Table of contents for Spring 2020 in Die Cast X

In the weeks leading up to this issue I had been consumed with a mix of anticipation and trepidation about the release of the film Ford v Ferrari. Anticipation, because if ever there was a story that had the ingredients to make the great racing movie, this was the one. Trepidation, because when it comes to racing Hollywood seldom seems to get it right. This time, however, they did! And as I contemplated why this film worked so well, it dawned on me that it wasn’t actually the racing—it was the rivalry. Whether it is dramatized racing on the big screen or real racing on Sunday, the built-in motivations and heightened tension of a good rivalry distills that which is best about motorsports. And just like that I knew the…

One of the biggest rivalries in all of racing history has just roared onto the big screen. The film is Ford v Ferrari, and not since Steve McQueen’s classic Le Mans nearly 50 years ago has there been a film that captures the soul of sports car racing this effectively. Of course it depicts the American manufacturer’s quest during the 1960s to unseat Ferrari as perennial champion of sports car racing’s crown jewel event: the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It features larger-than-life auto-motive icons like Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles, Henry Ford II, Lee Iacocca and Enzo Ferrari, plus plenty of spectacular racing action, intrigue, danger, triumph and tragedy, all set against sports car racing’s most famous race during the sport’s most heroic era. It’s the kind of epic you…

2019 was Charles Leclerc’s first with Ferrari—and only his second in F1 after winning the F2 championship in 2017 and driving for Ferrari’s customer team Alfa Romeo in 2018. For 2019 veteran Kimi Räikkönen and Leclerc swapped seats, jumping into the no. 16 Ferrari SF90 and immediately rewarded the team’s confidence in him with a pole position and a podium finish in only his second start. Those would be the first of seven poles and ten podiums in 2019, which includes a pair of wins. He sits 4th in points, ahead of his 4-time champion teammate (the first time Vettel has ever been out-pointed by a teammate!) Leclerc has mastered the SF90 and has used its power and top speed advantage to win back to back at two of F1’s…

So what is the next chapter in the World’s Fastest Production Car story? 300mph of course! And there is another player to factor in. The Koenigsegg Agera RS fitted with a1-MegaWatt engine upgrade producing 1,360hp when running on E85 fuel and driven by factory driver, Niklas Lilja, achieved five new world records for a production vehicle in November 2017, in Pahrump, Nevada. Among them a new top speed record average of 277.87mph! AUTOart has announced a 1:18 Agera RS to be released in 2020 (pictured above). Bugatti first showed the Veyron’s successor, the Chiron, at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show. It features the same 8.0 litre W16 engine architecture as the Veyron, albeit heavily revised and pushing out a couple hundred more horsepower. AUTOart has recently released it in 1:18…

Ford’s epic campaign to vanquish Ferrari at Le Mans is the stuff automotive heroes are made of. It has just spawned a major motion picture, and plays a large role in the Rivals theme for this issue. It also inspired a generation of American enthusiasts to revere Le Mans in its role as the most prestigious, most difficult, most important endurance race in the world. How that came to be is a complex tale that weaves together many of the most iconic—and colorful—characters in automotive history. While it truly is the perfect story from which to craft a compelling racing movie, a couple hours of screen time only scratches the surface. To get the full account you’d need hundreds of pages of meticulous research, interviews, and technical analysis—and that’s just…

Hollywood has a complicated history with auto racing. Capturing enough detail and authenticity to satisfy hardcore gearheads while still maintaining the interest of general audiences can be especially challenging when it comes to motorsports. Real racing action isn’t about squealing tires and fiery crashes. Races don’t all end in photo finishes with the good guy coming out on top. And yet the huge popularity and inherent drama of motor racing seems irresistible, so filmmakers keep returning to the subject trying to capture the elusive formula on camera. With Ford v Ferrari having succeeded where so many others have failed we thought we’d run down the list of our top 5 other favorite racing movies while contemplate how far up on this list Ford v Ferrari will land. Now, before you…

