10 Super Obscure Diecast Cars with Alex Winson

We’re back with another exciting episode of Diecast Breakdown, and this time, we’re diving deep into the world of rare and obscure diecast cars with our returning guest, Alex Winson, aka Alex the Hoarder! If you love discovering hidden gems in the 1/64 scale world, this episode is for you.
Alex brings out some of the most unique diecasts we’ve ever seen, including the Lotus Type 40, Vespa 400, Zender Fact 4, IAVA Berlinetta, DAF 33, Melkus 1000, Yugo, Oscar MT4, Renault Hino 4CV, and FSO Polonez—each with its own fascinating backstory. We talk about the history behind these models, the real-life cars they represent, and what makes them so special in the diecast world.
Follow Alex Here: https://www.instagram.com/alex_the_hoarder/
And here: https://www.youtube.com/@alex_the_hoarder
And also here: https://lamleygroup.com/author/diecast13/
Diecast Collector Magazine: http://pocketmags.com/us/diecast-collector-magazine
🔎 In this episode, we cover:
✅ The history and significance of these rare models
✅ Why some of these cars were chosen for diecast production
✅ How diecast brands decide which cars to replicate
✅ Hidden gems that collectors should keep an eye out for
If you're a diecast collector, automotive history buff, or just love discovering rare and quirky models, you won’t want to miss this one!
🎥 Watch now and join the conversation in the comments!
💬 Which of these models surprised you the most? Do you have a favorite rare diecast in your collection?

🏁🏎️Help us collect 25,000 cars for kids in need. Learn more at https://www.drivendreams.org/
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🌐Diecast Media Network is:
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🛠️ Chuck: https://www.chuckellis.com
#DiecastBreakdown #DiecastCars #DiecastCollecting #ObscureCars #RareDiecast #HotWheels #Matchbox #AlexTheHoarder #1to64 #DiecastCommunity

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I got my new Uh, it's just the new ones.
This is stop the new ones.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
There's the new patrons. We got a new guy, new guy,
David Adams. Thank you David. A lot of David's in
this linework. All right, let's see let's talk weird die cast.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
All right?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
In three two, you're watching Diecast Breakdown with Chuck Ellis,
David Johnson, and Mark mccontweeld. So sit back, scrap in

(00:52):
and hang on. The breakdown starts.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
No, hell, hey there, folks, Chuck your in. Welcome to
die Cast Breakdown. I'm so glad you're here, and I
am so glad we've got a returning guest, Alex Winson
aka Alex Lahorter, will be talking to us about some
really cool, really obscure die casts. But before we get
to that, I want to make sure I think our

(01:19):
executive executive executive level patrons, executive producer level patrons, that's
better that I'll make the show go. And if you
want to know how you can join their ranks, you
can visit diecast breakdown dot com. These are the people
that give us the most. There are people that give
us a little, there something that give a lot, and
there are some that gave all anyway. Yeah, we lost

(01:40):
a lot of good people in the die cast Wars
It's life, Yes, but these people we have not lost,
and in fact, hopefully we haven't lost them with this
kind of intro. But we will like to thank first
and sixty fourth Customs, Dane, Self Driven, Dreams Dot Org,
Jason Mister Big Blue, Mad Visions, Mike Spods and Customs.
You get one more bonus one Mic. I'm giving it
to you reviews through another lens twice. Diecast Thank you,

(02:03):
David and Video Geek Productions. Special shout out to our
new production assistant level patron David Adams, who has joined
us at a three dollars a month level. And again,
if you want to know how to join their ranks,
it diecast breakdown dot com. And we know that you
spend all your money on die casts and you probably
barely have enough to cover your rent at the end
of the month. But if you can't help us financially,

(02:25):
you can always just like subscribe and share the episode.
I'm going to ask for that at the beginning of
the episode, for a change instead of for the three
people that make it to the end, and see if
that makes a difference. I'm told it does. And speaking
of making the difference, the big difference maker on this team,
my friend, my colleague, your ear to the wall when

(02:46):
it comes to die cast news, Mister David Johns is
joining me as he often does, David, how are you today?

Speaker 4 (02:52):
That might be the most flattering introduction I've ever received.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
In mind, we'll just wait till next episode. I'll take
it up another notch. All right, well, David, we are
revisited by a true expert, someone who is actually a
published and professional author, blogger, die cast officionado, enthusiast, expert even,

(03:16):
and he's going to be telling us some really cool stuff.
You have seen his work on Lameley Group, You've seen
him on YouTube, You've seen him on Instagram, and now
you're seeing him on die Cast Collector Magazine. Alex wins
An aka Alex the Hoarder on Instagram and YouTube. Alex,
thank you again so much for being on the show
with us.

Speaker 5 (03:32):
Not a problem. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, we are excited. I love our guests from across
the pond. We get a really nice, unique perspective from y'all.
It feels like it feels like England. Is closer to
the die Cast action in a lot of ways. You've
got that nice thing of being like between the US
and Asia, where you've everything kind of comes together in Europe.
I feel like Europe's got the I mean, you got

(03:56):
the big you know, the big shops and the big shows,
and you know, a lot of die cast history, true
history comes from the UK area. So I appreciate you
sharing your expertise with us. So before we get to that,
let's let's talk a bit about what you've been up
to since the last time you were on, because, as
I mentioned earlier, you've got a new gig that you're

(04:17):
writing yet.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
Yeah, that's that's a bit of a real pinch yourself moment.
So after I went to majorret in April this year
for their Influencer event, I reached out to die Cast
Collector through a fellow Lamley writer of mine, Graham Heach,
and we I spoke to the Diecast Collector team and

(04:42):
you know, put forward an article covering the Influencer event,
and they seemed really interested. Managed to get it published
by some minor miracle, and by an even more impressive miracle.
I think they wanted a few more stories from me,
so lo and behold, I just carried on writing, so
I think I'm up to three or four now. So yeah,
I'm really enjoying that. I really enjoying it.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
That's awesome. And I'm realizing I'm the only person on
this interview that I think is not a published die
Cast author because heye, people, if you haven't you haven't noticed,
go over to cast Heads magazine. Check out that uh
hot article by the upstart young Cub reporter David Johns
over there. There you go. There, that's the word I

(05:26):
was looking for. That was fun.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
But hey, listen, I would we'd be remiss if we
didn't point out we do have one certified Customizer prize
winner on our panel today, choke.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
So don't don't overlook that Alex Gond have won some awards.
I don't know what Alex does in his free time. Actually,
I know exactly what Alex does in his free time.
That's the problem. Hey, yeah, okay, yeah, So, and I've
been in I've been in die Cast Heroes magazine. They've
they've published the things that I wrote about the cars
I customized.

Speaker 5 (05:57):
So so he goes that.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
But and I do have a die Cast media network
that I help run. But that's a whole other thing.
So anyway, we're not here to talk about us. We're
here to talk about Alex. Alex. You before we did
this show, we we had this idea. David had this idea,
I think, and it's a really interesting one because you know,
you can't you can't throw a rock in a die

(06:20):
cast collector's room without hitting an R thirty four dots
in five ten or VW beetle or a portion nine
to eleven. But there are some truly obscure cars, cars
that you might even scratch your head and go, who
green lit this? Why? Why is this? Here? Is it
because someone's mom had one? What? What's the deal?

