(This post was intended for Thursday but did not make it on time)
So what’s the best way for the Dark Knight to remain incognito whether at the Thames or even in Gotham city? Simple, use an everyday car that does not shout big. Even Jason Bourne uses a mini to escape from his pursuer on the first movie. Here is a classic 1/24 Mini Cooper 1300 by Welly.
Most of the Mini Cooper 1/24 die cast I’ve seen were the retro modern kind when BMW took over the company and this classic still British owned at that time came as a surprise while recently browsing at one of our Rite aid stores. If you are not familiar on how they sell these die cast, they are stack on top of each other without boxes and if the model is recently stock, most likely you can acquire it intact.
I have the 60's Mini Cooper with the same color combination made by Matchbox and it looks nice but I have a problem with it as the wheels are way too big. This one has the right balance. The door handles seems to be separate parts but it is not very obvious as there are virtually no gap with the car door.
For a moderate priced casting, this thing has a few individual parts like taillights, headlights, front turn signals, front grill, tag, muffler, side mirror, wipers and bumpers. The rear trunk does not open and the trunk opener/handle is molded to the body. The gas cap is molded with the body and a nice ‘Mini Cooper’ emblem is printed on the rear right side.
However this baby does have opening doors. The interior is mostly black in color. There are stickers on the instrument panels but is hard to tell unless you are viewing straight from the back window.
The steering wheel looks realistic enough. The side windows are probably clear acrylic with photo etched/bare metal used to simulate chrome. The silver trim at the bottom is molded with the body.
The hood does open as well with Batman admiring the engine.
With most non expensive models, the wipers tend to be place in an awkward position but these were placed just right.
This is where Welly saved a few bucks and to get precise two tone color is to have the roof as a separate plastic part instead of metal. However if you were not to touch it, it is difficult to tell.
For a non high end model I will give it 5 out of 5 for quality, 4 out of 5 for detail due to the interior not having any color distinction and the engine having a moderate detail and 5 out of 5 for play value.
I’ve checked ebay and this model is mostly sold by European sellers and just the shipping would eat up most of your purchase price so if you can find one in your Rite Aid, grab it as quickly as you can.