TOMICA

NEW STUFF from JAPAN

TOMICA

Here are a couple of Tomica from Amazon.co.jp. These are part of the TOMICA PLA KIDS series.
By the way, the "PLA" stands for PLASTIC, so PLA KIDS means "PLASTIC KIDS"
They were ¥630 each.

TOYOTA CROWN
POLICE CAR

TOYOTA COROLLA AXIO
ALSOK TOTAL SECURITY RIOT CONTROL CAR

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MINICHAMPS

NEW STUFF from EUROPE

Not long ago one of my European friends, Agent P, sent me an email telling me about a Minichamps car - Toyota FT-HS Concept -  for sale on German eBay. Agent P likes to collect concept cars, so he bought one of these Minichamps for himself. It turned out that the seller had more for sale, and so I asked Agent P if he could get me one also. Without any trouble, Agent P was able to get me a model and mailed it to me soon afterward. As it turns out, the German seller works at a Toyota dealership, and these minicars were, or are, available from Toyota dealers in Germany and perhaps other European countries. Agent P recently found out from a Toyota employee from Austria, that these cars were not available in that country.

There was one odd thing about these cars; they had no labels on the box - the box carries no model identification, i.e. no barcode, no name of the car, no catalogue number. Agent P decided to contact Minichamps with little hope in actually hearing back from them. However, much to his surprise he did hear back from them. What he learned was that Minichamps produced this concept car exclusively for Toyota and the item number was 403 166723. Apparently Toyota ordered 10,000 pieces, however Minichamps had no idea what Toyota did with that many cars, but Minichamps did say that 10,000 cars was normally too much for only one country.

MINICHAMPS
TOYOTA FT-HS CONCEPT
item number 403 166723

Now, after all this I learned a little more trivia. The FT-HS was designed by CALTY DESIGN RESEARCH. Calty Design is one of the North American design offices for Toyota, and is located in Newport Beach, California. What was even more surprising is what I learned next: The actual concept car was built by a company called 5 AXIS - which is located in the same city where I live - Huntington Beach, California! 5 AXIS does a lot of stuff for Toyota, and has created a number of custom vehicles for Toyota, Lexus, and especially Scion. To date they have built 3 concept vehicles, including the Toyota FT-HS, and Scion FUSE and t2B.

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AUTOART

NEW STUFF from the USA

AUTOart

TOYOTA SPRINTER TRUENO GT APEX (AE86)
item no. 78791 (white)
This is a 1:18 scale model - I don't usually buy 1:18 scale models because of the price which is normally close to $100, but I just had to get one of these cars. What convinced me to really get the car was the fact that Replicarz was selling this car for only $55 and they were having a 10% discount, which brought the price down to $49.50! That's less than some high end 1:43 scale models I've bought! This is a nice model, as are most AUTOart models. The details are excellent, with retractable headlights, opening doors, hood and hatch.  This model is also available in red.

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TOMICA

NEW STUFF from JAPAN

TOMICA

REGULAR TOMICA

No. 5 TOYOTA LAND CRUISER (released June 2008)

SPECIAL TOMICA

AEON - INVESTIGATIVE PATROL CAR COLLECTION - No. 1 TOYOTA CROWN

ITO YOKADO - RACE CAR COLLECTION - No. 1 TOYOTA 2000GT

INDIANA JONES LAND CRUISER (released July 2008)

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Data

30,000 HITS

We reached the 30,000 hit mark this past weekend, but I wasn't paying attention at the time! Thanks again to everyone visiting Toyotageek's Garage. Visitorship has been steadily increasing. The last time it took about one year to get 10,000 visitor hits, but this time it only took about 7 months!

Visiting countries include the United States, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Finland, Singapore, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Portugal, Poland, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Sweden, Russian Federation, Greece, South Africa, Pakistan, Jamaica, Turkey, Norway, Belgium, Lebanon, Chile, Brazil, Peru... and more (sorry if I forgot your country, but that's all the records show at the moment. One day I'll compile a list of all visiting countries)! It's great to know that there are Toyotageeks all around the world!

Thank you!

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