Speaker 5 (06:40):
So I'm excayed about a cruiser? I've got to say.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Everybody's mom over here did not quite. I just found
out recently that PT cruisers are huge in Japan. Did
not realize that that's a that's a thing over there
that they think are shipping them over in droves? Now?

Speaker 4 (06:57):
Was it? When's the gift from you?

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Chuck?

Speaker 4 (06:59):
And I'm not going to off hog the spotlight here,
but that was my first cast?

Speaker 5 (07:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
I think so? Was that the rams one? Sorry?

Speaker 4 (07:07):
I let's look at I don't know. It's a beautiful
cabriolet version.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, yes, I did give you that one.
I definitely gave you the Kurt Warner PT Cruiser. That
was fun.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
We'll be back with more die Cast Breakdown after this
word from our sponsors. Legendary Hollywood concept artist and designer
Fireball Tim Lawrence has created three exclusive pieces of automotive
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Get these and other brilliant designs printed on mugs and

(07:38):
more at Fireball tim Garage dot rt today.

Speaker 6 (07:41):
Cast Heads Magazine is a digital publication dedicated to enhancing
the lives of connectors all across the world by providing
information on new models, reviews on brands and die cast
accessories like figures and dioramas, throwing light on customizers, photographers,
and people who contribute to making the die cast world
vide print. Subscribe to cast Heads for free and look

(08:03):
for collaborations with diecast Media Network, it cast, heeadsmagazine dot com.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
And no bed to diecast Breggal.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
There are some some bizarre die casts out there, and
we gave you the impossible task of limiting it to
just ten because We've realized that we talk a lot
about tiny cars, and if we make the list any longer,
this episode will be three hours long. So Alex, talk
a bit about your process when it came to picking
this first round of ten cards.

Speaker 5 (08:31):
Think at first there was there was no real process.
When David mentioned that it was a kind of immediately
the floodgates opened in my head and I could picture
probably about one hundred diecasts. There was a few that
stood out to me right away, and I went away
that evening and shotted a few down on a note
on my phone and thought, yeah, I'll go with those.

(08:53):
And then I was at work the next day thinking
over it in my head, and more and more and
more were coming. So I saw, rather than just keep
going over this, I'll stick with the original few that
I got, and go up in the attic, look for
a few boxes, you know, look for a few boxes
and look through a few cups, see what I can
find in the house and in this household. If you

(09:14):
throw a stone, you are gonna you'll hit an R
thirty four, you'll hit at nine to eleven. You might
hit a five ten, But you might hear something you know,
made in a Soviet factory in Belarus, or you might
hit something made in grease. There's always going to be something.
So luckily a few of them were to hand, so
I kind of just went for what was what was
easier to grab as well. That was another better process. Awesome.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Well, I have no idea what you've picked. I don't
know if David does either, but I'm loving that. I'm
going into this completely blind. So let's take it away
with vehicle number one.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
Even better. I know the list and I don't know
these coors, so we're in for a treat.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
I'm going to go with one that's seen that not
even sorry, not even in four. It's not even in
mid condition at the moment. I'm going to go with
that first. Now, this is in real life. It's a
car called an Iava Burlin Etter and they were made
by a company in Argentina called Iava, which are like

(10:17):
the I think that the Argentine equivalent of a Bath.
Really the Fiat Tunis. They licensed built Fiats, I think,
as well as making like knockdown performance kits that they
imported from Italy, stuck them on all the South American market.
Fiats Argentine cars et cetera. And I think at some
point in the nineteen seventies decided that they would try

(10:38):
and make their own sports car on the base of
a Fiat one two eight Now I think they enlarged
the engine a bit, gave it a fifth gear. They
built two of them, and they went into obscurity. No
one knows where they've ended up. I think why ended
up resurfacing recently somewhere in branas Addies, looking in a

(11:00):
very sorry condition. But somebody at the Galgo Toy Company
in Argentina saw that car and thought that would make
a great die cast, so they ran it in this
sort of rough one sixty four scale, ran it in
one forty three as well, and it was sold as

(11:22):
it wasn't actually marketed as an Iaba Burlin metric, was
marketed as a Landsher and a Ferrari. You can vaguely
see on this one there's a bit of an al
Italia colorway at the bottom there. Sure, And the reason
why this is in the condition it's in is because
it was ruined when I got it. So I've taken
it to pieces, stripped it down. It will get rebuilt

(11:43):
very slowly. But yeah, I two vehicles in real life.
But yet someone seized upon this and thought, yeah, I'll
go for that, and that casting I think lasted until
the late eighties early nineties. They even put the back
off it and put a little winch and a crane

(12:03):
in the back and used it as a tow truck.
In both scales as well, they had a rally like
pods like this version has, although there are versions without it.
But I think as obscure go as, that's got to
be one of the best. I've got to be honest,
that will resurface at some point. It will not always
look like.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
That cool IABA and the die cap.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
I wonder with stuff like that, is it just because
the licensing was really cheap for that vehicle, or it
was somebody I guess the real answer is probably that
somebody who was in charge of the company really liked
that car. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (12:34):
I think I could find some contemporary press reports of
the There's not much information about the real car, let
alone the die cast, And when I was putting together
a bit of I don't profess to know a lot
about cars, really, so I do a little bit of
research every now and then. I love, I love to
do research about them, so I was researching this just
before I bought it, and just before I came on

(12:55):
here as well earlier seen it, and there's not that
much about the real car itself, but there was a
few press reports, newspapers and stuff, so I can only
imagine that someone caught their eye they thought, yeah, brilliant,
we'll make that and license And I don't know if
it was, if it could even be an issue. It's
just a completely unique vehicle.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
So do you do you learn about that car first
or do you see a die cast and you're like,
I don't know that car. Let me let me get there,
how what's the story on that one?

Speaker 5 (13:27):
On this one particularly, I saw the die cast first.
I saw the die cast version of this car. I
think maybe last year or the year before. We've discussed
by our classics that on my last visit here on
the podcast. And through that kind of discovering them open
up a wormhole of going through all these South American
market cars, and I discovered Galgo and Boobie of Argentina

(13:51):
and a few of the Brazilian toy manufacturers, and just
scrolling roundomly on Google, I saw this car that it
was in quite funnly fully enough, al Italia is like this,
and I thought, that does not look like a Lancer
or a Ferrari. It looks a bit like one, but
it's not exactly what it is. And then I have
a friend in Argentina when I reached out to him
and said, have you any idea what this car really is?

(14:13):
Does it exist? And he said, yeah, it's an Iava,
it's a Berlinetta. There were two of them, and that
was about all he could tell me. So it sent
me down a rabbit hole again.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Love it awesome? All right? That and we're coming out
strong with number ten. What do we get from number nine?

Speaker 5 (14:26):
That's a good question I'm going to go for. I
think I've got them all next to me, so it's
just pitching.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Say in no particular order, by the way, folkus.

