The first issue of a Hot Wheels model always gets the most buzz, and buzz was the name of the game when the Civic EF was unveiled. Collectors went crazy, and even drove up the price on the first to hit ebay up over $200. Since then it has flown off the pegs in some areas (SoCal), and hung on the pegs in others.
It may be more of the same with the recolor. Or it may not. Red was an appropriate first issue. So many Civics of that era were found in red, but in diecast land the teal upstages the red in a big way.
Teal is also a very era-appropriate color, and it looks like Hot Wheels did its best to match the real thing. It also added a few more colors to the mix. The basically used black, white, and grey in its detailing. The teal mixes in red and orange, and the result is fantastic.
Of course when you get only one model for your First Look on the blog, you are at the mercy of what is sent. The Civic casting has had an issue with straight tampo hits, and the b pillar suffers if things are only slightly off. While painting the pillar black is a nice touch, it does require effort to find one that sports a perfectly straight tampo. As soon as the teal is in stores, we will search for one. In the main time, ignore the off-kilter tampo. Straight tampo or not, the teal Civic is easily one of the best models of the year.
Is there another recolor coming? We don’t know, but if there is, we are hoping for white. Seems like a logical progression. But nothing will beat the teal in our view.
(Find the Civic on ebay, and be sure to check out the shop that supplied the Civic for us, Grana Toys
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Hot Wheels 1990 Honda Civic EF (2014 New Models):
” it does require effort to find one that sports a perfectly straight tampo. “
Save the efforts! There is no such a thing. We tried the same with the red.
” Straight tampo or not, the teal Civic is easily one of the best models of the year. “
I cannot be more agree with you!
why then, try to put tampos on a car if they won't be straight? it seems like that only happens with Hot wheels. Never seen a Matchbox, Tomica, or even Maisto with crooked tampos…
Exactly! And HW – unfortunately – getting worse in that. That BMW's tampo is so badly off I thought it is intentional.
http://matchboxmemories.blogspot.hu/2013/01/matchboxon-kivuliek-hot-wheels-2012.html
Time for Mattel to step their quality control game up. I know they can't get it right 100 percent of the time, but the way they just throw tampos on cars is really getting pathetic.
Nice color, though.
White? NO WAY!! I'm hoping black.. Mainly because my daily is a 1991 Black Civic Si. Like the red, i will be snatching up as many of these as possible.
You are right about these be very HTF in So Cal. While I have a few now, I only found ONE in my travels, though of course, anyone who saw them here snatched them all up. I'm sure if you go to those 'muscle car' states (Middle 'Murica), I'm sure they're warmers.
Not my cup of tea. I like the casting but the teal with red looks like it's overpainted. Back to the red, I guess!
Totally agree. There is no perfect model. You'll have to compromise eventually fora semi perfect one with one small error. I did this with the silver pagani huayra. After going through God knows how many in dump bins and on legs everywhere, I had enough.
Tampos are hit and miss …but mostly misses. The 14 Corvette Stingray is one I've seen with the least off tampo cars in my experience…the tampos were spot on back when I started collecting(2004 perhaps) and now it is a mixed bag. If I'm looking for a 2014 corveete stingray I have to grab all of them and inspect one by one,hoping to find a good one….you can't just grab and go anymore like the old days.
I'm not surprised the red one is still a big peg warmer, the quality is awful. You get what you pay for with Hot Wheels. Since they cater to the Walmart crowd you're never going to get Majorette or Tomica quality.
I have two of the red Civics with pretty good tampo placement… but it took quite a bit of dump bin digging to get them. I spotted a 4-sided J-case shipper at a Fred Meyer today (start checking your Krogers asap!) and while there were at least 15 Civics in there, only a couple of them had what I'd call “pretty good” tampo placement. By the way, the red Civics pegwarmed for about a month here in Oregon, but they are tough to track down now.
Great color (blue or looks like blue and green mixed), Have the red one and lke its shape, so I think this new colour need to be collected and photographed