Hey look, a Greenlight post!
Many of you have noticed the lack of Greenlight here on Lamley, and some of you have specific ideas as to why. I would love to indulge those theories, but the fact is I just haven’t been that into Greenlight lately. I have never considered Lamley to be a review site, but rather a place for me to showcase what I like or find interesting. Things I don’t like or am disappointed by surely hit the Lamley Blog, but the rule is mostly “If it doesn’t interest me, it doesn’t make it to the blog”. I have thought about doing more reviews, and we will see if that happens.
But ultimately I haven’t paid much attention to Greenlight lately, mainly because it hasn’t interested me that much. I haven’t completely disliked their stuff, it is more that I just haven’t paid any attention to it. That is partly because most of my diecast itches have been scratched elsewhere. Between premium brands like Auto World, TLV, M2 Machines, and now Tarmac Works, I have been pretty satisfied. Greenlight has occasionally piqued my interest, like with Hitch & Tow a few years ago. I loved the concept and early batches, and then slowly lost interest as there was almost too much produced. I also was very curious about Tokyo Torque, only to be tremendously disappointed with its execution, and I watched M2 at the same time jump in with a more unique take and better execution on JDM. The GL Nissan GT-R was nice, but there were so many from other brands that were better. Many of their muscle cars are nice too, but some suffer from badly proportioned wheels and poor quality, especially for those of us who open our models. It goes on. This is my personal take of course, and I have many friends that love Greenlight and think my bleh opinion has no merit.
Of course there are some models that I have loved. The GL Foxbody police cars are personal faves. So is the beautiful Airstream Bambi casting, which was a such a great choice to do. And Greenlight seems to have figured out well before other premium diecast companies that classic pickups are always cool. But I’ve had enough of each of those castings for awhile, and haven’t pursued any additional examples. So yes, it has been awhile since I paid attention to Greenlight.
Until, of course, this:
When I first heard that Greenlight was doing the Ford GT, I just assumed its execution would be like Tokyo Torque – promising in development, disappointing in execution.
But hell, I was wrong. The Greenlight Ford GT is the best 1/64 Ford GT around, and that is saying something. Many diecast companies have taken it on, with its flying buttresses and low stance, and most haven’t quite gotten it. Greenlight has. These models are gorgeous, and wonderfully detailed from wheels to intakes to silhouette.
It is exciting to be excited about Greenlight again. I might have to pull out one of my old Hitch & Tow sets and tow a cool Ford GT around from show to show. I hope this is a sign of things to come.
I’ve avoided Greenlight for mostly the same reasons as you. One of my biggest complaints is with the tires and wheels. Unlike AW or TLV, they are cartoonish in their width. Johnny Lightning has the same problem, which is likely due to their use of so many older castings, originally equipped with super wide tires. These Ford GTs, on the other hand, appear to be just about perfect for what they are in both quality and proportion. I hope this is a new direction for them.
Even though the Tokyo Torque cars seem crude and out of proportion, it looks like the BRE cars might share the Under The Hood 510 feature of an opening hood and engine details. That would at least be unique.
To bad Auto World didn’t do this with their era appropriate castings.
I have been on board with the greenlights since day one and agree with the group about the tire packages and quality issues, not to mention the scale issues. It has limited me on some of there offerings. However the Ford GT is they best they have done so far. I was afraid when I first saw they where going to make a GT I did not pre order or plan to order anything on line because I had no faith that there version would be any good. I have a version by majorette, tomica, hotwheel, and maisto, with the maisto being the best, but not perfect and figured id have to wait for kyosho to get a good version. Wrong. since finding them in store I have bought two full sets and three hobby exclusive. This model is fantastic, still some quality issues but minor, I really like how they came up with a way for the brake disc to sit in place with the piece on the axle, a quality issue as not all of them are painted, really adds another level of detail to the model. Will be pre ordereing the next series with out a doubt.
Agree with the Datsun 240 issue, but look at the running on empty series version the new wheel and tire package, bought an extra to wheel swap with the Tokyo drift version. They can do a really good version of things if they want too.
I have no idea why GL still uses the steamroller tires when everyone else has gone on to more realistic-sized ones. It seems like they would’ve gotten their ROI for the tooling on them a while back. However, they make perhaps the best 1/64 Fox-bodied Mustangs and ’68-’70 Chargers out there. And who else would make ’60s Dodge trucks. I REALLY want that matte Ford GT.
I think it is the fact they can’t bother replacing and redesigning wheel molds that they have had for the last 10+ years (the Original Greenlight muscle car garage series came out back in ’06).
It’s not fair to brand all Greenlight castings with the same brush. Like every other manufacturer, some are better than others. Their V-Dubs line is pretty nice.
Most of the greenlight stuff now has correct sized tyres??you must be looking at very old stock. The scale is always very good too….you want hollywood cars greenlight is so far ahead.
For me the problem with the tires is not the size or the realism, but the fact that they’re not always round, wich make some of the cars really bad rollers. I know they’re are supposed to be “collectibles” and not toys, but without this, I’d buy more GL.
I like the Black Bandit series, and they have really cool vans (recently the Vandura), police cars and movies stuffs (Mad Max !). I love my ‘Bullit’ ’68 Mustang (with round tires ! :)).
I so happened to buy two of the Test Mule versions last week and boy are they pretty. A few quality issues though, including a crooked spoiler (it wasn’t hard to snap it back in place) and wet paint fingerprint imprint on the side I couldn’t see through the packaging. The area still looked off-colored after sanding it down but I can keep that side hidden. It still doesn’t take away from the spot on flying buttress and shiny disc brakes though
I buy a lot of the GL trucks for their realism and variety. Their Dodge D-100s are superb as are the Ford F-100s and are miles ahead of anything on offer from Mattel, and with GL you can actually buy them in the UK from a few sellers unlike Matchbox and Mattel.
Most of Greenlight castings are pretty good and accurate, sometimes they much up and it showed with the 240z (which is a hard car to do in this scale anyway), but when Greenlight succeeds it shows (look at the Cadillac Fleetwood, fifth gen Ford F100 and many others)