Speaker 5 (14:33):
Yeah, I think I'm going to go with this next.
So this is a Lotus type forty, although it doesn't
say that on the on the base, but I'll get
to that in a minute. This is a Lotus type
forty made by then West German company called Gamma. I
think Gamma. They're more famous for producing trucks and kind

(14:54):
of dealer specials. In one forty three scale, but they
had a line in the nineteen I think you'll late
sixties early seventies called the Manette line, and it was
the smaller one sixty three one sixty six scale cars.
There was a beatle, there was this I think I
think there was a Porch nine oh six. There was
a couple of others n Suro eighty. But this car,

(15:14):
it's strange to me that it exists as a die
car because it wasn't even a very successful race car.
Not many people know about it. The Type thirty was
the predecessor of this car, basically Lotus. In a bid
to kind of be very very successful a sports car racing,
they took a quite a weak chassis. It wouldn't it

(15:37):
wasn't weak in the land when it had a very
tiny engine in it, but they took a big American
Ford engine, stuck it in the back, was stuck well
verse the chassis, stuck a big American Ford engine in
the back, and tried taking the sports car racing, and
it wasn't very successful, blighted by structural failures, reliability issues,
all sorts of things. So when they brought out the
Type forty, which is what this car is, supposed to be.

(16:01):
They thought, Okay, we'll put an even bigger engine in it,
make the wheels a little bit bigger than the discs,
maybe some improvements. But they gave it to Richie Ginther,
the American racing driver. I think it was him that
said that. He was asked what he thought about the
Type forty and he said, it's just the same as
the thirty, but with ten more mistakes. It was not

(16:22):
even a very successful race car at all. It didn't
do very well. But yet somebody at Gamma in West
Germany decided to, you know, replicate it. But what they've
done on the bottom it says it's a Ford g
T forty. Now I have no idea why. I don't
know if it was a misidentification. I know that they

(16:42):
used Ford engines. I think maybe the same engine that
the GT forty used. But yeah, it's a misidentified losis
and I could never get to the bottom of why
that thing existed really, but it's one of my favorite
diecasts of all time. I wrote a lamelet article about
it a couple of years ago. And yeah, researching that

(17:03):
car and the disastrous sort of Type thirty before it,
and how much the drivers disliked it, and yeah, it
was a real. It was really interesting for me, really
interesting gamma g A M M A or g A
m A g A m A gamma. Yeah, and that's
from the Midnettes line. They also have just It's just

(17:23):
come to me now, a Matra Matra Alamonca, one of
the close top V twelve cars, which I also covered
on lamally. But yeah, that was a real. That's a
really unique thing. It's a disastrous race car, but yet
someone decided yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
Yeah, got I have it. That's two brands that I've
never heard of, and I'd like to think that, you know,
I dabble in more brands than most.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
So don't touch the dial. Die Cast Breakdown will be
right back after these messages. Die Cast Breakdown is produced
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Speaker 1 (17:59):
Or Gone new Tube.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Check out their channels in the video description and subscribe
for more epic die cast content.

Speaker 5 (18:06):
Hey, this is Larry Wood.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
This is Derek from Honest Deck. Here it is a
Chattering from Brown two, And this is Mike from gas Lands,
s R T JO Vita Shows is Champion dj K.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
You're watching die Cast Breakdown.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
And now the thrilling conclusion of this week's episode of
die Cast Breakdown.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
I'm loving the episode. Keep on trucking man, all right
on to the next one.

Speaker 5 (18:34):
We'll do this tiny, tiny, tiny thing. You might get it,
you might be you might even be able to see
that now, Homer sentence.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Car, Yeah, I don't. I'm gonna say, let's say Columbo's car.

Speaker 5 (18:47):
I don't know a great deal about the company that
made this car, the Diecast company. I think it was
a company called Midget Cars out of France, and it's
a French made Vesper four hundred microcar, with the same
Vesper that made the scooters. They also produced a two

(19:09):
stroke car, a microcar that was built in France, not Italy,
probably more successful in France than it was in Italy.
And this car I completely found, completely by accident on eBay.
I bought it thinking it's going to be tiny, sort
of one eight seventh scale thing, and when I actually
measured it very roughly, it turns out that it's probably

(19:32):
very close, if not bang on one six four, perhaps
one sixty six. But it's a very crude little thing,
but probably one of the most unique things that is
in my collection. It's quite weighty, solid metal. It's even
got a roll top roof a little basic tick interior. Yeah,
but it's tiny little wheels and it just about manages

(19:52):
to roll, just about manages.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
That remind you of some of the original match bark.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
Yeah, very much so. In the construction of it. Definitely,
it's probably a little bit more crude, I'd say the
based on it's a little bit more. There's no markings
on it. It's kind of just a pressed piece of
metal and it's very roughly kind of pinned onto the body.
But it's and it's very crude. You won't be able
to see the panel line details on it and stuff,
but it's it's really crude. But it does remind me

(20:22):
of the original, the very first match box. It's definitely
the wheels and just the construction of it. Paints very
thick on it as well. It's just a don't we
don't know who the maker of that win is, so
I think that was Midget Cars of France. I think
that's that's the only thing that I The original advert
said it was a midget cars toy, and I don't

(20:42):
know who they belonged to if they were a standalone company.
I've seen I think a Citron DS and a Jaguar
D type which were belong to that line or that
company somewhere on eBay, but I've never come across one
of their models when I've been at auctions or shows anything.
That's the first, first, best before that I've seen in

(21:03):
this scale, definitely.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
But yeah, I didn't even know best my me and
micro cards. But that's a really interesting find there, and again,
you know, not even being able to be sure what
the the maker is so cool. All right, well, let's
move on to the next one. What do we got?

Speaker 5 (21:20):
This might be a brand that a few of the
listeners might be familiar with, the toy brand anyway, This
is from play Art. This is a Daft thirty three
made by play Art, and I think it's probably the
only Daft that exists in that scale. I suppose it
wouldn't be too obscure for European collectors when it was

(21:42):
on sale, because Daft thirty threes are quite a popular
car on the continent. And but but it's it's I
think Playout were from Hong Kong, so it does it
strikes me as being again kind of a who signed
off on. It was why was it something that they
decided they decided to replicate and die cast, But I'm
glad they did it. It's a I think it's quite
a rare playoff. The prices on them are quite high

(22:04):
on the second hand market. It seems to be something
that's quite sought after. And I managed to find this,
I think again on eBay at some point. It's rough,
it's ready, there's not much pain left on it, but
it's a fantastic thing. And you know, the Daft thirty
three itself an interesting car real life. So yeah, it's

(22:25):
a very interesting die custom. That very interesting.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, the now I think we had Christian Brown from
hobby dB was on and I believe great me if
I'm wrong to you, but this was a while ago.
He said that play art was almost entirely copycat stuff too.

Speaker 5 (22:42):
I might be wrong on that.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
I do remember that, but I can't I can't.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
I can't remember the exact wording of it. But he
said that a lot of the play art stuff was
rip offs of other of other die Cast companies. So
that's very interesting that if that was an original to
them casting that they would pick that too, because I
imagine that if that existed anywhere else from a larger brand,
we'd know about it. Alex would know about it anyway.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
Alex educate some of US Americans me first and foremost,
what does the actual make? Where's that company or where's
that car from? Where did you guys grow up seeing
them in real life?

