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| Find the TLV-N Civic at Japan Booster |
I love doing these features.
When I started Lamley a few years ago, it was mainly to showcase photos of models from my collection. Soon I realized that a little writing could go a long way, and soon after I found Lamley was a good way to disseminate a little bit of news.
That evolved into some unauthorized sneaks, and I sensed that people were starting to associate Lamley with that over anything else. It has been awhile since I stopped showing unauthorized sneaks, and it has felt good to get back to the bread-and-butter of Lamley, the features.
(Thankfully, the community that has formed around Lamley has meant the news still comes my way, and I am thankful to many people for letting me share a lot of that news.)
I love doing features. Whether they be new models, or older models in my collection, or comparisons of both. I love shooting these models as well. That is why it has been such a bummer these last few weeks to not be able to use my photo studio while my basement was being repaired after a frustrating flood.
I have so many models I want to showcase, and now that the basement is done I can start rolling them out. And it starts with the Tomica Limited Vintage Neo EG Honda Civics.
Ever since Tomica Limited Vintage expanded their Civic lineup with two new versions back in September, I have been excited to show all of these, and I finally was able to photograph them all. And it wasn’t just a flooded basement that deterred me.
These models are TOUGH to get. The first six were released a few years ago, and since then have been some of the most popular, and in turn hardest to acquire, of all TLV’s. In fact, I am showing seven, because I still don’t have the elusive eighth in black. One day.
Our friends at Japan Booster occasionally get a few of the older versions to sell, and because of their scarcity put them on auction. The final prices will show how popular they are. And that is one of the reasons you should grab the two recent releases before they join the others as hard-to-find. And seeing how many they have already sold, there appears to be a lot of people wise to that fact.
So with all that, why is it that a mid-90’s Honda Civic hatch is so popular? This is the same car that my wife bought after college, and that had next to no power. The reason it is so popular is the same reason that Ryu Asada’s 1990 EF Honda Civic for Hot Wheels caused quite the stir when it was first released a couple of years ago. What is regarded as an entry level old faithful for some is a legendary car culture icon for others.
And in Japan it enjoys icon status. We have talked about the Civic as the foundation of the Kanjo Racing seen in Japan before, so we won’t rehash. But once you know this car’s place in Japan, including its JDM-only SiR and SiR-II engines, you can see why the TLV’s are so darn popular.
But we here in the US who look at that Civic as an entry level car, the TLV version still demands attention. The joy of collecting TLV is the fact that almost all the cars they release are bone stock, whether they be the Nissan GT-R or a Civic hatchback. It is cool to have a replica of a car that may not be as attention-grabbing as other cars here in the States, but was most surely common. Having those cars in the collection can actually be more fun than stockpiling the same sports car over and over.
So whatever the angle, these models are must haves. Especially when you see how detailed they are. Correct wheels, interior details, and stock colors. I am happy to have seven. But I need that eighth. You should at least start with these two while they are cheap:
