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January 2007
Occasionally I go through the most recent e-mails I've
received and pick a few to share with you. I try to personally respond
to every e-mail I receive, but I also post a few here in my Q&A column.
Hi Joe,
Me again, well on the way to building up my 1:18 collection of
movie and tv cars. Which would you say is the rarest in your collection,
and which is the hardest to get your hands on? Do you know the date
when the '66 Batmobile is being released in 1:18? Because I'll need
to get my hands on one of them when they come out.
Chris Brown
Hi Chris,
Most of the cars in my 1:18 scale collection (pictured above) were pretty
easy to find at a fairly reasonable cost. One thing that will always
haunt me, though, is the time I was visiting a die-cast store and I held
AutoArt's 1:18 scale Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger in my hands
before putting it back because of the steep $50 or $60 price tag.
Since then, I regularly see that same car sell on eBay for hundreds of
dollars. Recently, AutoArt's Aston Martin with working gadgets sold
for $435!!! Aye carumba! As for the 1:18 scale
Batmobile, you can expect it in the fall of 2007.
A while
ago, I remember being able to find "Susie, the Little Blue Coupe" on your
website. Do you still have this item? My autistic daughter collects all
things Susie and she was really excited about it. I would like to order
it, but I don't seem to be able to find an order form.
Thanks
for your help,
Kim
Gehres
Unfortunately Kim, I don't sell die-cast cars
through my website. The pictures of Susie you saw on my website were
sent to me by fellow collector Jason from California. He discovered
the car at a die-cast store and traded for her. I'm still trying to
track one down for my own collection. I have a few leads but nothing
concrete so far. If I'm able to come across an extra, I'll let you
know.
Hello,
Thanks Paul, I'll pass along your links for others to enjoy as well.
Maybe I'll see you at DukesFest '07 this year. It's scheduled for
the first weekend in June in Nashville.
  
Hi Joe, 
How are you? I'm not very good at
customizing, but I decided to have some good "clean"
fun anyway. Lately I've been watching The Jeffersons on DVD, and really
enjoying it. They speak of delivery vans, but I've never seen one on the
show. That's when I came across a Street Whipz 1976 Chevy Van for
only $1, and decided to have a little fun with it, and make my own.
I took off the tampos, and replaced it with a Jeffersons t-shirt design
I came across on the Internet. Here's a few photos of this easy, but fun
custom.
Have a good day,
Metro
Great job Metro. I love the idea of an "off-camera vehicle"
series. Years ago, Matchbox did a Shotz Brewery delivery wagon from
Laverne & Shirley. And I own a Ewing Oil Tanker Truck made by
Majorette. I'd love to hear some ideas from others for
this series. I'll start a thread in the forum.
 
 
Hello, I'm Stephen.
I'm a 14 year old Hot Wheels collector... or rather, I'm becoming one.  . I've
found out that the Batmobile packaged with the 'Batman Blaster' playsets is
actually just a re-used casting of the racing drone team's R006 car in the
Acceleracers Hot Wheels series of 2004. This car had a light green
windshield and tires (all cars in the series had transparent, coloured tires
in the team's colour), and had green and white graphics. The wheels are not
the same however, the wheels on the Batman version are yellow, and seem to
be the 'Go Faster' wheels recently added to the Hot Wheels line on special
cars. The wheels on the R006 have been specially moulded and are grey with a
single red bolt in the middle. The metal on the sides seems to be a little
darker too, not really chrome like the Batmobile's. I hope this helps you,
since I visit your site quite frequently to check for updates.
Hi Stephen, it's nice to see young people interested in this hobby, too.
Thanks for your e-mail. After comparing photos, yes, I see the
similarities. I hope Hot Wheels doesn't go crazy and start slapping
the Bat Logo on every old Hot Wheels casting with fins. Even though, I
have admit, there is one casting I'd like to see them re-use in a Batman
series. I recently discovered a very cool-looking car that was offered
by McDonald's a few years ago. It's from the Dark Rider series.
Here is a pic:
Even though it's not an official Batmobile, I keep it in my
display with my Hot Wheels Batmobiles.
Here's some info you probably already know about, but I've got
nothing better to do in Baghdad but buy toy cars and surf the web...
Bond to drive Jag XF in next
flick
"After the debut of the Aston Martin DBS in the most recent Bond
flick, " Casino
Royale," it
looks like 007 No. 22 will feature the incredible "concept" Jaguar C-XF
unveiled this week in Detroit at the
North American
International Auto Show.
Ford still has a $100 million dollar, three-movie deal for
exclusive product placement that began with " Die
Another Day" in 2002.
Wouldn't this be a great way to kick off the sales of such a beautiful new
automobile? With Aston Martin still on the auction block, the new Jag
looks like a logical next step to us."
- Dennis
This e-mail comes from my partner-in-crime Dennis, who is working over
in Baghdad. Dennis and I teamed up over three years ago to
photograph our collections, which was the start of Hollywood Die-Cast.
If this rumor pans out about the Jag, I hope it has some cool gadgets and
we'll see it used more interestingly than the Aston Martin DBS in the last
Bond outing.
 