Speaker 5 (23:15):
This the daft itself is a daff for a Dutch
car company, or they were a Dutch car company. They
now make trucks. I think they had a heavily They
were heavily involved with Volvo at some point in the
seventies as well, because these cars pioneered it was a
really early form of CBT transmission, used a lot of
rubber bands, and it gave it quite a unique characteristic,

(23:39):
which was that it could go as fast in reverse
as it could going forward. So these things could hit
seventy miles an hour in reverse. And there was I
think some kind of charity race in Holland in the
nineteen seventies and early egies where they would race these
things in reverse and it's it's there's some videos on YouTube.
I urge you to go and watch them. They make
me a bit motion sick, but they're there now. These cars.

(24:03):
I think in the in the seventies and sixties and
early eighties probably as well. You could probably still find
these everywhere on the continent. They were very popular in Holland, Belgium, France. Personally,
I haven't seen one yet, you see, it's a goal
of mine to see one of these things. Yeah, play
Arts themselves as well, the die Cast brand, I don't

(24:26):
think they were I think they'd gone by the time
I was growing up as a child in the nineties,
but they were something that I came into via group
on Facebook, and I think this was the first car
of theirs that I saw and I knew I needed it.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
Is they amp to Stain where they do the Red
Bull the crazy races where you build your.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Own or whatever.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, is that where that is?

Speaker 5 (24:48):
Oh yeah, I'm not too sure.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
If so, it seems like that's in their DNA to
have these wild forms of racing.

Speaker 5 (24:56):
Yeah, definitely those pretty oot are. Yeah, they're there. I
think the transmission of that, like I say, I think
that was something that Volvo took an interesting and I
think they signed a license building agreement at some point,
possibly transmission in return for designs. I know that there's
a very weird Volvo Daft hybrid post fan that the

(25:20):
Swedish Post used in the nineteen seventies that I've seen
a few times.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Rich choice, love it? What else we get?

Speaker 5 (25:25):
So the next one that I can grab, this one
again is an old European car, newer die cast. This
is a car called Melchus R S one thousand. Now
that is from a die cast brand called Grell, which
I think were it's a bit of a it's not
really accurate to describe Grell as a die cast brand.

(25:47):
I think they were made by high Speed. These Grell
were a marketing company in Germany and in the early
two thousands is part of a promotion with some breweries
which were in the former East Germany. They just to
replicate lots of former East German sports cars, saloon cars, motorcycles, lorries,
as well as a few Soviet stuff like Moskovic's and Vulgars.

(26:12):
And this is one of the cars they chose to produce,
which was I think probably East Germany's only real attempt
at a sports car. So in real life, these things
were based on a Artberg family car with a tiny
little three cyllind the two stroke engine. They used a
lot of bits from the Taban threw them together and

(26:35):
you know, work their magic. Malchus himself was an East
German racing driver. His sons still race in Germany. I
think they are a couple of them. I think maybe
he had two sons or but I know that a
Malchus name was on the nerbury In twenty four hour
entry list a few times, so they're still out there.

(26:56):
But yeah, they produced I think one hundred of these
in the far over the cart with the exact production
date sometime in the seventies. But yeah, they were for
a child growing up in East Germany. That would be
like the equivalent of seeing the Saturn vive rocket going
down the street. You couldn't buy these cars in real
life without special mission from the DDR authorities to use

(27:20):
it for a racing purposes only. And I think they
probably cost ten fifteen times what the average household would earn.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
An E.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
Bell grill did everybody a favor of putting out a
lot of those Soviet era East German Russian stuff? What
do you get when you look at that? I'm getting
a little lamberg eur front end on that.

Speaker 5 (27:44):
Yeah, it's a very The color doesn't do it any justice.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
This.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
This is the color that a lot of the Greil
cars come in because the breweries that they did deals with,
this was their colors, the green, and most of the
Grel cars come in a green color way because it
just ties with the brewery. But yeah, there's a lot
there's a bit of murror at the back. I don't
know why they've chose to replicate the back lights like that,
because in real life they have round had like rear lights.

(28:10):
But yeah, this is it's got a bit of a
a Lamborghini look to it. They're very diminutive cars in
real life, very Dominos.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Get a little bit of Ferrari Dino in there too,
you know.

Speaker 5 (28:23):
There's a lot of elements to it, a bit of
so maybe.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Yeah, especially on the
back deck is very sad. Yeah, the rear rear window.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
It's a gorky looking thing in real life, and it's
quite looking diye cast. Its appears to be quite flat
at the front and a bit oddly shaped. But there
are awesome things you can quite often find in these
days in Germany still hill climbs and classic rally. They
tune very easily those engines, surprising they know there were
two stroked tiny things. They can get well over sort

(28:55):
of one hundred break horse bar from one of those,
and they sound phenomenal, they really do.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
Sure well, I'm sure that some party member enjoyed, you know,
driving around with his mistress.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
The ultimate bribe tool. I feel yeah, you did, like
I said, you did have to apply for special use.
And I think you know, I did read somewhere that
the average weight time of those was was one and
a half years. But I think the average wait time
for an average East German family at the time traban, yeah,
for a Trabando or Varberg was maybe five years. So

(29:28):
I think that puts into perspective who was getting kind
of the preferential treatment there.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Sure sure, all right, fantastic, All right, what are we
go next?

Speaker 5 (29:39):
Right, I think we're into the box stuff. Now, this
is all the loose stuff that's gone. So the next
one I'm going to do is a car that a
lot of Americans will be familiar with, probably a Yugo.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yeah, absolutely, many jokes over here.

Speaker 5 (29:53):
And in the UK and in Europe and in their
home nation. I've got to say, but yeah, this is
a Yugo, and I've still got the card for this.
This is made by a Hungarian company called gm playing
metal Box, yeah, and I believe that they were responsible
for some Matchbox copies at some point in their in

(30:14):
their life. But the casting itself, it's based on a
Yugoslav casting made by a company called Aero Metal and
they were producing toys die casts up until the Yugoslav
War kicked in in the early nineties and that sort
of brutal implosion of the country. It led to most
of the factories that were usable they switched to you know,

(30:34):
arms production or military vehicle production and stuff. So I
think Arrow Metal sold the production like rights of the
and all the tooling to GMK, who were a Hungarian
company based in Budapest. Light bar on there, Yeah, this
is This would have been the original Aurometal car, would

(30:55):
have been the Militia the police militia car of the
light bar on it. I think Metal Box took all
the tooling everything with it and just decided to carry
on making them, but exactly the same stuff. The original
one still had the metal bases like the Arrow Metal cars.
This one just has a plastic base opening rere hatch

(31:15):
the light bar you can take off. But yeah, that's
a really unique car. I think it's a friend of
mine in Bosnia helped me get hold of this very hard.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
That's a fine chuck.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
You get any Hugos in your collection.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
I do not have a Yugo.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
I was just thinking about that. I feel like I
feel like somebody did a Ugo at some point, but
I might be thinking of the matchbox for five, the Hatch,
or the or the La car one that had the Yeah,
a lot of those the Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's Alex.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
The only you go in die cast.

