About as near as i will get to owning one.....!

[ALFAitalia]

Bought this today....bizarrely its part of the Turbo cars collection, despite being a 6.0 NA V8! One of my favourite cars of all time.....385 horses was quite a few back then in 1989.
Normally I only collect HW US muscle cars from 65 to 74....but could not resist this in Poundland!

This is the real one...obviously!

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Very fine motors.

But I'll take standard spec like Nigel Mansell's. ( Later owned by Brian Sewell and featured in his Italian tour documentary )

His was LHD because he used it to drive to the European racing circuits "back in the day."

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[Petrol Pete]

Oh no !, not another HW nut . Whenever I work in the USA (quite often recently) a certain family member has me spending time in Walmart , Target , DollarGeneral and any other HW outlet they can find online searching for the 'Holy Grail' .

I spent a nervous time touring a less than salubrious area of Portland Oregon to find a HW specialist on the hunt for 'Treasure' . Turns out it was in the backroom of a used car dealership across from the gas station . The one in California was a bit less intimidating . But all Greek to me . Absolutely no idea what I was looking at (buying) thankfully we were both working night shifts 8 time zones apart so some sensible purchase were made.

It's odd mooching about in the toy area of WalMart USA just to see middle aged men doing exactly the same thing ...not a kid in sight . ALFA , I kind of get it.

But when I were a boy Hot Wheels were made to be destroyed during play , I suppose thats why some of them are so bloody valuable these days.

Here are some of the places I had to frequent 'by order' of the Hot wheel nut in our household. I bought a fair few (probably near 100) back with me to the UK over the last few years.



Dodgy looking place Portland Oregon FULL (thousands) of hot wheels in the back room Much nicer place (California) + my $hit box red rental car

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

For folks living outside of London, there are some great bargains around....

What a motor..... Findanother !!!

 

[Petrol Pete]

Got plenty internal photos of these Hot wheels emporiums , the one on Wilma is apparently well known in the HW community . I was in there one day and the owner was doing a live vending machine auction worldwide online being filmed.

It would appear HW nuts (my term) had bid on getting a chance to push the button on the (real right in front of me) HW vending machine , the winner would then witness two kids (I guess the owners kids) push whatever buttons the winner asked for and whatever hot wheel dropped out was their prize.

From what I could gather (knowing sweet FA about Hot Wheels) the prizes were pretty good . Quite an eye opener to someone who used to shoot at his HW cars with an air rifle as the zoomed down the plastic orange track .

'Zoomed' as in going fast , as apposed to Zoomed as in Covid... for all of our younger listeners.







Happy days