Tomica Limited Vintage NEO LV-N07a Toyota Corolla 1500 GL

Some old pics I found.  Sorry about the Mazda dump truck box in the picture.  That truck can be checked out here.  Back to Corolla:

Photobucket: Image Hosting Site turned Hostage Taker

I am so sorry.  If you are trying to reach my older posts, instead of Hot Wheels & Tomicas, you may see this:

Some of you may already know.  Photobucket used to be a free image hosting site back in the day.  Today, they are hostage takers of the  images stored on their site.  Pay $399.99 for the year to restore image links.  If I can't afford that, for $59.99(one year plan), Photobucket would generously allow me to actually see my photos....  Because right now, this is what I get to see instead of my pictures:

I will not be paying any ransom, so many of the images from posts dated around & before 2015 may not appear on this blog.  I have been repairing some of these posts, and my goal is to eventually find all original images & upload them as soon as possible.  

As you can tell from the tone of this post, this isn't just a heads up on some blog posts missing images, but it is a warning to stay away from Photobucket.  When doing business, I think most of us can agree on the importance of customer service.  With the way Photobucket has decided to handle this move from a free service to a pay service, I think their true color is on full display.  If they can make a buck, they want to screw you.  

I was just on their website.  Here comes popups after more popups.  I shit you not:  Their popup had another popup pop up over it.  Christ, Photobucket.  Give it a rest!  *rolleyes*

Tomica Limited Vintage Variants

If you collect Hot Wheels, you are used to "variants" & "errors".  Stripe's missing, this one has PR5 wheels, paint is lighter shade of red, etc., etc.  It's frigging crazy.  Some hot wheels collectors are big on this stuff, while collectors like myself, I'd be lucky if I noticed the car was missing one of the wheels.   And I'd put it back on the peg if it was.  lol

Anywho, when a TLV collector I know from the GTPlanet brought up his TLV variants after my post on "2Models" Taxi set, I was all over it.  Why do I care all of a sudden?  You never hear about TLV variants.  Granted, there are way fewer conversations about TLVs online, but even with that considered, errors & variants don't seem to come up in discussion about TLVs at all.  Anywho, the variant GroupB brought up:

"Speaking of Nippon Kotsu taxis, here's the first (and only) TLV variation I've encountered. Initial release is on the left, with the wildly oversized roof light common to early TLV taxis. Revised release is on the right, with the light shrunken down to more realistic proportions. No other changes, although the paint colors are deeper and more vibrant on the earlier car. AFAIK this variation is undocumented."

Later, he added:

"As an aside, every TLV has a date code stamped inside one of the box flaps, and the original release said Feb. 2004, while the revised one was from March. AFAIK all other TLV's are only built in one month and that's it.

Later, I did think of 2 other variations, also from the early days. The LV-01 Cedrics and the LV-02 Crowns initially all came with black interiors but were later updated with coordinating colors."

I can't get over how awesome these variants are.  Way oversized roof sign versus adjust sign's just too cool.  :)

GroupB, as usual, thank you so much for your contribution.  I'm so glad to be able to share cool information like this with other TLV collectors!

Jada JDM Tuners - NOT 1/64

I love the JDM vehicle selections from this series.  I am a Supra fanboy.  Having said that, lot of sellers are advertising these as 1/64 scale cars & I finally, finally, finally ran into some at Target yesterday?

Ignore this first photo & go to the second pic.

In person, this is closer to what I saw.  If Supra was the size of the Chevy Suburban, it maybe close to 1/64.  It was huge, but I have handful of Jada stuff & that maybe typical for them.  Too bad, because I didn't pick up any.

I'm pretty sure way more kids & collectors want it in 1/64 than the numbers of kids & collectors who wants it in this mystery scale.  I hope Jada comes around someday & start making way more money.  They got the cars right, they just need to go with the winning size!  ;)

Matchbox Premiere "First Edition" 1970 Chevy El Camino

Pretty cool set.  I like both.

Not sure which I prefer.  Zamac or red, both pretty sweet.

Tomica Limited Vintage Nippon Kotsu Taxi 2Models feat. Nissan Cedric & Prince Gloria

Excuse the dust(straight from the shipping packaging!).  Despite the backlog of cars to be posted, I jumped on this set.  I ordered this set on eBay just as hastily.  Saw the pic of the Gloria taxi on Google & I had a set on order that day.  I just fell in love with it.

First off, the first generation Nissan Cedric.

According to the Tomytec page, this is the second gen. Prince Gloria.  When I saw the rims on this car, I was all-in.

It's like good-ugly to me?  I just love it.

$41.29, shipped.  If I was more patient, I probably could have gotten it bit cheaper.

Hot Wheels Super Treasure Hunt Falken Toyota Off-Road Truck

Longest Title Ever: Nissan GT-R LM Nismo No.22 LMP1 Le Mans 2015 H. Tincknell - M. Krumm - A. Buncombe + Nissan GT-R LM Nismo No.23 LMP1 Le Mans 2015 O. Pla - J. Mardenborough - M. Chilton by Spark

These are beautiful cars.  Kudos to both Nissan & Spark.

Uh-oh.  #23 seems to have multiplied.... j/k j/k.  When the first one arrived with busted up case, I ordered another one.

Now joined by the blue/white/red #21 from the Part I of the post.