Speaker 5 (31:49):
In that Yeah. I think I would be very confidently
saying it is. I mean this, like I said, the
arrow metal, the original version of this, and this this copy.
For want of a better word, they are the only
you go in that size. I think they did them
in different colors. There's black ones, silver ones, ones without

(32:10):
the light bar, but this one was supposed to be
the police person. Yeah, like I said, a friend of
mine in Bosnia it helped me get ahold of this
and it's in fantastic condition.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, that's the carriage to.

Speaker 5 (32:24):
The UK Postal Service. Cracked the blister on it a
little bit, but apart from that, it's it's meant it's
been on lamb with that as well.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
This thing cool, I love it all right, Well, else
we get.

Speaker 5 (32:40):
I will roll on to this, which is I'll take
it out of the package. And so that is an
Oscar an empty four. This is a die cast made
by a Japanese company called probably Butchering the pronunciation of
this here but Yao Modelini. They are a company that

(33:01):
are They're still around, they're still going, but they are
mainly one forty third scale residin stuff. If you want
a low volume resin concept car that only you know
that nobody even saw, they are the people to go to.
They do some really wacky left field concept vehicles aris

(33:23):
Lamborghini's few other things. But at some point, I think
early two thousands, they did a set of one sixty
fourth vehicles for Festa Mili Miglia in Japan, which is
the I think it's just to get together of all
the rich car owners in Japan. They bring out their
most cherished cars, some of them very expensive. The real

(33:47):
version of this car actually ended up in Japan. This
is a one off. It was built for terrace at Lamont.
It won the class there in the early sies and
then The car went to various collectors throughout Italy and Europe,
ended up in Japan in the late nineties, and when
Yo Modelini decided that they would make the set, this

(34:09):
is one of the cars they chose. There's an Alpha
Romeo in it, the Disco Bilante coupe. There's a Bentley
Blower Lotus eleven and this thing o to Bristol ac Bristol.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
That sounds like I said, I would really be interested in.
Have you checked as a scaling pretty much?

Speaker 5 (34:27):
I think this is yeah, yeah, it's it's spot on
one sixty four.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
What do we what do we know about an oscar
for US Americans? I don't know that.

Speaker 5 (34:36):
So that was I think the the MT in Oscar
MT four I think the empty stands for Maserati, so
they were pathed much of the Maserati family, the brothers
that founded that company, and the MT four I think
was the was the base model, I guess for one
of the better phrase and this is a vignal body
version that they took to Lamont. But the MT four

(34:58):
was a race car for I think used a one
and a half liter engine, very successful in Europe in
the fifties and sixties. Yeah, and I didn't know. I
think I covered this on Lamley a few years ago
that this until that that article that this vehicle in
real lives are one off, I didn't know that there
was there was there wasn't any more of them, that

(35:19):
this is the vehicle the one that the race that
lamon so in real life, that resides in Japan, comes
out for owners club meetings, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah,
they decided to replicate it. It's not exactly the most
accurate thing, but when you get these cars up close,
they're quite delicate, quite nicely replicated, and it's quite a

(35:39):
good looking die cast in my eyes.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
What do you think is that early two thousands when.

Speaker 5 (35:44):
We yeah, early two thousands, definitely. Yeah, there's still you
can still find them occasionally on eBay. Take a bit
of a troll to find. It's normally the Bentley that
comes up. Because the other sort of four vehicles in
the set were quite weird in wonder and people might
like me, they just lapped them up. They were sold
in I think in blind boxes, you know, like the

(36:06):
Cayosho cars and things like that, and then yeah, they
were sold like that. I think so but yeah, yeah,
model ladies still go and high end resin concept vehicles,
that's their thing. But that was a break from the north.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
This thing.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
Super cool man, all.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Right, love it. It actually reminds me a little bit
of the There was a car belt here in Florida
called the Cunningham that raced and I believe it raced
in Lemon and Hot Wheels has actually made a Cunningham,
which is crazy because now they built more than one
of them, but they did not build very many of them.
They were a car that was kind of a thing
right before Carol Shelby did the ac Cobra, as the

(36:45):
Cobra looked very similar to them, but they were built
just a few hours drive from where I'm sitting right
now in Florida. And I've actually gotten to see one
in real life in Chicago at a rare auto show
with the white and the blue, and I watched him
grape the tail papers he pulled out of the driveway.
I was like, oh, oh, that is a very rare

(37:07):
piece you just scraped on the ground.

Speaker 5 (37:10):
So anyway, that's a feeling that you get from head
to toe.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Oh yeah, something. I can still hear it in my
head it's a trauma response hairs on the back of neck.
Yeah exactly, alrighty, well do we get next?

Speaker 5 (37:24):
So I'll pop that back in its case and I
will go to the next one. So this one, this
is something I speak with this collection. Actually, me and
David have been talking about this quite often. This is
the a car from the legendary Japanese Cars collection that's
bring David Busher hatchet. I can't remember the name of
the publisher, so this is from their collection. This is

(37:44):
a Reno Heino for CV or TV.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
So.

Speaker 5 (37:50):
Post war, the Japanese car industry was non existent. For
one of the better phrase it was, it was crumbled.
They were slowly getting back to life. The manufacturers that
had been building aircraft and armaments and stuff for diverting
their attention back to automobiles, bicycles, things like that. They
needed money, they needed production expertise, they needed tooling, anything

(38:12):
they could get any help. So lots of Japanese auto
manufacturers were reaching out to European firms to try and
get licensed build production going. One of the companies that
he know reached out to was Reno and they borrowed
entirely the Force CV. The tooling of the Reno four

(38:32):
CV and brought it to Japan and it's sold very successfully.
It was I thinking was one of he Knows very
first automobiles. It looks identical to a four CV and
it is mechanically. But as time went on, more and
more of the parts started to be produced in house
and he Knows factories, and by the time these ended production,

(38:55):
they were quite unique compared to European market Force CV.
They had things that adapted to the Japanese market and
Japanese buyers. And I believe this casting maybe last time
I was on the podcast, I mentioned it where there
was a Spanish part work that was I think the
Augustini were going to produce as well, or Hatchet or
one of the other many brands out there. There was

(39:16):
a Spanish part work that was trialed in a few
towns and cities domestically in Spain a couple of years back,
and that promised a array of one sixty four scale
cars that had never been replicated before. Ford O'Ryan. I
think the first issue was the say a be to

(39:38):
Mark one, They say to Mark one opal Cadet Reno eleven.
Now those castings were made by IXO and have now
a few of them have reappeared there Opal Cadets now
BR Classics, a tarmac car. The magazine promised in future
issues that there would be a Escort XR three, which

(39:59):
now appears in BR Classics, and there was a Renol
four CV somewhere on that list as well. I'm sure
of it, and I think the tooling of that ended
up here rebadged, repurposed Japanese market Reno four CV. So
it's a pretty.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
I was really surprised to see that show up in
my batch set of ordered didn't expect to get a
Renault in my legendary Japanese cars. Before we move to
the what do we get two more Alex Yeah, I
think so, yeah, hang on, hang on because I want
to I want to call a time out. I want
to give I want to throw a quiz out. Now
that we've done a Japanese legendary Japanese car, I want

