As I get deeper into collecting outside of my diorama projects, my tastes tend towards nostalgia. I love the 70s Z, so I’ve piled up a ton of those.
But there has never been a more pure case of nostalgia collecting than this:
It’s a Racing Champions (which I guess means Johnny Lightning?) 1977 AMC Pacer. And I suspect the only race it won was the race to the nadir of the US auto industry.
I got this because a family friend had one of these when I was growing up. It was even this color (though I feel like the interior might have been lighter? Hard to say.) Even then I knew it was a silly car from a silly time, but in person it had a weird sort of charismatic presence about it. The odd shape, the curved glass, and so on. I think it may have kindled my fascination with that odd sort of dreary-yet-optimistic 70s futurism.
Malaise cars are a blight upon the land, but they make such wonderful toys.