“Sour Cherries” – MotorMax Brings Back the MALAISE in 1:64 (Well…Sort of…)

“Shout when ya wanna get off the ride, cuz ya crossed my mind, ya crossed my mind…”

Here am I being “Johnny Come Lately” again, blogging about something most other die-cast collectors were probably over a decade ago, as if it were some new discovery. Well, not entirely; I do remember seeing these “Fresh Cherries” cars for sale in stores myself that long ago, and my reaction was probably the same as yours: “who would want a model of that?” Ah, but the times, they are a changin’, eh, dear readers? If you’re anywhere near my age and grew up in the “malaise era” loving the cars of the ‘50s and ‘60s, did you ever think you would see the day when some of these awful cars are actually considered classics?

That, of course, was years before I had a sprawling 1:64 diorama in my basement on which I’m striving for realsm in representing a specific period of time! Now that I do, I decided to revisit these pieces, and I was a little surprised at what I found; either they are out of production, or they are extremely popular, or both, because they are now amazingly expensive! Paying over $20 for a 1:64 model of a Gremlin?? Talk about adding insult to injury!

Let’s back up a bit and start with exactly who-or what-“MotorMax” is. Because…I don’t know! Originally I thought this was probably an offshoot of the M2 brand, because they look to be about the same size…which is to say: too big to be called 1:64. I’ll come back to that issue in a moment, but it is interesting that in my research about the background of these models, I did come up with a factory ad that claims they are 1:60, which is probably a lot closer to the truth!

So, I guess MotorMax is NOT an offshoot of the company that makes M2. A while ago I read that some of the original Yatming castings were being remade by this brand, so I thought there was some relationship there. There may yet be, but so far the most authoritative information I’ve found is that MotorMax is an imprint of Red Box Toy Company of Hong Kong, and that company took over (amongst other things, possibly) most of the remaining dies that used to belong to Zylmex! So then, maybe not Yatming, but another cut-rate producer of die-cast toy cars we Gen-X’ers likely remember from our chile-hoods.

MotorMax has made model cars in scales from 1:87 all the way up to 1:18, and their bigger models are very detailed. I haven’t bought any and won’t because I don’t collect those scales, but I couldn’t resist picking up a couple of the 1:87 models, because although they are useless to me as diorama pieces, they are affordable and nicely detailed, and I was floored to find that anyone had actually made a model of a mid-‘80s Ford Tempo! How I WISH I could get these cars in 1:64!

So then, back to the 1:64 cars…or is it 1:60? That’s probably closer, because the two recent purchases I made seem to come in at that, or larger. Shocked by the prices of these things on the collectors sites when I remember passing them up at Walmart for $3.99, I was only willing to acquire a couple, and chose two models of cars I remember well from my boyhood: an AMC Hornet hatchback and a Chevy Chevette. And I will concede, they are very detailed, very nice models! The build quality perhaps isn’t the best I’ve seen, but hey, doesn’t that just make them even more realistic models of the cars of the 1970s and early 80s? 😀 The American industry was at its worst in those years (although I’m not sure things aren’t even worse right now, but that’s another rant) which makes me think the term “Fresh Cherries,” while “cute,” is a little off. “Sour Cherries” is more like it: these are the cars that made Japanese imports so popular in North America, and they epitomize the term “malaise era.”

“Make my blood thump 7-8-9,

Make my heart beat double-time

Now I’m the only sour cherry on the fruit stand, right?

Am I the only sour cherry on the fruit stand?”

I like them well enough, but I probably won’t be buying any more, because as you can see in comparison to a couple of Auto World’s “True 1:64” models, they are too big; they can’t coexist on my diorama with my other cars.

So, that kinda brings a sudden halt to this new avenue of inquiry! Only a couple of days ago I did post about Majorette models of the ’80s, and mentioned that even as a kid the scale was my complaint about those cars, and more recently I went on a tear toward Johnny Lightning when an awesome MGB racer they issued that I was all excited about turned out to be WAAAAY bigger than 1:64, and could never be put on the diorama. Again, I have to ask: what’s going on, dear readers and fellow scale modelers? Why are so many die-cast makers slowly and surely increasing the size of their models? Road Champs, M2, Jada, and Greenlight are all making cars too big for a 1:64 layout, and lately even JL and some of the premium Hot Wheels are growing in size! That’s really a shame, because a lot of these are beautiful models! But, it is my vintage Matchbox collection and my Auto World Thunderjets that set the scale, and while I do a LOT of “fudging” when it comes to scale, you can only “fudge” so much.

It’s a shame, because it would have been really cool having a couple of these terrible 70’s cars on my diorama for the realism! The Pinto, the Pacer, the Maverick, even the heinous “Mustang II,” could all have their place in my little mid-80’s scale model world. They even made a 1980 Chrysler wagon with faux wood paneling that I would love to add to my street! But alas…’tis not to be.

There is one more I that I simply must have, though; the ’75 AMC Matador coupe! I can’t pass that one up! As soon as I find one at a price I’m willing to pay, I’m grabbing it, no matter what the scale! Even so, I am curious: are these “Fresh Cherries” models out of production? Can anyone tell me for sure?