Over the last couple of weeks I’ve made some more “unnecessary” purchases. That’s kind of a lame term to use when talking about a toy collecting hobby, since one could easily make the claim that NONE of this is “necessary,” so “banzai,” says I! That’s how I wound up with two great new Hot Wheels Premium Car Culture rigs and some classic International Harvester setups from Johnny Lightning and Greenlight that I couldn’t resist buying because they were so awesome, but now that I have them, I really don’t know what to do with them!
In particular this 2 pack from JL of an mid 60’s IH pickup and a late 70’s Scout was just too cool to pass up! Look at the detail on these things! I remember seeing Scouts on the road that looked EXACTLY like this when I was a young’un! I even had a friend in college who had one, we used to cruise around Hollywood with the roof and doors removed and we had a ball in that thing! What happened to them all? Beat up and rusted away I guess, which is why they’re pricy collector’s items now!
The Greenlight “Hitch & Tow” series is irresistible to me, and this lime green Gen 1 Scout with a little utility trailer was presented to me as a “suggestion” after I bought the two pack. Damn, I’m such a sucker for that ploy: “Why, yes, now that you mention it, I would be interested in that, too!” Don’t laugh too hard, dear readers; you know you do it, too!
As impulsive as those buys were, the Hot Wheels car carriers were even more so: I picked them up while I was looking for salad dressing! For some reason the Kroger right near my office has a small toy section right in the middle of the isle of condiments, and there I was looking for poppyseed dressing, turned around suddenly and, at eye level, were these two awesome trucks! What a set of HW Premiums were even doing at a Kroger is beyond me-I’ve never seen them there, only the cheap mainline Hot Wheels!-but they were quite literally staring me in the face, so how I could possibly say no?
Well, I set about trying to find a place on the increasingly crowded diorama for at least some of these and I did find space for the pickup and the newer Scout, although I did I have remove one vehicle to do so.
As for the green ’70 Scout, I have a notion to separate it from its utlity trailer and book it to this Matchbox trailer in place of Lesney’s own period casting of the same car. But then again, I really like this old Matchbox (which is a 1982 re-issue of a 1967 model) so I’m not sure yet; for now it remains unopened.
I might put one of the trucks on the freeway leading toward the exit for the track; I already have a ramp truck back there but it would make sense that more than one car was headed for the Bear Valley Road exit: you know that’s where all the muscle cars on the freeway are heading! This section of the freeway is populated largely by Matchbox models from the brand’s final days before the Mattel buyout, so even though they are models of cars I like, they are of mediocre quality, and I may convince myself to remove a couple of them to make room for another of these trucks.
Ah, decisions, decisions! “First world problems” indeed, eh, race fans? Well, as additions to the diorama get made you know I’ll record them here, because the fun never stops at DRAG CITY!
You were buying salad dressing? I remember you lack of love for greens in the past! 🙂 Bud, you are only human and I would have bought these as well. I have a fondness for those International vehicles too and always thought they were way cool! It’s funny how you can find cool stuff in the oddest places. I’ve bought several interesting cars from a cardboard stand in a corner of our local Dollar General! These necessary purchases were well made and I look forward to seeing what you do with them!