[REVIEW] Tomica Ford Mustang II Ghia

Tomica time once again, Land of the Rising Sun-day - but only via the brand of today’s model. Today we look at something as American as possible, a Mustang. This is Tomica F38-1, the Ford Mustang II Ghia. This casting entered the range in January, 1978, and remained until July, 1982. It is a good representation of Tomica quality of this era:

As the 70s were coming to a close, the Pocket Cars brand had become relatively successful in the US. I have no doubt this casting was made to appeal to the American market, and maybe secondly, to those with a penchant for American cars. This textbook example of the malaise era might not have been the American car people were dreaming about, however. The Mustang II is a much-maligned car that many have seen as an example of what went wrong in the 70s - downsized in body and engine, without the raw appeal of cars from a mere decade prior. This casting represents a Ghia variant, which was the luxury trim. Scale is a claimed 1:63, as usual, likely accurate. As expected from Tomica, there is ample fine line casting detail, and proportion is excellent. The matte black paint to simulate a vinyl top is a nice touch. Of course, this casting has the springy suspension, crisp glazing, and snappy door action we know and love from vintage Tomica. From all angles, it is a quality model of a disco era cruiser:

Doors open to reveal a detailed interior and accurate steering wheel:

Front and rear have similar quality, with ample cast-in detail and a nice chrome grille:

The base is plastic, a growing trend of the time, and contains ample technical and identifying detail:

This model lives in an original F-series box, at least for the time being. This box has some kind of store or event sticker on it. I got this box from the local collector who has sold several models to me in the past - he had a pile of empty boxes, of course this caught my attention, and at $5 apiece, I bought several, including this, to which I married an existing loose car. Eventually I think I would like to find a red or brown variant for this box (the casting was never made in blue):

I am pleased to have this model in my collection. As time goes on, I mind the Mustang II less - when I was a kid in the 80s and this was an unloved used car, I thought these were dorky examples of 70s style, but the fastback especially is a pretty nice looking car. The real car sold reasonably well, but as they were unloved later in life, I don’t believe survival rates are high. I believe this casting is relatively common, especially in silver as it was offered as a Pocket Cars, so if you like it, you can have one without going broke:

And a 1:1 in a similar pain scheme from powerful-cars.com, along with a period promo piece from mustangattitude.com: