[HAWL] Tomica Toyota Alphard

When I was in Hong Kong, I was surrounded by Diecast stores and while my dad couldn’t pull the trigger on purchasing a $600 1/43 Ferrari F40 model (his diecast mission is to buy every F40 he sees.) Tomicas however are a lot more reasonable.

It’s really hard to start a collection, especially after having 300 Hot Wheels in just 3 years of college, I’ve begun slowly cutting down on my purchases. Like buying only the castings I already have but in different colors, only new castings, only Japanese and German cars. So I had to come up with a rule for collecting Tomica, and I decided I’m only going to collect Toyota Alphards.

This is like near holy grail level for me and after buying this, I went to a collectibles show and I just couldn’t buy any other Hot Wheels. I just like how many more real world models Tomica has.

Quality: 6/10 It’s still an amazing casting. But compared to the Toyota Crown in the background which I’ve had for over 13 years now that I brought with me when I first came from Hong Kong to the US, the paint is a little less shiny, the door that slides is plastic while the door that opens on the Crown is metal.

I bought only one of each of the other ones since the #78 one is the only one I really love and wanted to open and bring with me everywhere with my Crown. I just realized I accidentally bought a Veilfire (Alphard’s sporty cousin at the bottom of that stack) thinking it was an Alphard, but that rear sliding door looks much better color matched than my Alphard. They also make the new Veilfire, I just didn’t get it.

So all in all, great casting. I will definitely continue looking for Alphards whenever I go home to Hong Kong.

Also eagle-eyed people may see the Yellow Submarine in the back. I saw it for $55 HKD which is about $6 USD. Had to buy it seeing it was like $50 USD on EBay at one point and I have a friend who just LOVES the Beatles.

ALSO Hot Wheels in Hong Kong are like 6 to 7 times as expensive and that doesn’t include the further increase on Exclusives like Gran Turismo and Mustang editions (based on Toys R Us and hobby shop prices.)

Thanks for Reading!