One of my aims here at Lamley is to promote and showcase new and lesser-known brands, to give them a boost and also to show the Hot Wheels die hards that there’s life beyond the blue brand. And the world past Mattel’s heavies is constantly expanding. And today I’m taking a look at one of the most recent arrivals to 1/64 scale: MSZ.
MSZ may be a brand you’ve heard of before. Their 1/32 scale products are present in many toy stores and supermarkets across the globe. But this is their first dive into 1/64, and I have to say I am very impressed. The first 5 models were released in October last year and hats off to MSZ, they chose well. The first castings are the Volkswagen Amarok, Audi A7 and Q7, Toyota Camry and the Maserati Ghibli. And with the Maserati being perhaps the biggest draw for collectors, it’s a good place to start.
The Ghibli is a great showcase for how seriously MSZ are taking things. By picking a Maserati to be part of their opening salvo, they’re proving they’ve got some big premium brand licenses already. And that they can do them justice in diecast. The detail is great for a mainline, and even better when you consider this is the first time MSZ have worked at this scale. Paint choice and quality is great and the wheels work very well. And as we will see from the rest of the cars, the small touches are superb. On the Maserati decals are used for the front lights and badge and are sharp and effective. The paint on the grille and the trident logo has no hint of smudging or any other issues.
And this remains the case throughout the rest of the line up. The clean decals and decent lines are clear on the Audi A7 Sportback. It makes for a very handsome casting and is actually my favourite of the bunch.
The S7’s bigger brother the Q7 is a strong casting with great colour and wheel choice. Those wheels look like they could be Audi OEM items and the paint wouldn’t be out of place in the brand’s “Exclusive Manufacture” colour chart.
The VW Amarok is a slightly left-field choice of casting but will appeal to a lot of collectors. There’s added detail of a roll bar and rock rails and overall it’s a very chunky and neat model.
And finally there’s the Toyota Camry, which has some fab touches including the panoramic roof which reveals the interior is refreshingly detailed. It also reveals a future feature of MSZ’s diecasts: suspension. This has been a recent addition to the MSZ range and is still under development, but regardless it’s a really cool touch. The Camry rides VERY high but this is an early version and I’ve been told MSZ will attempt to adjust this. And hey if they don’t manage it, you can always get in to fix it yourself: the cars have screw on bases meaning diecast customisers can have a field day with these as I’m sure they will. I’d imagine the Camry would look great on some scale Works or Enkeis…..
In conclusion MSZ have made a great first effort in small scale, and I’m seriously impressed. There’s great quality, good model choice and some big licenses. The distribution may be an early issue however. At the moment stockists are highly limited to Baltic countries, but the brand plans to have these on sale via its AliExpress shop in July. Once they get this pinned down, these cars will be a serious alternative to the big brands.
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(Keep an eye on the MSZ Instagram and the brand’s AliExpress page for the 1/64 drop, in the meantime check out the offerings on Ebay)
Great to see emerging brands and ranges like this appearing, these remind me a little bit of Realtoy who at one time dominated this sector of the budget 1:64 market. Unfortunately UK retailers are so welded to the Hot Wheels and HTI generics philosophy I can’t see them being readily available here.
What good looking castings! A shame these will most likely be (very) expensive imports to the USA. Or very expensive purchases on Ebay. I agree with you about the Audi A7.