(40:38):
to see if anybody can recognize this beauty right here,
because this one just came in my most recent batch
of that series from De Agustini, and it's a wild one.
It's almost like a t MoU version of a Lotus
Europa this is a Japanese car. Yeah, it's a no, no, no, no,

(41:02):
you're you're on the right track.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
It's gonna say it's gotta be a dots and it is.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
It was. This was under the new name Sonsan Cherry Cherry. Yeah,
I'd never heard of this, Chuck, are you aware of
this car? I love the fender mirrors.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
I think I'm thinking of the Sonny and not the Cherry.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
And that legendary Japanese car series is really cool, guys,
one hundred cars and it's it's just for Americans. It
is stuff you've never ever seen, and that's that's why
I love it. And that was one of the things
Alex and I have been discussing recently. But enough of
my marketing ploy for that that series.

Speaker 5 (41:41):
No, it's it's I think it definitely needs talking about.
I mean, we talk often about the partworks thing and
the way that these castings seem to reappear and just circulate,
and I think it so do most, if not all,
of the manufacturing for the for these part works, and
it's amazing to see why they're resurfacing. You know, the
opal coulde started off in this really obscure part work

(42:03):
for trialed in maybe a handful of Spanish cities and towns,
and then it turns up as a tarmac and then
it turns up as a br classics and stuff. So yeah,
this is i think definitely part of that Spanish partwork
and I'd love to see if anything else come out
of the woodwork in future. They must have the three
D models of these things still lying around, and yeah,
very interesting.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
You know a lot of these guys come out of
Bengladesh and in I don't know enough about their GDP,
but that has to be one of their top three
experts in my opinion is they're wonderful, dicass course.

Speaker 5 (42:34):
Definitely we're on the last couple now. So the next
one I'm going to go for is something that I
think came from another part work, but it's it's not
EXO related. This is from Wellie and it is from
a part work that they current work where this disappeared.
But this is an fso Serena one oh five. It's

(42:57):
Polish car, Polish microcar, kind of like their early version
of a Trabant I suppose two stroke of course, very
simple in construction, I think, even like the prototypes were
even some of them had wooden elements in it. I
think that some of the prototypes had wooden elements in
the roof from the structure, but that is the the

(43:18):
die cast version. It's not the most perfect example I've seen.
It's a little bit too high, the headlights too small.
It kind of looks more Austin Ambassador, which is a
car very popular in India. Then it does an Fso Serena.
But once you look at it closely, it's quite clear

(43:38):
to see what it's supposed to be. But yeah, these
were I don't even think they were that popular in Poland.
They were well known. They went on for I think
a long production run. Well he chose to do. I
think this the fo Polonaise carro the newer version, and

(44:00):
the Polski one two five P and one two six P.
It was kind of like their Polish range of cars.
And I think I found this one quite possibly in
Poland a new stand up magazine. I can't remember whereabouts
this one was, but such a unique vehicle, one I
really didn't expect to see in this scale. It's definitely

(44:21):
not one sixty fourth. I've got to say, it's probably
as nearer to one fiftieth definitely very big casting about
the real thing, because the real things are tiny.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
You know.

Speaker 4 (44:32):
Well, welly is really good. I don't know their association
with that company called Auto Grand, but to do a
lot of the Lottas and a lot of the Uez,
the Russian cars, and not just the you know, the
more famous ones, but kind of those everyday daily driver
ones too. I've enjoyed a lot of their castings great joy.

Speaker 5 (44:56):
Yeah, I mean the Autogrand cars are something that I
didn sort of bringing on here. But I gave myself
a couple of criteria and one of them was that
it had to be something that probably no one would
have heard of, and quite a lot of car enthusiasts
have heard of Lader, not many more about Huas or

(45:16):
gazz But I thought, no, this would be more fitting
because it's it's just such a unique thing.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
A choice.

Speaker 5 (45:23):
Yep, Yeah, I'm proud I took it. Was it was
a good one to again it's been on Landlea. This
that one. I really enjoyed doing some research about that thing. Yeah,
great little thing and the whole Polish series of that.
I think. WELLI and Auto Round of the same same company,

(45:44):
same conglomerate. So there's a Polish series of the Russian series.
I don't know if there's any more, but yeah, there's
some great models to look at that, and I think
the next one I'm going to go for here the drum.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Roll penultimate or are we at the final?

Speaker 5 (45:57):
We are at the final? I think, boy, I think
I've got eleven cars here, but this is the tenth,
so I'm kind of cheating. This is twoing one, this
is hot Oils the end Fox Foul.

Speaker 4 (46:11):
Interesting, Yeah, Chuck, I was telling Alex before when I
saw that on a card in a KB toy store,
that was the future to me, Like that was a
glimpse into the future, and like that was a really
cool car. Now, they had some pretty crappy paint jobs,
as I recall, But what what are your memories of

(46:32):
the zenderfact?

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Actually, I always considered that a bad penny car for me.
That was just always kept turning up everywhere I'd go.
It was like that Christopher Cross album in thrift stores,
Like it was just always you always found on this
vinyl album with the flamingo and the rainbow on it,
and he was like, man, there it is again. But yeah,

(46:54):
and It's funny because for that, for me, that one
was I didn't like that one nearly as much as
I liked the The vector W eight was the one
that I always thought was the future.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
Hold it back up one more time, Alex, So did
you get lensed head lamps on that?

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Do I recall that? Yes?

Speaker 5 (47:15):
No, yeah, there are lens headlight Look at that.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
I'm telling you I've been down with lensed lamps since
I was twelve, so said.

Speaker 5 (47:23):
I have two of the colorways, these ones as well.
One of them still has a kmart price sticker on
it from wherever.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
How much was it?

Speaker 5 (47:33):
This one was eighty nine cents?

Speaker 4 (47:37):
That is that it is just stupid how hot hot
wheels have defied inflation to this day.

Speaker 5 (47:44):
And I decided to keep them carded just because of
I don't know. Back of this one, if you can
see that this is the hot wheel stuff that you
can send away for.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
I had that stopwatch. I actually send away the things
and had the stopwatch. And I'm sure I'm sure Mike
Zarnak would have loved to have gone back in time
and stolen that from me. I'm sure he has one.
But yeah, I was. I wanted to get the jacket,
but nobody could get enough points to get the jacket.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
It doesn't say how many you need for the jacket.
There's a jacket and compact TV and a bike as well.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah, can you imagine what it would have taken to
get a compact TV, a hot wheels compact TV back then,
Because it's funny, you know. Now you can go into
a store here and you can buy a TV seven
to twenty p television for sixty nine dollars I saw here,
which is insanely low. But I remember like a portable TV,

(48:40):
even like a little thirteen inch TV being you know,
seventy eight hundred bucks in the eighties out of reach.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
Yeaheah, So yeah, Alex, look on the back of that card.
What what year are those cards bottom left hand corner?

