With travel restrictions, mail delays and border closures, it’s been harder to obtain some cars that I’d bought before the days of social distancing, but this week a box came through from the UK after a couple of months in transit
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Today’s Lamley Guest Post takes a fascinating approach to customizing.
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The Bongo Friendee is one of my favourite Tomica castings. It’s a solid lump of metal and has the fantastic ‘Auto Free Top’ extendable roof for great play value. It also comes in paint finishes that reflect real-life colours, complete with the correct graphics
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Welcome to Part 2 of my walkthrough of Matchbox’s Formula 1 cars. We’d reached 1978 and the demise of the Team Matchbox, a generic formula car that had been part of the Superfast range since 1973. That left the No.36 Formula 5000 as the only single-seater in the lineup, but some of the best Matchbox F1 cars were still to come
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When I look at this black Matchbox Corvette, I can’t help but think of where I bought it – from a basket of loose, bagged, surplus stock in a small-town toy shop in New Zealand in 2003. But as the tampo print on the hood suggests, the Corvette originally came in a 1997 gift pack with a bottle of cologne
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I began writing this article with the intention of covering Matchbox’s Formula 1 history, based on cars in my collection. The more I dug into the topic, the more there was to say, so I’m splitting the story into two parts. This is Part 1 and covers the 1950s, 60s and 70s, from the Maserati 4CLT to the Team Matchbox
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It’s a great time to collect 1:64 Porsche race cars, with a ton of suitable subjects available for diecast companies to model. I thought it would be fun to dip into my collection and showcase 10 of my favourites.
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This Johnny Lightning Aston Martin Lagonda is a bit of an oddity. Its modified look includes side pipes and a rear wing, because the original version was issued as the only car in a 1998, four-model set of Evel Knievel’s vehicles. Knievel owned a Lagonda that had had its original 5.3-liter Aston V8 swapped for an 8.2-liter, big-block Chevy
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Happy 428 day! The Matchbox version of Ford’s drag car for the street is a substantial model. Later versions – it became a staple of premium releases such as Superfast for a decade – showcased its great stance and nice details to the full.
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This Majorette casting is one of the best Subaru Imprezas around. It’s available in multiple street versions and a couple of different authentic rally paint schemes (with several different wheels) but it’s hard to beat the classic Subaru World Rally Team look
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I’m looking forward to the Top Gun-related Matchbox DBR1 that’s coming later this year, but until then this silver Shelby Collectibles issue is the only 1:64 DBR1 in my collection. The detail is great, with an opening bonnet (hood) and doors. Carroll Shelby famously won at Le Mans in a DBR1, in 1959. The sister car of Stirling Moss retired after six hours but he won in the car at Goodwood and the Nürburgring
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The badass Alfa Romeo 155 V6 TI was one of three DTM/ITC race cars modeled by Matchbox in the mid-1990s. Let’s take a look at this trio – including some rare prototypes – plus some DTM contenders from other 1:64 brands
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It has been awhile since we have had a guest post here on Lamley, but I am always game, especially when the post relates to models I don’t collect. That means we could have endless guest posts, so if you have an idea, send it over. Graham Heeps is one of those collectors with a […]
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In 30+ years my collection has veered off at various tangents – Models of Yesteryear (still great, now largely worthless), Royal Mail vans (sold to fund a custom-built display cabinet), Corgi Juniors, Tomica, Majorette, Schuco, CM’s rally cars and – especially since I moved to Canada two years ago – a few Hot Wheels, too. But Matchbox miniatures will always form the bulk of my collection, which currently stands at around 3,000
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