The Lamley Awards are approaching. Later this month the voting will start, and there is a lot figure out. Best HW New Model, Best MB New Model, Model of the Year for both brands, Model of the Year for 1/64 in general, the list goes on. It’ll be fun to say the list.
The most competitive vote is always for Hot Wheels Super Treasure Hunt. Love em or hate em, Supers always bring the most interest. Years of doing this blog have solidified that for me.
The fact is Supers are only half of what most Hot Wheels premium models are. The spectraflame paint used on Supers can’t even compare to that used on RLC and Convention cars, and sometimes the casting choices live a little to be desired. But I am like you, in that I love finding them. Velocita or ’67 Camaro, it is always a trip to come across one.
Take my 11-year-old daughter. She could care less about Hot Wheels, but she has always wanted to find a Super, because it is exactly like finding a treasure. And when that moment finally happened, in a Dollar Tree in Taos, New Mexico this summer, it made the whole trip. The Surf Crate is hanging on her wall, next all her other 11-year-old 6th Grade girl stuff. Finding it was an event.
So soon we will vote on best Super, and the opinions will come forth fast and furious. Ask me which of the 15 Supers in 2017 will be voted as Best, and I can’t tell you. I have a pretty good idea of what models will battle for the top spot, but I have no idea which one will win.
The Nissan Fairlady Z will most surely be a contender. It’s JDM, yo, which is an instant qualifier these days. And before I had it in hand, that is all I thought it had going for it. To be honest, the Fairlady Z casting is not my favorite. I thought the body was a bit too narrow, while the wheel wells a bit too wide. The FuguZ casting, even with a different nose, seems to be the better proportioned of the two. That shows comparing the two with Jun Imai’s Kaido House deco:
But holy hell if that doesn’t matter on the 2017 release of the Fairlady, especially the Super. Add this to no-fail rules in life: everything looks good in an Advan Racing livery. Everything. All my complaints about the casting are out the window, because it looks amazing in black with the red Advan stripes and logo. It helps me see how mice the silhouette of the model really is:
Maybe it’s the slant of the stripes, but this is a great looking model. One of those that, Super or not, is a must have. I contend that most Supers are wanted only because they are hard to find, but there are numerous models, premium and basic, and look better. This one would be popular anywhere, in any line. And for that reason it is a home run Super TH. Sporting the Advan livery and looking this good puts it up with my favorite Super TH of all time, the Mooneyes Dodge Van from a few years ago.
But that doesn’t mean it is the best this year. You will determine that. I will make my pick too, and considering how nice the ’67 Camaro, Chevy C10, and Toyota Off-Road look, among others, we have our work cut out for us.
Click on the photos for a larger view:
According to the designers, both S30 castings are based on the same CAD file of a stock S30. If the G-nose S30 is too narrow, Fugu Z is too.
I do like this casting a lot, but overall the Super is just ok. The “spectraflame” that ends up on black models really just looks dark gray to my eye…I was able to find the black Lancer Evo Super from a year or two ago in a dump bin, and the paint is just underwhelming in that shade. That said, this is a more desirable casting than that Lancer, and the Advan livery is admittedly nice…and they made the right wheel choice. Overall I’m conflicted. I think I’ll be perfectly happy with the non-super version of this.
I like and I love this casting. I’m still on the hunt for this one thumbs up.
I have yet to find this let alone the standard one. Hoping I’ll find one soon. Like your daughter, mine has no interest in hotwheels. But since I showed her my Super Velocita, she happily digs in the dump bins with my son and I. She’s found 2 treasure hunts since. Didn’t keep them but she was just happy to find the little flame logo.
I reckon it’ll be between the Z and the Camaro.
This is another one of those times when the standard version looks better than the Super. Yes, the Super is brilliant and undoubtedly popular, but the basic with its (appropriate) jet black color and those wheels just looks sharper and better.
I agree. Somehow the basic one looks much better in advan-official jet black color, and with bigger wheels and low profile plastic tires make them much better and realistic.
Glad to see I’m not the only one underwhelmed with this.
Plus, the super is missing Yokohama tampo on the door. Small, yet realistic details found more on the basic one.
The super I found has that Yokohama tampo correctly in place, so I imagine the one pictured here is just another sloppy factory screwup.
Lamley Awards 2017 might just be the most cut-throat yet. Expect scorching takes, barbed threats, howling voices, wrestling finishers on tables, ladders, and chairs, betrayals, snitches, maybe even some extra-judicial killings and summary executions of pollsters, all for little toy cars that most people will disregard as children’s playthings. Many will be held at knifepoint, gunpoint, or with a Predator drone hovering above where they are just so they vote for a different casting to the one they initially thought. There will be blood.
Which is why I propose just putting it all on a round robin vote, which will determine the seeding for a double elimination ballot, where two licensed models duke it out.
OK that would probably be a bloodier system.
I had the chance to include the Super when I purchased my K-Days FD3S, but I prefer the stance on the mainline wheels and jet black paint too, so got two of those instead.
That said, if by some mystery I find it as a Super here in England, I will surely buy it!
hey! i found a super treasure hunt but in the basic black color, obviously with the rubber tyres and the rear tampos, is it a hard to find variant?
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