That Straight Arrow die-cast from The Van is too awesome. I
didn't think
anybody else had seen that movie but me.
~Kevin
I haven't actually seen the movie yet. Doing a quick search on
Amazon.com I see that it's available on DVD. I may have to check it
out. I added these vans to my collection after flipping through the
book Barris' TV & Movie Cars and discovered that George Barris had
created these vans for the 1977 movie.
I got the link to your web site from Hotwheelscollectors.com and
I have to say WOW! What a collection. Impressive. A lot of those cars
bring back childhood memories. I have a cartoon car from Corgi
which is a dune buggy with a surf board on top with the name Snoopy
and a Snoopy character is driving.
Great web site,
Jeff Keefer Thanks for the
compliments Jeff. After getting your e-mail I searched eBay for
pics of the car you described. I believe I found it (above.)
Apparently, this line of cars was made by a company called Aviva, not
Corgi. It seems they made an entire line of cars under the name
Snoopy. I didn't even know they existed. I'll have
to do some research and add them to my gallery. If anyone can
help out, shoot me an e-mail.
 
You seem to have all the cars from the modern era
on your website, but I have a challenging question for you. I
have been trying to find out what cars were used in Blake Edward's
THE GREAT RACE movie. Tony Curtis's car looks to be a Stutz
Bearcat, but what is Jack Lemmon's/Peter Falk's 6 wheeled vehicle?
I'd be really interested to find out what it is...
Good Luck. I didn't find much on the internet about it (more
about the movie and Blake than anything).
Thanks,
Keith
When searching for the make and model of cars used in film and
television, I've found the best source for that info is
www.imcdb.org It has been an
incredibly valuable source of info. The Hannibal 8 featured in the
film The Great Race was created specifically for the film, and not
based on any existing models of the era. That particular car is on
display at the Peterson Museum in L.A. I saw it when I was there in
2005. So far, no die-cast vehicles or models exist that I know of,
which is a shame.
Hi Joe,
Once again what a great website you've created! I thought you might
be interested in this... I sent an email to Die-cast Distributors
Australia (the guys that make the 1:24 scale Interceptor) asking if
they were going to a 1:64 scale Interceptor and their response was:
>>"Thank you for your comments yes we will be doing a
1:64 scale of the second car
with the twin tanks stay tuned to the web site. Regards John"
So I hope thay actually go through with it. It would be very
popular I'm sure. BTW do you know if anyone is going to make a 1:64
Aston Martin DBS from the new Bond movie? It's a beautiful car...it's
just a pity Bond takes it for a single drive down the road and rolls
it 17 times!
Cheers,
Pete Murphy
Hi Pete,
I, too, sent an e-mail to Die-Cast Distributors and got confirmation:
"We are looking into it but it will be late
2007 early 2008 if we proceed.
Regards, Chris"
So let's cross our fingers and hope things proceed as planned.
Maybe I'll get to cross off ANOTHER car from my 1:64 scale wish list.
Hey Joe,
Check out the Creeper’s truck and his victim’s Impala at the drive in.
http://groups.msn.com/TheCreepersTruck
- Timothy Glace
Thanks for the pic Tim. Very cool custom. I think a 1:64
scale version of the truck from Jeepers Creepers would be a good
seller.
Hey Guys,
I thought I'd get your opinion on this, what makes a movie car? Does
it have to have significant on-screen presence or can it be an extra?
What are your thoughts?
Ewan Arnolda
Interesting question Ewan. Personally, I feel that any car that
gets significant screen time is considered a true "movie car" even if it's
not a featured car. Take the original Gone in 60 Seconds.
There are several very cool cars that get smashed up on screen. Even
though they weren't featured cars, they had enough of an impact (pardon
the pun) that RC2 included a lot of those cars in its Gone in 60
Seconds line (pictured below.)
   
Hey Joe,
Sorry if I'm bugging you. Looking for my Batmobile collection, I
really forgot I had this 1/64 scale Batman Beyond Batmobile. I
was a little bit younger when I bought this at the WB Store in the
mall before they were gone. I wasn't sure if I bought one but glad I
found it.
Cheers ! - Jason, Simi Valley CA
First of all Jason, I love getting e-mails. Rest
assured you're not "bugging me." After getting your e-mail, I went
to eBay and found some auctions for the Batman Beyond Batmobile.
Unfortunately, even though it is 1:64, I found out it's made of plastic.
I almost bought one, because, apparently, it displays nicely alongside
your other Batmobiles, but I decided against it for now. Maybe I'll
pick one up in the near future.
And finally, a regular visitor to Hollywood Die-Cast, Bruce, was
inspired by my Wish List to create a wish list of his own. It
looks like he put a lot of time and effort into it, even finding photos
for most of the cars on the list, some of them pretty obscure.
Click HERE to check out the first
part of Bruce's Wish List.
Your e-mails really make my day. Please keep them coming.
Click on the e-mail link in the left column and I'll do my best to find
the answer for you.
Q&A Archive:
9/03 10/03
11/03 12/03 1/04
2/04 3/04
4/04 5/04
6/04 7/04
8/04 9/04
10/04 1/05
2/05 3/05
4/05
5&6/05 7/05
8/05 9/05
10/05 12/05
3/06 7/06
10/06
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