Moving towards the newer Johnny Lightning releases, let’s head over to my 156th post with their latest Muscle Cars USA.
Release now by Round 2, Johnny Lightning die-cast brand was relaunched in January 2016 once again by Thomas Lowe and his Round 2 toy company which also produces the Auto World and Racing Champions brands of die-cast cars. Tom whose previous Playing Mantis company used to release Johnny Lightning has now placed the logo back to the Johnny Lightning packaging.
With JDM being the collectors popular casting, let’s not forget that there are some cool vintage American muscles as well. This 1959 Chevy Impala is a release 1 under their Cars N Coffee theme which pays tribute to the newest car show trends where people gather with their coffee and display their 1:1 cars. This car was also known for it’s teardrop rear tail lights which has been described as “cat’s eyes”.
These newer release now indicates the number of productions but does not indicate the production number underneath the chassis which begs the question is it truly limited?
But wait...
Look who just dropped by.
Another Chevy Impala this time a 1960 model release under the Racing Champions Mint. Although not a fan to most of Racing Champions castings, I really like this due to the casting and the nicely done tow-tone red and white.
This and the 1959 were 2nd generation Impala with some modifications between each year.
But wait, there’s more.
Another red Chevy Impala, this time a 1966 model release under Auto World.
When Auto World was launch, its main marketing was true 1/64 scale which would made each car based on its actual scale and not based on a certain length which most so called 1/64 die cast are based.
The casting used mainly for this brand are the muscle cars. The packaging also comes with a box which you can store your casting like what Matchbox packaging used to be.
This fourth generation Impala began in 1965 till 1970. When this model rolled off the assembly line in 1966, Star Trek premieres on NBC-TV and the US & USSR sign a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons in outer space.
Johnny Lightning release the Cars N Coffee theme as a 3 car set but the other 2 Impala(s) are not part of it. Yet even if the main title is the Johnny Lightning brand, all of them are part of the same parent company Round 2. And what better way to have a die cast Car N Coffee than to show off multiple red Impala(s) under one roof or in this case, garage.
And now let’s have a group and comparison shot.
Which casting do you like better?