

Plus, its just a nice model in its own right.  Metal base, opening doors, nice detail, nice grill, good trim, etc.  The puke-orange color is a bit unfortunate, as are the random tampos (note that the 2 I show in this photo have different tampos).  Overall, an excellent model - that got to 4th place...   The top finishing model of a European car. 




#3:  No. ? - Nissan Silvia (200SX for those of us in the USA);  The baseplate didn't have a number - I don't know why.  I think this one is super rare - I've never seen it anywhere other than my collection.  If not for the poor Yatming wheels this car would easily be mistaken for a vintage Tomica. 

My friend Kevin Gounaud's Mom Karen drove one of these when I was in middle school, though hers was more of a wine//burgundy color vs. red.  But even though 200SXs were common sights on the roads in the '80s, I'm not aware that it was modeled by anyone other than Yatming and Tomica - and the fastback Yatming is NICER than the notchback plastic base-plate Tomica model.  Yes, I just said that a Yatming is a nicer model than a Tomica!

It was a little hard to place this car.  Its a great casting, so definitely deserved to be in the top 10.  I originally had it in 5th or 6th place before moving it to 3rd on account of how unique the casting is...

#2:  No. 1075 - Ford Galaxy;  ...And now for something completely different....  

This model is perplexing.  It is like nothing else Yatming has done (except for maybe a yellow Malibu that I've seen on EBay?).  It was a throw-back model of an American muscle car - and thankfully an unusually modeled muscle car.  And of course it has a metal base, opening doors and nice trim work...

This one is somewhat available on EBay - I've seen it multiple times - so you should be able to get your hands on one.  And oddly, both of my examples, and almost every EBay one, are in mint condition.  Therefore I'm not sure that this is AS vintage of a vintage Yatming as the other ones on this list.  But if its not, how do I explain the quality, the number, the metal base, etc.?  There is probably a story that I'm not aware of.  But regardless, a very nice piece.  The 2nd best Yatming in my collection...

NUMBER 1 - THE BEST YATMING CASTING EVER...

#1:  No. 1054 - Plymouth Fury;  Wow - did I really just pick a pea-green model of a 1970's America car that was awful, fat, slow, ponderous and gas-guzzling (that just happened to be driven by my great-grandparents Corey and Ruth Bubar...) as the best Yatming of all time?!? 

You bet I did!  If the Crown was like a domestic market Tomica, then this one is practically a Tomica F-Series with a Yatming name on the bottom.  A bit nicer than the Furys (all police cars and taxis) modeled by other toy companies (including Tomica) (note that the Matchbox Fury police car was a generation newer than this one - so is a different model altogether).  Nice size/scale (though I'd still prefer it to be a touch larger), nice heft, nice features, nice trim and detail, etc.  Buy it if you can find it - the best Yatming of all time!  

I hope you enjoyed the read - this article was a lot of work to put together!  I'm sure that you'll disagree about which cars I included, and how I ranked them...   Heck, I disagree already with some of my choices!  Let me know your comments, or send me (johncliffordcarroll@gmail.com) photos of your favorite Yatmings that should've made it into the list...