1:18 Diecast M60 Home     Toy Gallery
01.12.16: Please be sure to look at our 1:18 dream Dueces from GMP Diecast here!

My Marklin trains in Germany may have been the wellspring of my affection for intricately detailed toys. But, I have loved scale model automobiles in particular since my first plastic AMC kits in the early '60s when I was a student in High School. It wasn't long before I had hot rod magazine subscriptions and was spending as much time as I could manage laying on my back underneath my family's Oldsmobile, trying to figure out what was what and what it did. In university I came to include sports cars and European racing. Then I met my first up close Model A. In short, I love cars but like most people I can't afford to own all the marques I would love to have in a much larger museum than mine. For me, the perfect solution has been collecting diecast metal vehicles. The 1:18 collection is as large as I can manage so not everything I'd like to have in that scale is possible. Even so, now and then I squeeze in new ones.

There are two photos here, one a model car kit and one a 1:18 diecast of my favorite rod. I have especially warm affection for the AMT kit, which I first built back in 1963 when I was just a kid in high school who had a true passion for hot rods. I couldn't get any closer at the time, but when my issue of Hot Rod magazine showed up, or Rod & Custom, I could fantasize that I, too, was a hot rod guy. The second is a 1:18 scale flat black diecast full-fendered '32 Ford roadster with fuel tank mounted out front of the radiator and wearing wide whitewalls and red steel wheels with chromed baby Moons and beauty rings. The windshield frame has been chopped, the louvered hood folds to the center, and that beautiful deuce radiator shell pulls the front of the car together. There is some undercarriage suspension chrome but not too much. Under the hood is a hot flathead motor and, well, what can I say? It's a Highboy roadster.
A deluxe '31 Ford rumble seat roadster in dark blue with black fenders, dual sidemounts, and straw wheels. A black 1936 Ford roadster, brown leather upholstery both inside and the rumble seat, and chrome wheel covers with wide white sidewalls. Behind the Ford is a silver, 4-door Chrysler Airflow.
Photo one of Roth's wonderful 1961 Beatnik Bandit from the right front corner. Photo two of the Bandit. Very thin arched fenders with slightly wider runningboards. They run the full lengh of the car, rising in a high arch higher than the front and rear of the body. The Oldsmbile body, hood, trunk and chassis are of one piece and wrap around the cockpit, which is covered by a hemispherical, clear bubble; it tilted forward to gain access. The car is white with dramatic copper graphics, and is steered, powered, and shifted by a chrome floor stick. (The body was formed around a concrete casting. The instrument cluster on the dash is primitive at best but it looks good and no doubt worked. There are splendid, old-school hotrod upholstered bucket seats (two) with high backs. The quad headlights are bullets, interated into and located beneath the fenders. Steel wheels are chromed and sport baby Moon caps. Wide whitewalls dress up the tires, which are larger at the rear of the car than at the front. A 303 c.i. Olds engine, blown and injected, provides the power. Everything blends beautifully into a somewhat of a unibody.
My nostalgia for old Farmall tractors began sometime before we bought our 450D Farmall, so here we see one of that family and a cast metal tractor, likely a reproduction, of a Fordson. Why are they here? Just 'cuz. Pere Time s a Christmas tree ornament on a stand. A tall, skinny Father Time or Santa with a long white beard, and a long red overcoat with a bright blue trim. The green stand is akin to a paper spike and has four thin metal rings attached to leaf-like spurs along its length. From these rings depend Hotwheels toys, a hotrod, a VW Bus and VW Beetle, and a pickup truck. Sitting at the base of it is a 1:18 white Austin Healey roadster with red interior and steel wheels.

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