As today is Land of the Rising Sun-day and a Tomica day in my rotation, also a part of LaLD ///May, this one is perfect. This is Tomica F43-1, the BMW 320i (E21) Alpina. This casting entered the range in December 1980, and is something you don’t see every day:
One may recall I reviewed a similar blue car some time ago:
In many ways this is the same casting, but different. This has a different number, and of course, different colors. Scale is claimed to be 1:62, likely accurate. As it is a golden age Tomica, there is abundant casting detail, and I think the greenhouse/roof proportion looks slightly too short. No matter, the cool Alpina tampo makes up for it a million times over. Of course, this model features the crisp glazing, snappy door action, and springy suspension we known and love about old Tomica. Apparently all Alpina variants of this casting have button wheels, too bad they didn’t use the wide wheels, which I think would look amazing. From all angles, this is a nice model of an obscure car:
Doors open to reveal a detailed interior and accurate steering wheel:
Front and rear have similar qualities:
The base is metal, which adds heft, and contains ample detail:
This casting is lucky enough to live in its nice original F series box:
I am definitely pleased to have this in my collection. I bought this from the local collector who has sold me models in the past, and was happy to make the deal. It’s a cool piece of an era when many tuners were in the market:
1:1 images from pinterest and dataraba.com:
