Variation Alert: Hot Wheels Flying Customs Nissan Skyline with two different interiors…

We like a good mystery, and this is a great one.

This variation was first pointed out on HWC, and as always, anything related to the Skyline IMMEDIATELY caught our attention.  Apparently the Flying Customs Nissan Skyline 2000GT-R was being found with two different interiors.  One with the standard two front and two back seats, and another with one racing bucket seat.

This model is hard enough to find, as the last, and in our opinion best, batch of the slow-moving Flying Customs line didn’t make it to big-box stores.  Now add to it two different interiors, and you vari and Skyline collectors have a task ahead of you.

We made our way to our stash of Flying Customs and were happily surprised to find that we had two of each.  So too the photo studio we went to try and figure it out.

We started with side-by-side shots…

…and they didn’t help at all.  As much as we like our little photo setup, getting details on black interiors is not its strong suit.

So we moved to silhouette shots:

Racing interior:

Standard interior:

Better, as you can see the difference, but not good enough.

So we did something absolutely crazy.  We used the sun!  Insane, I know.  We are very daring here at Lamley.  Out of the studio and to the desk in front of a window.

Now you can see it:

Racing interior:

Standard interior:

So now that you see the difference, what are we looking at?

Wrong interior errors happen with Hot Wheels.  The last significant interior error was, ironically, the silver ’92 BMW M3, which was found on several occasions with the interior of the Nissan Skyline 2000GT-X, with its full roll cage.

That got us thinking.  The First Edition of the Kenmeri 2000GT-R Skyline had the standard interior, so that would be the normal issue.  But where did the racing interior come from?  The obvious guess would be the 2000GT-X Hakosuka Skyline, which has a racing interior just like what we see on the Kenmeri: the low-slung bucket set with an empty interior.

So we compared:

All you need to see is the dash board.  They are different.  So that idea is eliminated.

But here is the most important detail, and one that really creates the mystery.  The plastic interior of the Kenmeri 2000GT-R extends to the front and rear, and serves as the models headlight and grill, as well as its tail lights.  So this has to be a deliberate variation.  This racing interior had to be made for the Kenmeri.

We have put our feelers out, and are waiting for an answer from the HW Skyline designer himself, Jun Imai.  As soon as we hear something, we will pass it on.  Our guess?  That the racing interior was made for the premium Hot Wheels Racing version that was never made.  If we remember correctly, the Skyline was part of the last batch of Hot Wheels Racing that included the Toyota 2000GT.  So this interior was molded for that, but never made.  Hence, a few were now put into the Flying Customs version.

Incidently, the base codes on these is different.  For the racing interior, F22:

And for the standard, F28:

That is consistent in the HWC post, but we want to know what you have.  Let us know the base codes on the variations you have.  Let’s figure this out.

What we don’t know is which one is more rare.  All we know is there are two.

Now, for some fun…

The Flying Customs Skyline is part of this week’s Lamley Deal of the Week at Wheel Collectors.  They have put their stock of Skylines and the other Flying Customs up for sale at a discount this week, so it your chance to grab the vari.  We have NO IDEA what variations they have, so I would ask.  Follow the link and have at it:

Lamley Deals of the Week

Let’s figure this mystery out…