O F F - T H E - S H E L F The following editorial reflects
the personal thoughts of Doug Breithaupt relating to our common hobby of
miniature cars. It is intended to generate discussion relating to 'Tales of Toy Cars'.
Your letters are welcome and may be submitted via e-mail.
300 and Counting
Tales of Toy Cars (TofTC) has only been around since 1998 but as of this
month, the number 300 has twice been significant. First, with this issue,
our 300th story is posted. Some might suggest that in 300 stories about
toy cars we must have covered most of the major topics. Not true. While
TofTC has provided diecast collectors with a lot of great stories, there
are many left to do. With all the wonderful new models being offered each
year, there will always be new stories about new cars and comparisons with
old favorites.
One of the ways we decide on new stories is to let the new models lead us.
Hot Wheels' new Ferrari 330 P4 motivated David Cook to look at all the Ferrari
GT race cars in small-scale. Brian Willoughby took on the Peugeot story
and the latest Pug from Majorette that he received was the spark. Recently,
topics appearing on Mac Ragan's diecast forum have motivated me to pursue
a story. This was the case with the story on Marx diecast cars. I only had
two models but others from the forum provided images of their models and
we were able to assemble a much larger selection of the Marx line. Sometimes,
the world of real cars leads to a story about their smaller brothers. The
story of retro-designs came after I saw that Ford will build their beautiful
new version of the famous GT40. While we have done a Ford GT40 story, I'm
sure this car will be re-visited as soon as the new GT40 appears in toy
car form.
There are so many stories left to do. Watch for the 1964 1/2 - 1973 Mustangs.
I have 42 different castings at last count. With Citroen and Peugeot covered,
Renault deserves equal time. The Tomica clones by CF will be reviewed in
the next several months as will the new castings of the Mercedes-Benz A-Class.
Norev's Mini-Jet models will be re-visited as Norev is again producing 1:64
scale vehicles. I also want to do a story on off-road racers like the Baja
and Paris-Dakar machines. Maybe you have an idea for a story. Better yet,
maybe you would like to join our contributors. Just let me know.
Our second milestone of 300 is the number of members now registered with
the TofTC site via our host at kaleden.com. You membership is appreciated
as it provide Kaleden/whaticollect.com with way of measuring the success
of our site and helps justify their support as host server for TofTC. If
you are already a member, you know that it is free and as painless as possible.
I like to ability to send a single e-mail to members when the new issue
is loaded each month. You can also create your own web pages and store images
on the site for free. If you want to avoid any promotional e-mails, you
can easily send that instruction. Please consider joining 300 like-minded
toy car enthusiasts if you have not already done so. Thank you for your
support.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
The special offer on the four new Tiger Wheels models has resulted
in a great response. The '66 Buick Riviera GS models in blue and white and
the Porsche 911 GT-1 models in silver and white are still available but
not for long. The $3.99 price for TofTC readers will only last until my
supply runs out and there are less than 50 of each model left. The regular
price for these is $5.75. If you want to place an order, just click
here. Here are the four models.
'66 Buick Riviera GS - white
'66 Buick Riviera GS - blue
Porsche 911 GT1 - white
Porsche 911 GT1 - silver
If you are looking for the second part of Dave Weber's Camaro story,
it will be in the may 2002 issue. I simply ran out of time this month to
get all the images loaded. Dave was on time. Dave is also working on more
great stories.
Remco Natrop has promised a story on the new Siku models for 2002
so watch for that one.
David Cook is doing a story on the small-scale Tyrrell F1 cars, including
the amazing six-wheelers. We also have a story on the racing cars of A.J.
Foyt from David.