LOONEY TUNES - PRO RACERS - DAFFY DINNER #13 MINIATURE RACE TRUCK

 

 This is easily the best of the six Looney Tune pro racers. Daffy comes on top of a green and purple off road racing ute. He spins 360 degree around so you can pose him however you like including looking like he is holding onto the roof and top of the windshield. He is sort of in a high diver's stance so you can use him in other displays as well as with the vehicle. Shop here

LOONEY TUNES - PRO RACERS - ROAD RUNNER #2 MINIATURE CAR

 

 The Looney Tune Pro Racer series is a pretty nice and still reasonably priced series of TV related Matchbox vehicles to collect. You can get five characters in six different vehicles. As well as this dragster Road Runner car you get Daffy Duck clinging onto a ute, Bugs Bunny comes in two cars, a carrot themed older style racing car, as well as a Nascar one which is very similar to the Wile E. Coyote flying through the front window after not wearing a seatbelt Nascar one. The carrot themed one is much better where he is holding a flag. You've also got Taz on a sprint car. All characters are plastic and do rotate slightly. The cars are of course like all Matchbox vehicles, die-cast metal. 

Roadrunner is sponsored by Bird Seed Company, written on the right side of the car before the number 2. From the left side the sponsor is also there but it's hard to read on the rear boot side. This sponsor means coyotes will have to come up with something else to use as bait to get roadrunner to stop in the middle of the road for him to pull a rope and make an anvil fall on him. Also sponsoring the boot (trunk) with their name in capital letters is ACME TAR & FEATHER CO. Sagebrush Headers is also a word sponsor on each side of the car, don't really get the joke of that one. 

The car has a massive silver oversized motor, it is impossible for a driver to see out the windshield with this motor so luckily this team found roadrunner with his long neck who can poke his neck through a hole in the windshield and still see. There is also a hole in the rear window for his tail. The head and tail are made of rubber and are pretty flexible, however they would easily be pulled out if a child or someone decided to carry the car around by either instead of picking up the whole car. 

This isn't the best car of the series but it is the hardest to track down.--James N Simpson Shop here

DUKES OF HAZZARD #12 MOLLY HARGROVE'S PLYMOUTH ROAD RUNNER

 The third Dukes of Hazzard release series brings die-cast collectors and fans of the TV show Molly Hargrove's Plymouth Runner. Now I've got to be honest it's been a while since I've seen this show and I don't remember much about this vehicle other than Daisy drove it when she got a job at a racetrack and I'm pretty sure Molly Hargrove was an ex professional race car driver when she was younger or something so Daisy is going to be her protégé or something. I don't remember and that's the thing, Johnny Lightning really should have provided a brief synopsis somewhere on the packaging, explaining about this car and what episode/s it appeared in. Also maybe the bonus sticker could have been a bit more relevant in telling the story. I mean obviously Daisy is in a racing suit and it's likely the same one she wore when driving this car but why not have a picture of her getting into this car or sitting on it rather than the General Lee? This is by no means a unique problem with just this vehicle, there are many spread over the six (at time of this review) Dukes of Hazzard releases where a similar reliance on memory is needed. 

Oh and what's with the orange engine? Granted I admit I don't recall the episode in detail but I'm pretty sure it had a normal coloured engine if we got to see it at all. 

Release 3 also brought some of the other most popular (thereby hard to find now) vehicles of the six releases (so far at time of this review). They were the most similar to actual used in TV show General Lee, Double Zero Mustang (popular by collectors who don't even like Dukes of Hazzard), Uncle Jesse's Chevy Ute and Eno's Racing Car (popular in no small part to the sticker of the Enos in uniform and hound). Six vehicles made up release 3 and the other one was the Finchburg County Sherriff (red and white) police car. 

Release 3 kept the brilliant innovation of the packaging from release 2 where you can view the vehicle in the packet from all six sides including through the back of the blister pack. Unfortunately though Johnny Lightning did away with the bonus magnet and replaced it with a sticker instead. However they kept the same rectangle format that was much more popular than the cut around the characters way they did with series 1. So there's no difference in viewing the sticker to the magnet if kept in the packaging but obviously a magnet does not bend and droop over time like a sticker does standing behind the car on display. The sticker with this one is as mentioned Beau, Daisy and Luke sitting on the bonnet (hood) of the General Lee. 

Like all Dukes of Hazzard Johnny Lightning vehicles, the normal cardboard backing with a small plastic blister has been replaced by the whole thing being entombed in plastic. I like this as it certainly ensures if you are a keeper in packaging type person that it stays in great condition, even if you buy it online and it comes through the post. My only criticism is they could reduce the top part in size (above sticker) as it would then fit on more smaller shelves in people's houses to display it.--James N Simpson Shop here

CORGI CLASSIC - ELVIS THUNDERBIRD WITH FIGURE IN 1998

In 1998 Corgi Classics introduced the "Elvis" model which contained a diecast figure of Elvis in his white suit, sitting & strumming a guitar. Shop here

CORGI 1/36 ONLY FOOLS & HORSES RELIANT REGAL VAN

In incredible 25 million viewers watched the swansong of "Only Fools and Horses" on the BBC at Christmas 1996, breaking the BBC's previous audience records. First screened in 1981, John Sullivan's saga of the Trotter family began with their life with granddad in Nelson Mandela House and developed the story of Del, Rodney and their family's rocky path to a business empire, marriage and children and in the process becoming one of the BBC's most successful comedy series ever. 

This 1:36 scale die cast model of Del Boys battered Reliant Van features full body decoration including; furry dice, "tax in post" sticker, suitcase and opening side and rear doors. Shop here