Batcopter - Corgi Jr.

Here is the die-cast Batcopter released by the British company Corgi Jr. in 1978. I have previously posted about several other Corgi toy cars including the Batmobile. All these little matchbox sized cars were given to me by an older kid up the street who had outgrown them. They were well used when I got them, but I always treated them well. I was really into Super Heroes and tried to keep these from getting any more scratched up.

The main body of the Batcopter is die-cast metal painted black. The rotor blades, interior and skids are made from a reddish/orange plastic. The tail rotor is missing it's blades and the main body is missing a sticker with a red Batsymbol and the word 'Batman'.

I always thought it was really cool that the main rotor blades were shaped like long and skinny bat wings.

80's Ads (Toys and More)

Going through the files on an old hard drive I found some old ads I scanned to post on an old website I used to write for. I love these things. I hope you guys enjoy them. All of these were in some very old newspapers stored in the finishing room of the woodshop of the high school where work. I founds them during my first year as a teacher and brought them home to scan. I posted a few other ads a while back.

Hasbro Cops ('n' Crooks) Figures - Sundown, Barricade, Dr. Badvibes, and Big Boss.

Kenner Bone Age - I never had any of these dino skeletons as a kid.

 Children's Gift Slippers featuring Tonka, GI Joe, and Alf!

Power Wheels Battery-Operated Ride-Ons - Check out the GI Joe Tracker. It's a trike.

Moon Boots! Napoleon Dynamite eat your heart out.

Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set and Games

Mattel Hot Wheels Color Racers - I had this set of three color change cars.

Hasbro GI Joe Battle Force 2000 - I actually posted these two ads before, but since these scans were nicer I'm re-posting them.

Mega Bloks Cars packed in Cereal

I was in the grocery store a week or so ago and couldn't believe that there was a prize packaged in a box of cereal. So I picked up three boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios. I ended up getting one black car and two of the white car. Each car is packaged with a sheet of stickers that allows you to decorate them as either Power Rangers Super Mega Force cars or Hello Kitty Cars.

Each of the Mega Bloks cars are made up of three pieces that can be mixed and matched. These pieces can also be combined with any other compatible building blocks you may own.

For more details check out my review below.

Optimus Prime - toy truck

during the merchandising blitz for the first Transformers movie, Hasbro released some Hot Wheels like toy cars of some of the Transformers in car mode. Here is Optimus Prime as a blue and red tractor trailer truck. The vehicle is pretty much all plastic, not metal like most toy cars of this scale.

If you flip the truck over you can see that Prime's robot mode is sculpted on the bottom. I guess a kid could pretend he transformed. It's kind of lame but oh well. I think I bought this toy at Five Below.

Matchbox Track Burners Puffy Stickers

Back in the day, everything had a line of puffy stickers, and Matchbox cars were no different. I got a pretty large set of stickers as a kid. Many of them ended up in my sticker book (those are photographed and contained in the post. I gave a few away to friends as a kid and to this day there is one I gave my Dad stuck on his tool box. My interest in cars died off when I stopped playing with Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars... so I can't elaborate to much on these stickers.

 Sticker Set Title Sticker, Chevy Pro Stocker, CorvetteT Roof, IMSA Mazda, and Maxi Taxi

 Porsche Turbo, Ford Sierra XR41, Audi Quatro

This Audi isn't exactly the same as the sticker, 

but as a kid I thought it was cool to have matching stickers and cars.

 

 IMSA Mustang

IMSA Mustang Matchbox Car

 

'57 T Bird, BMW M1, and Red Rider

 

Good Vibrations and Dodge Challenger

 

 Good Vibration Matchbox Car

 Orange Peel

Sun Burner and Formula Racer

 Cosmic Blues

You can see that the cars were well loved. The paint is especially worn on the Sunkist Car.

'89 Batmobile - Ertl

I recently re-watched the '89 Tim Burton Batman film and so I decided to post about this die-cast toy. I've always thought this Batmobile was bad ass. I had various toys based on this design as a kid in different scales. Ertl put out this die-cast car, but it always seemed just a little to big to mix in with my Hot Wheels  and Matchbox cars. So it was kind of hard to find other cars to use with it. I also always thought it was a little odd that they had to add the non-movie accurate bat-symbol on the roof. This Batmobile is a super .low-rider. I'm kind of amazed it didn't scrape bottom going over the hills to the Batcave.

