RAOK from the Capital

Once again my "good mate in the capital city" has sent through a small, but fantastic parcel containing some choice items for the collection. One item from the box will be covered in a separate post.

Contents

From the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, comes a special edition vehicle - the BLVD Bruiser in the gorgeous Hot Wheels colour scheme. Metal body, plastic base and rubber tires, this item is available online and in the Children's Museum store for a reasonable price.

Added to the parcel was another Super Treasure Hunt that I required to creep ever slowly towards completion for the 2015 year. Due to our main retailer sticking with parallel import cards for the majority of the year and other retailers only getting in one case it is increasingly difficult to get Super's in the wild. As a result, getting a super in a parcel is a great feeling especially when it looks this good.

Masterpiece Gold Bumblebee

Before the storm of three new Masterpiece releases in September, October and December, Takara Tomy have re-released MP-21 Bumblebee as MP-21G Gold Bumblebee as a homage to the G2 release of the toy in 1994.

Added to the figure is the mass release of the face that was included as a Amazon Japan exclusive for MP-21, as well as a new accessory in the form of a jetpack that I really hope can be used on some of the larger Masterpiece Autobots (like Convoy and/or Lambor).

Now if only I could decide if I open one up or not ...

Oversteer Mazda 3 Die Cast

While searching around the 1/64 scale die cast items at the online store in Japan I get the majority of my Transformers from I came across a listing for a die cast version of the real car I drive - the 2014 Mazda 3. Ordering the same colour as the real car, I paid and added to the next order that shipped from the store.

Compared to my real car, the 1/64 scale model is based off the top of the line sport model (known as the SP25 here in New Zealand) which changes the wheel size and adds a sunroof.

Looking at the model, the attention to detail on both the exterior of the car as well as the interior is breathtaking, which my camera not able to do any sort of justice. The only small blemish on an otherwise perfect die cast model is the slightly off centre Mazda logo.

Looking forward to taking this model to work in order to have a small part of my hobby on display in the office, but also to be able to say that I own this car in real life - not that I expect anyone to ask.

Hot Wheels Club - 83 Chevy Silverado

In mid July the Hot Wheels Collectors club offered up another release for Series 13 club cars, the very popular 83 Chevy Silverado. As with all my orders, the parcel took its time getting to the shipping forwarder in Portland before being consolidated with other orders and being shipped to New Zealand.

As mentioned with other Red Line Club cars, Series 13 cars re-introduced the premium feel of the cars that was lost during the issues with Series 12 and if I could, I would love to open up this truck and have it on permanent display.

Looking forward to the next release, which may be the sELECTIONs cars after a couple of backorder changes.

2012 Hot Wheels Racing Off Road

Back in 2012, Hot Wheels released a Racing Series featuring different styles of racing cars in this "premium" series. For whatever reason I skipped getting the majority of the cars at the time of release even though racing cars are one of my primary reasons for liking and collecting die cast vehicles.

As time went on, it became harder and harder to get full sets but in mid July I managed to win an auction for a set of the Off Road series at roughly half of the retail price.

The most expensive one -- for some reason 

Glad to finally have this set, now to find the NHRA set and then another Road Racer set.

2014 Hot Wheels Red Line Club

Way back in January 2014, signups for the 2014 Red Line Club began with the membership car for the year being the Drag Dairy. After conversations with my "good mate from the capital city" it was decided that I would order the Chrome membership in order to get all four colours of the Drag Diary - my mate would get three colours and I would be left with the blue version to match my blue 2013 car.

After many delays and the announcement that the 2014 year would become the 2014/2015 year, the membership cars were finally sent out in late June 2015 and arrived at my USA storage address in early July. After sitting on the parcel waiting for some other items to arrive, the parcel was finally sent and arrived in late July, some 18 months after being ordered.

But yes -- the wait was worth it!

As mentioned above, only the blue Drag Dairy was staying with the rest of the colours heading away.

Misc Die Cast

Bored at work, I took a few minutes to check out Trademe (New Zealand's answer to eBay) to check out the relisting of an auction I had wanted for a while but had never purchased before. Looking through the sellers items, I spotted a few other interesting items so after asking a question (if the seller would add a buy price), I added everything to my wish list and waited.

With about an hour left to go, the seller had not answered my question so I set up some snipe bids and used the buy price on the original auction I was wanting in order to take a gamble - hoping I would win everything to save on postage but happy with just one if ended up that way.
Thankfully I did win everything I was after and after getting a postage cost, I had the items a few short days later.

First, a Greenlight Motor World Mini Cooper (the relisted item that started the purchase). For those unaware, Motor World items are metal body, plastic base Greenlights and for the last few series seem to have been stuck on releasing the same cars over and over and over and over again in different paint schemes. This release comes from an earlier time, when Greenlight had some different castings in the lineup and it is also nice to own a 1:64 scale version of the car that my father owns in real life.

Secondly, a pair of Muscle Machine Tuners. Sometime in 2014 I managed to purchase a loose Tuner from the USA and was very impressed with the detailing in the car and it was also fantastic to obtain some more Japanese cars in 1:64 scale to counter all the American cars in the collection. Hopefully some other New Zealand sellers offer more for sale, as importing from eBay is not cheap.