Speaker 5 (48:56):
Maybe nineteen ninety this one, I think, Yeah, I was.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Gonna say, like ninety one.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
That was so far ahead of its time.

Speaker 5 (49:06):
Tender nineteen ninety five for this one.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah, they ran they ran that casting for a while.
I think it was just a I don't think it
was a very good representation of the car itself, like
the real one is much less stocky, like it has
a very chunky look to it on the Hot Wheels
car compared to the actual car looked we'll wait better criticized.

Speaker 5 (49:26):
I'll be very critical of this casting. It is pretty
awful compared to the real vehicle. The real vehicle that
you say is quite sleek. It has a is a
bit of an f forc sque look to it, and
it's yeah, this is quite overinflated, especially at the back.
It's too kind of high sided, too high, the glass
area is all wrong. But this you're right in saying

(49:50):
that it lasted a long time in the Hot Wheels lineup.
I know the years that it was that ninety one
to two thousand and six, I think it lasted. And
by the end of that line, the colors, like you
said before, David, were just awful. There was some really
bad colourways, some awful choices of design. But these two
the ones that I'm lucky enough to get. They are

(50:12):
got the Zenda logo, the fact four thing on the side.
The real vehicle itself, I think was kind of like
a technology demonstrator. Zender a German tuning company who choose
a lot of Volkswagens Audi's things like that bodykits, engine, tuning, etcetera,
et cetera. This was kind of a technology demonstrator in
real life for what they were capable of. I think

(50:34):
the real thing used an Audiva twin turbo and it
was really capable thing. They built two coupe and are convertible.
But I don't think any production ever followed up.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
That was it.

Speaker 5 (50:44):
That was the end of it. Don't know where the
real things are to this day. But again, like some
of the ones we've discussed, someone must have seen it
at Hot Wheels and gone a brilliant that would make
a really cool Hot Wheels let's mess it up. Yeah,
that's ruin it. Yeah, and I picked these up I
think a toy show here in the UK. Actually, And

(51:06):
before I'd picked these up, I hadn't even heard of
Zender making their own vehicle before, so that sent me
on a deep diabend. Yeah, just the fact that in
realized that only two of these things exists one one spider.
But yeah, they lasted for so long in the Hot
Wheels lineup, it's just kind of strange.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
To me, all right, And that Larry would design interestingly enough,
I just looked it up.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
Sorry, So they can't all be winners.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
They can't all be winners. But well, I had a
hunch because you know, no offense to Larry, but he
has a style, like his cars have kind of a
more boxes beefy look to them, and there's nothing wrong
with that. I think some of his cars of that
era are brilliant. I think that the Highway patrol car

(51:55):
that he did that's not quite a Dodge Monico, not
quite a Ford Ltd is an iconic. A lot of
those blackball eras, the Byewaymen, even his like Royal Flash,
which was his take on a Lotus' spree, you know,
very very boxy and angular, so you could feel kind
of that that DNA in there. And that's why I

(52:15):
was like, I got to look this up because I
have a feeling it was a Larry But yeah, it's
you know, an interesting take on it, for sure. Yes,
they definitely the.

Speaker 5 (52:24):
Earlier ones are definitely the better ones. Definitely.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Yeah, the or the early on ones. And again he
had no control over what happened towards THEE. But you know,
if you think about that era of hot wheels too,
like the late nineties, early two thousands, I was really
kind of like, uh, we're just gonna throw every gaudy
color we can think of at these things. We're gonna
go heavy to the extreme and you know, wild stuff.

(52:49):
I mean, it wasn't even it wasn't quite as nuts
as what Matchbox was doing at the time, but it
was it was pretty wild, you know, we weren't doing.
There were some animal cars another thing Larry did though,
those crazy trucks and stuff that you push down and
they get teeth and jaws would open and stuff. He
was he was very into that.

Speaker 5 (53:08):
It's bringing back to some memories of McDonald's happy Meal
hot wheels as well, and things like that here in
the UK. And the seeing a lot of the Corgy
toys that we had in the UK repackaged as hot
wheel as well.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
I think that those are funny.

Speaker 5 (53:20):
Yeah, the highway control car. And I'm sure that that
is a rehashed Buick Regal from the Corky range.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
That is a different that is a different casting, But
you're right, that is that is that that was the
actual buw of Regal casting. It is the same casting
from the Corgi range, because I have both both castings,
and it is a reworked version of that one for sure.
And and It's funny because that was that was one
of those ones that they just like threw a thick
paint job on it to cover up all the imperfections

(53:49):
and stuff on it because it was a you raised
panel lines instead of recessed panel lines exactly. And they
also had that custom van that was a corgy I
think as well. It was not quite a Dodge van.
It kind of had like these little bump out things
on the side of it and like a roof rack
and a ladder on the back of it. That one was.
What's fun about that one is that was done as

(54:11):
a Chuck E. Cheese casting like that that they did
a run of cars for Chuck E. Cheese And so
they got the van and it's purple and it's got
I think it has flames on it. I have a
few of them because my name's Chuck and I got
called that all the time growing up. So as a
way of reacting to that, I've I've got that. There
was an eighties corvette they did. They did the custom van.

(54:32):
There's a few different ones they've even done, like that
weird off brand Dodge charger thing that was very popular
in the eighties that it said Charger America on it
in a lot of different ways, and then they definite
like an American flag on the roof to be a
takeoff on the dukes of Hazard.

Speaker 5 (54:48):
As well. I think yeah, Jackie were x J. I
think was another one I remember when I was I
was so yeah, yeah that was that was ugly as
a Hot Wheels.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a portion nine to eleven
that Hot Wheels did that was definitely not one of
theirs too, but yeah, the Mercedes Wagon was definitely yeah, yeah,
there there there were quite a few that. Uh oh,
the Mustang right with the opening hatch on the back
that was not an original Hot Wheels but it was
released as a Hot Wheels. I don't know if that

(55:18):
was a Corky or not, but it was definitely not
a Hot Wheels car.

Speaker 5 (55:21):
I think you probably would think somewhere in my garage,
I've got the Corky version of that. Somewhere.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
Yeah, I've got like I've got the Corky and the
the Hot Wheels version, and like the Corky version I
have has like a baseball team logo on it and
it's got yellow glass or something. But it was funny
because they like in order to have the hatch that
it would open, they put no or I think it
was just keep costs sound. But it has no no
window in the back hatch, so you use your car. Yeah, yeah,

(55:46):
exactly so anyway, but yeah, it's kind of funny how
how these these castings can have a life all their
own beyond their original brand. So very cool, all.

Speaker 5 (55:59):
Right, this this era of hot wheels, this is the
the era I remember collecting the fact that the Zenda
Fact four was probably one that missed me as a child.
I think the first hot wheels I had. You mentioned
the awful metal flake paint that they were doing. I
had the Sierra, the bright green Sierra that they did,
and I adored that car. I had no idea why.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Yeah, it was a good track car. It was heavy,
it was it was very fast, and it was very
low and it was very heavy, so it was a
great track car. And it had a narrow wheelbase too,
which made it good for the loops. But yeah, I
had the red, white and blue version of it and
the neon green version that you're talking about, that bright
yellowy green. But yeah, I liked the version that you

(56:41):
know had the stars and stripes on the hood and
then it had like stars and stripes thing on the side.
You know, very American. But you know I thought, no,
those cars when I saw them, I thought those were
the future. And then I found out they caught on
fire a lot, but a very appropriate name for a
car called.