Back to the Future Time Machine

About a year ago, the Hotwheels DeLorean Time Machine hit the shelves at the local Toy 'R' Us. I'm not really a toy car collector, but I do love Pop Culture cars. I also love the Back to the Future Trillogy. I had Part II taped off TV when I was in Middle School and watched it quite a few times. So I ended up buy two. One to open and one to keep sealed.

In High School, my German Teacher had a copy of Part I dubbed in German. I enjoyed getting to watch BttF in school. She also showed us a lot of 90's American TV shows dubbed in German, like Mad about You, Seinfeld, and The Simpsons.

This little DeLorean toy represents the Time Machine from Part I. There is no Mr. Fusion sculpted on the rear. The car is nicely detail, but it's too bad the doors don't flip open. That would just take the cake.

Retro Con Car Show

Another cool feature of Retro Con 2013 was the (Pop Culture) Car Show. The only thing missing was a Batmobile. There was a Back to the Future Time Machine inside the Expo Center parked by the Tardis instead of outside with the other cars.

Scooby Doo - Mystery Machine

Jurassic Pack - Jeep

 Knight Rider - KITT

Bubble Bee next to Starsky & Hutch

KITT and the General Lee

The General Lee and Daisy Duke's Car from Dukes of Hazzard

 

The Sheriff of Hazzard County's Car

General Lee - Ertl

This is a 1981 General Lee replica car by Ertl. This car is in scale with other popular small die-cast cars like Matchbox and Hot Wheels. I received the famous Duke of Hazards car from a neighbor hood kid who gave me his toy cars when he outgrew them.

This bright orange car has some scuffs on if from both of our childhoods. The roof sticker is a little worn around the edges. The Confederate Flag is still pretty clean, but the words General Lee are rubbing off. Both doors still feature the racing number 01. The car sits very low to the ground. I had a lot of fun with this car as a kid.

Tasmanian Devil Motorcycle - Ertl 1989

This die cast motorcycle was released by Ertl in 1989. The red motorcycle is being ridden by a plastic Tasmanian Devil. He's wearing a biker helmet, but is not holding on to the bike at all. The bike also features a decal that says "Tasmanian Devil". I bought this at a year sale as a kid when I was collecting Taz toys. The sculpt of Taz is kind of so-so. His face is a little smashed looking. I think it's funny that his legs go into the motorcycle instead of straddling the bike.

Wonder Woman Car - Corgi

I have previously posted about other 1979 Corgi Die Cast Cars featuring DC Superheroes. Today's car features Wonder Woman. She's not real attractive I might add. This orange convertible holds a seated (torso up) Wonder Woman figure and has a sticker resembling her outfit.

 The sticker as well as the orange paint show some wear, but it's it pretty good shape for a toy of it's vintage. My neighbor gave me this car as a kid and it's been in my collection ever since.

 It's a pretty cool car. I'd love to see it painted differently with a better looking figure of just about anyone riding in it. I also think it's kind of funny that Wonder Woman is so large and her car only has one seat.

60's Batmobile - Corgi

In honor of the resent sale of George Barris' original Batmobile I decided to post my 1960's style Corgi Batmobile. This small scale car was the first Batmobile toy I ever owned. It came in a big case full of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars a boy up the street gave me when he out grew his toys. I had a lot of fun playing with it along with some other Corgi Super Hero cars from my neighbor.

The Batmobile is all black with a red interior. It features a translucent blue bubble windshield and an unpainted Batman driver. The car also has a small bat sticker on the back behind the vertical smoke stacks. This one has seen a lot of play and so the paint has been chipped, but all the little features like the sticker and windshield are still in-tacked.

Corgi produced this car from 1976-1983. They also made a very popular version in a larger scale that featured  miniature Batman & Robin figures inside. The lager one also had a tow hook that could pull a Batboat on trailer.

Flintstones Car (Flintmobile) - Hot Wheels

The Flintmobile was a mail away promotion in the mid-1990's. This unique Hot Wheels car was available through Pebbles Cereal. For about 30 years all the Middle School kids at the school I work at made wooden Flintstones Cars in wood shop. I had the kids make them my first year there, but then changed the project to something a little more mature and useful. From time to time we still crank out a Flintstones Car or two. Usually it's because a kids older sibling made one or we sometimes make a few for our holiday toy drive. When I saw this car at a yard sale I had to get it.