Anniversary Tribute to a Le Mans Three-peat GT Spirit 2019 Ford GT Heritage Edition 1:18 | $140 Ford created the current Ford GT for one purpose—to recapture a Le Mans win on the 50th anniversary if the GT40’s original 1966 win. But of course GT40s would repeat in 1967, ‘68, and ’69, so anniversary opportunities abound. For 2019 Ford decided to bring the anniversary celebration to the street with a special heritage paint scheme that patterned after the famous Gulf Racing livery GT40 that won Le Mans in ’68 and ’69. The very first Heritage Edition car was donated to the United Way to be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to their charity. The car sold for a staggering $2.5 million—five times the sticker price! It carried special exposed…

As the ultimate victor in the titanic battles at Le Mans from 1966-69, Ford is more than happy to remind you of its legendary GT40 at every opportunity. In fact, that is the very reason that the current Ford GT exists at all. As the 50th anniversary of its original 1966 win approached Ford resolved to remake the GT and return to Sarthe to claim a semicentennial trophy—which it triumphantly did. Whereas Ford clearly looks to its past with the GT, Ferrari would just as soon to let the ghosts of Le Mans lie and focus on the future. That’s what the forward-thinking FXX K does. It is a rolling testbed for both competition and production technologies—with a clever twist. Rather than fund such testing on its own Ferrari has…

I was approached by my good friend Ron Oha who is a member of Diecast Junkies, one of several diecast groups I belong to. He asked me if I’d be able to make a Ford Ranchero for him using a GMP 1966-67 Fairlane as the starting point. Lots of 1965-70 Chevy El Caminos have been made in 1:18 over the years but for some reason no company had made the Ford counterpart. It would definitely be a challenge but I accepted the request and started considering my options. I could have used one of the many El Caminos as a donor for the bed but I wanted to keep it all in the Ford family so instead I decided to use the bed area from the 1957 Ranchero by Road…

It was the late 1960s and the muscle-car craze was reaching a fever pitch. While most manufacturers were focusing on bigger, wilder, more expensive and more attention-grabbing halo models, Plymouth recaptured the original spirit of the muscle car as affordable performance for the youth market with the 1968 introduction of the Road Runner, a budget-speed counterpoint to the upscale GTX introduced the year before—both based on the 2-door intermediate B-body Belvedere. AT A GLANCE MODEL 1971 Dodge Charger R/T Hemi MANUFACTURER Auto World GENRE Classic muscle car SCALE 1:18 PRICE $100 MODEL 1971 Plymouth Road Runner 440-6 MANUFACTURER Auto World GENRE Classic muscle car SCALE 1:18 PRICE $100 WHAT WE LIKE + Authentics tooling delivers added depth+ + Functional suspension and driveshaft highlight an excellent chassis + Feature-packed Hemi is…

Dremel is one of those brand names that has so throroughly dominated its market that it has become synonymous with the category itself—like Kleenex or Velcro. Although the word brand has been genericized to refer to any rotary tool, the ones with “Dremel” officially stenciled on the side have a reputation for quality that has earned them that privileged position. If you spend any time at all customizing or modifying diecast cars then you’re already using a Dremel (official or otherwise) but for intricate work a standard rotary tool can be a bit of overkill, and being tethered by a power cord can be cumbersome. Dremel has a new model that addresses both, and it comes in at a surprisingly affordable price. They call it the Dremel Lite, and it…

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been credited with the phrase “Legends aren’t born; they are built.” Even though he was speaking about his bodybuilding career he might as well have been talking about America’s sport’s car, the Corvette. It was born out of the idea to Americanize the concept of the European sports car. Launched in 1953, it was not the overnight success Chevy hoped for, but humble beginnings make the best legends. The original Vette was not quite comfortable enough for a grand touring car and not sporty enough for the pure performance enthusiast. That all changed in 1955 when Zora Arkus-Duntov persuaded Chevrolet to allow him to install the brand-new small block V-8. Fast-forward 15 years to 1970. Chevrolet introduces the ultimate small-block Vette in the ZR-1 package, which combined…

