Auto World & Tomica Limited Vintage square off with some modern muscle.

Two of the best 1/64 diecast makers on the planet, both obsessed with scale and detail.  Two that are more accustomed to doing replicas of vintage cars – one classic Japanese, the other classic American.  Two with a rare foray into today’s machines.  Two doing sinister replicas of some modern, growling, speedsters.  Two replicas that look fantastic together.

You know the companies.  Auto World and Tomica Limited Vintage.  They are on a place all by themselves.  Perfectly-scaled, highly-detailed, and quality-made.  TLV gets the nod overall, but AW is truly not that far behind.  And the differences are more in feel and in-person details.  Because looking at the photos, those could be two actual cars facing each other.

Over the summer, TLV released its 2017 Nismo GT-R in three colors, right about the same time AW released its Hobby Exclusive 2017 Mustang GT in two colors.  The Mustangs came in either black or gunmetal grey with blacked out rims, and the TLV had two to match, with an additional release in white.

I could not help but put them together.

Not a likely pair, but they work very well here.

I’ll start with the Mustangs.  Auto World has done a few replicas of the 2017 Mustang, all mostly stock, except for the MiJo exclusives that were just released.  These two hobby exclusives really stand out, mainly because of the rims and colors.  A hobby exclusive has to look good enough for collectors to pursue them from places other than their local store, and these succeed.  Really succeed.

(Find the AW 2017 Ford Mustang GT Hobby Exclusives at SURPLUSgoodies)

And the TLV GT-R’s.  White and black are the standard releases, the grey is a hobby exclusive in Japan.  These Nismo models are brand new castings, and based on the 2017 GT-R that TLV released a couple of months ago.  While it can be easy to get sick of the GT-R in small scale, I choose to collect these.  The attention to detail really shines, especially between what is now close to 20 separate releases of the GT-R by TLV alone.

(Find the Nissan GT-R Nismo at Japan Booster)

Ultimately, I see the two parked next to each other at a car show.  The Mustang crowd eyeing the GT-R crowd, and vice versa.  The Mustang crowd whispering about how the GT-R guy spent way too much on a car that can’t preform to the standard of the souped up Mustang sitting next to them, and the GT-R crowd not worrying about that at all.  Ultimately I walk by both, love both, and act like I am a professional photographer taking interesting angled photos of both with my phone.  Photos that I think will be cool on Instagram until I see what the real photographers are posting.

Now I don’t even have to do that, because I have two dead-on replicas hanging on my office wall.  No passive-aggressive car show antics, no bad iPhone photos.  Just two very cool cars.