RLC 2016 - Studebaker and Gulf

For those following the blog and/or my YouTube videos, you will know that I became very critical of the Hot Wheels Red Line Club in 2015 after the "upgrade" that saw the order process for new releases become so much harder along with a general feeling of "Mattel will never fix this". As a result, when it came time to renew my membership for 2016, I decided not to ... a decision that part of me regretted once I saw the first couple of cars that the club offered for 2016.

Thankfully my good mate in the capital city came to my rescue and was able to secure the first two special edition releases at cost (and I actually think they were sold to me below cost), and today after a few extra days in the New Zealand postal system they arrived ... and they are amazing.

First up is the 1963 Studebaker Champ, presented in a display box similar to the "Toy Fair" cars and a few other special releases. In hand, this release is spectacular and it surprises me that is is still available in the shop.

Next is the Porsche 993 GT2 done in the very pleasing Gulf colour scheme. As expected, this amazing piece sold out very quickly and commands some serious coin on eBay. Pictures just do not do this release justice and neither can my limited vocabulary ... so lets let the pictures do all the talking!

Huge thanks to my good mate from the capital city for the hook up, and if the Red Line Club continues with these excellent releases then maybe they will get a member in the 2017 year again.

Greenlight

One of my things to do when I have down time is to check on what is coming up in the Greenlight world and see if any make it to my wish list - new castings are an almost instant purchase, but older castings have to go through a process to make sure I don't have too many of the same casting. In early March a slew of new releases with many new castings were released and I was quick to put in an order - though for unknown reasons my supplier took their sweat time getting the parcel out. However, finally the parcel arrived and a bunch of new cars can be added to the collection.

Hollywood Series 12 saw the debut of two new castings, the Wagon Queen from National Lampoon's Vacation and the 1994 Jeep Wrangler YJ from Clueless. Joining the release and my order were a casting favourite, a casting I just had to have because of the show it was from and its awesome packaging and then a new casting to the collection (though not a new casting).

Country Roads Series 14 saw a shared debut of the Jeep Wranger - this time a 1990 model with the roof on, and more releases of the Ford F-150 and the Ram 1500 which are quickly becoming Greenlight favourites. I am slightly worried about how quickly the ladder on the Ford will break when the packaging is opened ...

The remaining models were chosen because a) race car and b) more Japanese!
Nuff said!

Already planning the next import, though it may need to wait until my return from overseas along with a serious thought how the continued storage of all of these open cars.

Matchbox Best Of Series

Over the years that I have been collecting, there have been a few premium offerings from Matchbox - the Lesney Edition from 2010 and 2011, the 60th Anniversary Collection from 2013, the cancelled Supreme Heroes from 2015 and now in 2016 the Matchbox Best Of series has finally made it out to retailers.

Based on Lamley preview videos, I was pretty excited to get my hands on this set and eventually started seeing the single cars for sale (at a marked up price) on eBay and decided that I would wait until I could find a seller who was offering sealed cases at a reasonable price. Eventually I found that seller and organised to ship the case first to my USA shipping address and then eventually onto New Zealand.

From my years of collecting, one thing I have learnt is that Matchbox cases are all the same in the United States (and thus in New Zealand when offered at retail), so I was confident based on opened images that the sealed case would give me all 10 cars of the first (and only?) wave.

Sadly as I opened the case on camera, I started pulling out doubles I wasn't expecting to see and even a triple; and by the time I had gotten to the end of the case I was missing several cars from the set ... a look at the box under different light shows another piece of tape that didn't match the factory sealed and I guess my sealed case luck ran out.

Several days before the sealed case arrived from the USA, I was shocked and surprised to see not only the Jeep series at my local Toyworld, but also the Best Of series hanging on the pegs. Since I was the first one to see them, I was able to check them all out and along with the Jeep set, I purchased several vehicles as openers ... as it turns out, the majority I purchased as openers came in the case as unexpected doubles, but I did also thankfully pickup one car I hadn't received from the sealed case, the BMW 1M.

Fingers crossed that other collectors in New Zealand reply to my request for assistance to track down the missing cars, or my local Toyworld brings in another case ...

Hot Wheels Rad Trucks and BMW

With school holidays arriving in a week, the toy stores are beginning to put new stock on the shelf and included in the arrivals are some exclusive 8 car sets from Hot Wheels; Captain America, Hot/Rad Trucks and BMW. With more and more of these sets being released, it is nice that New Zealand is able to get some of these in order to not have to import (even though the local retail price is very expensive)

First, the BMW series - a series I was really looking forward to as it reminded me of the earlier Porsche set, and it is good to get the other brands of sports cars getting featured in Hot Wheels since Ferrari changed its licensing agreement.

Thankfully the set lives up to my own internal hype meter, though sadly none of cars (or bike) feature additional front or rear detailing to make it stand out from other mainline vehicles.

The Hot/Rad Truck series was the first of the 2016 8 car sets that grabbed my attention when showing over at "that Brazilian blog site" and everyone knew that the Datsun 620 would be the first to be snatched up by crazy fans who continue to pour fire on the JDM craze.

Sadly in hand my impression of the set is not as high as it was, generally due to the use of chrome interior and the decorations used on the car bodies. As expected the Datsun 620 is the stand out of the batch but sadly it is not enough to save this set from being returned to the store for a refund.

Matchbox Jeep Anniversary

As readers of the blog may know, visiting my local Toyworld store is one of my daily lunchtime activities in order to generally kill time, chat with the staff to pick their brains on upcoming toy releases and sometimes I even purchase something from the store. Walking in yesterday it was with great surprise that I saw the Matchbox Jeep Anniversary series being unpacked - Toyworld had not stocked Matchbox in three years and this set was only just shown off by Matchbox a few short weeks ago.

Fast forward 24 hours later and I was back in the store handing over some money for the complete set of eight, along with one duplicate as an opener.

Overall the set of eight is very sharp with only the concept Jeep Willys looking a bit "off", and hopefully more cases arrive in other collectors hands soon.
Hopefully arriving soon to compliment this set is the six car set of Land Rovers.