Rivalries. They’re the underpinnings of car culture. Perhaps they’re based in brand loyalty, styling, raw performance, allegiance to a race team or driver, or maybe it’s something less tangible and harder to define. Whatever inspires it, feeling a connection to a particular car is what sparks your passion. And that passion is heightened when your favored machine has a worthy adversary, one that challenges its virtues and maybe tests your loyalty to it too. After all, a close race is always more exciting! Passion is also what collecting is about. So let’s take a look at some models of cars that have sparked some of the most intense automotive rivalries over the years. We’ll toss in a few racing drivers and a few engines too. MUSCLE MATCHUP: MUSTANG v CAMARO…

As this is being written the Formula 1 traveling circus has just completed the penultimate race of the 2019 season, the Brazilian Grand Prix. Having sewn up his 6th F1 Driver’s title Lewis Hamilton would seem to be in a class of his own, but the action-packed closing laps in Brazil bring into sharp focus just how fierce a rivalry has developed at the sharp end of the F1 grid. AT A GLANCE MODEL Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, and Max Vertappen Formula 1 Racers MANUFACTURER Bburago GENRE Modern F1 Cars SCALE 1:43 PRICE Varies WHAT WE LIKE + Affordable way to collect top F1 teams + Accurate wheels, tires and livery + Ferrari has added detail and driver figure Hamilton dueled with Max Verstappen, swapping the lead back and forth…

Automobile racing has come a long way since its early years and nothing gives us a better barometer of that progress than the way racing stables transport their teams to the track. What started with trucks pulling open trailers with loaded with a single racecar aboard has now evolved into today’s fleet of beautifully turned-out eighteen-wheelers that transform a track’s garage area into a virtual “village” of team personnel and facilities. Besides ferrying the team’s racecars to the venue, these extravagant race transporters bring mobile machine shops, offices, salons for entertaining friends and sponsors, parts warehouses and a whole lot more to support a professional team’s effort to deliver a winning performance. This transformation didn’t happen overnight, however. Teams have gradually but continually upped their game, not only with their…

“Fastest production car in the world” is a claim that nowadays seems to be handed down from one car to another just as soon as the hype is dying down. It all started with the Benz Velo in 1894, which was technically the world’s first production car and so its 12mph top speed held the title by default! Mercedes-Benz would claim it again 60 years later with the 300SL Gullwing—arguably the world’s first production supercar—at 150.7mph. AT A GLANCE MODEL Hennessey Venom GT Spyder MANUFACTURER AUTOart GENRE Modern Supercar SCALE 1:18 PRICE $235 WHAT WE LIKE + Removable targa top yields excellent interior view + Lotus on steroids styling + Industrial intricacy of the twin-turbo V-8 AT A GLANCE MODEL Bugatti Veyron Super Sport World Record Edition MANUFACTURER AUTOart GENRE…

Full disclosure: if you like close competition, photo finishes and championship battles that go down to the wire this may not be the car for you. We wanted to include the new Sox & Martin Pro Stock Barracuda in our rivals theme for this issue. The problem is, it had no rivals! Ronnie Sox so thoroughly dominated the 1971 Pro Stock season that no one else really ever had a chance. There were eight national-level NHRA Pro Stock championship events in ’71. Sox made the final round in six of them, and won every single time. The story was much the same in the IHRA, where he racked up four finals wins out of six events. The Sox & Martin Barracuda stunk up the show so badly that the NHRA…

Mattel’s latest Premium line of Car Culture Team Transports has become one of Hot Wheels fans’ most popular and anticipated releases. From the first Porsche 356 Speedster on the rear of a Volkswagen Transporter T1 Pickup, to the remake of the Legendary Snake and Mongoose Transports, collectors have fallen in love with the authentic scale detail and color of these race haulers and matching race cars. There are 15 different liveries as of this writing, with one additional Limited Edition release produced exclusively for and sold by the American Skateboarding Shop and Clothing brand “Supreme.” Not that it was the best looking or even an actual race team, but the Supreme Team Transport sold out almost instantly despite costing $30—a more than twice the normal $12.95 retail price of the…