Speaker 4 (56:59):
Have you got saying this? What about this?

Speaker 1 (57:01):
This is a This is my firebird concept, right, that
is the Firebird.

Speaker 4 (57:06):
This is my favorite obscure car in die cast. This
was a gift for my buddy Orrel we all know
is the Quirky Garage on YouTube. He's in France. This
is a NORAV casting the very first leave jet propelled
Automobile Bill nineteen fifty four. I mean, is there anything

(57:28):
more American than throwing a jet engine on a vehicle?
Thank you, Thank you Quirky Garage for that.

Speaker 5 (57:35):
That's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Who makes that?

Speaker 4 (57:37):
Likes that's NOREV, So shout out to NOREV. Give it
us cool stuff.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
I didn't realize we were gonna have homework. Dig deep, Chuck.
I will say that's the weirdness one. I will say
Ardle has some interesting ones from the East that in
one sixty four scale they did, like the E four
Dodge charger, which was a very weird card have done.
I mean, Hot Wheels did the Omni, but I think
the only people to do these Dodge charger well, Matchbox

(58:07):
did the charger Daytona, which was the later version, like
the eighty seven version, but the pre that version, the
previous generation version of that. One that I really like
is that eighty four Dodge charger. And I'll see if
I can find that that one's probably still in storage somewhere.
That's one that I really dig as far as being obscure.
The Fresh Cherries line of motors come. Yeah, they did

(58:33):
the other, the other Omni, the four door Omni, they
did the Pinto, they did the Vega. That one's an
unusual one to show up. It's showed up. There's been
a Hot Wheels version of but it was like a
wide bodied, customized version, but to do like our four
door Reliant, and they were the first ones to really

(58:54):
do like the Dodge Diplomat and like these these very
boring cars of the seventies and eighties that exactly the
malays era. Yeah, they did the they did the seventies
four Thunderbird way before green Light did it. And yeah,
those those ones really stood out to me as as

(59:14):
interesting and obscure in that they were. It was like, huh,
who who picked to this one? And yeah, there's there's
been a few of those those like that. But you know,
off the top of my head, that's a good question
trying to think of what I have in my my
main display case that would be unusual. I mean, I

(59:37):
love that green Light did things like the They've they've
done some RVs like the Bounder and the Winnebago, and
I know they did them so they could do the
Walking Dead Winnebago, and they could do the Breaking Bad
Bounder and the Condor too from National Lampoon's christmasification. I
think those were really cool. It's not a lot of

(59:57):
people doing r v's, especially doing them in true one
sixty four scale like green Light did, right, So those
are the ones that really kind of stand out to
me as being kind of unique and interesting. So, you know,
and of course, our our our buddy Lou doing the
Chevy Astro before Tamika did, and some of those some

(01:00:20):
of those more obscure cars that he was working with
when he was doing dub City Line and couldn't get
licensing from the fancy cars. So they were like, Okay,
you can do the four door S ten, and you
can do the Cadillac Escalade, and you can do the
Chrysler three hundred. I think he got to do a
Lincoln town Car was another one he did that not
a lot of people have done. Who did they?

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
Was it the Mercury Mercury version of the Ford.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
I'm going to butcher this night, right, the Grand Marquee? Yes, yes, yeah, Oh,
somebody did do that. I actually had somebody in a
store the other day tell me nobody did Mercury Grandmarque
in one sixty four.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
I was like, actually they all contraire.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Yeah, that was great, that was Yeah, there was a
Mercury Marauder that somebody did in one sixty four scale.

Speaker 5 (01:01:11):
Who was it?

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Right? Green Light did a Marauder? Okay, that must have
been a sound show. But you know green Light has
also done the Grand Marquis Wagon.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Oh, Doc did their Grandmarque?

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Yeah, I've got that. Actually, did they do the Grand Marquy?

Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
No, they they've done a Crown Big yeah, nineteen ninety one,
Crown Bick who.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Did the Grand Markey? Somebody did a Grand Marquee.

Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
But I remember looking at it and thinking, hey, that's
a that's a full crown bick and then oh, no,
I'm on, no, it's not. It's a And I asked
my friend. I asked them, I think Brian from Lamley,
and I said, who makes this and where did you
get it from? Yeah? Quite a unique casting for me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
That definitely Yeah, yeah, I knew the green Light did
the wagon and the Rotter was basically a Grand Marquee
that had been souped up. We're drifting into bad radio
land over here, so we need to wrap this up.
But thank you, Alex. That's a really great start. I
want to keep this series going because I, like you said,

(01:02:16):
there's going to be you know, hundreds of these weird
obscure cars. And I'll do my homework next time. I
promise I'll bring I'll bring one of my own to
show off. But that was great. That was a great one, David,
A great pull there in the I believe that was
like the Thunderbird one they did like three year or
no Thunderbird Firebird one. They did like three or four
four different Firebird Yeah, and they just got wackier each time,

(01:02:39):
Like one had like four fins on the back of it.
And yeah it was. It was wild so but that
is awesome again. You know, Alex, tell folks where they
can find you, follow you because it's all over the
place now.

Speaker 5 (01:02:51):
Yeah, I forgot to mention earlier when when you ask
what I've been up to do small YouTube videos now
shorts so you can find me on YouTube, Alex the Whole, Instagram,
Alex Thevorda, and on Facebook as well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Very cool. And of course check out Lamley and die
Cast Collector Magazine where you will find the yarns spun
by our friend Alex about your favorite tiny die cast cars.
And of course thank you for making it to the
end of yet another episode of dicast Breakdown. If you're
done here, you can jump over to twice Dicast. David

(01:03:26):
still posting stuff over there too, Come on bye, and
of course make sure you're liking, subscribing following. We got
PF post in some great photos over here. Our community
posts have been really popular lately. I really appreciative of
him for that, And of course our our co host Mark,
who joins us when he can and he contributes a
lot of great stuff. He gives us great interviews and

(01:03:48):
connects us with people and keeps those relationships going. As
I'm you know, over here trying to just get the
show episodes and hidden out on time. A shout out
to him. He'll be back in a future episode, and
of course thanks to our patrons again that make the
show go. If you want to join their ranks, you
can visit diecast Breakdown dot com and you can check
out our merch store. Nobody on the episode is wearing

(01:04:11):
merch today because this is a weird time for us
to do the recording and I was not ready to
put on my t shirt. But you can check out
the designs by my brother Justin. They are fantastic and
he keeps coming out with new great ones. So make
sure you keep popping back and looking at us community
posts because we post the new designs as they come out.

(01:04:31):
And as always, well, I thank you for coming along
with us for the ride. So until next time, stay fresh, cheesebags.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Thanks for listening to die Cast Breakdown. If you enjoy
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(01:05:00):
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