What the f**k have I been up to?

It's been more than a year. Priorities have changed and my taste in collections has changed. A bit.

So, what has kept me busy during the past 18 months? These

It all started with trying to get Matchbox and Hot Wheels versions of the Volkswagen I'm most crazy for -- the VW Type 181. Call it the Kurierwagen, the Trekker, the Safari, or the Thing. Back during my high school days, I was lucky enough to have driven one that was owned by a very good friend. May God bless your soul, Beng.

The want to get them all turned into an urge. The urge turned into an obsession. So I turned to the toy stores.

The Hot Wheels (and some Matchbox) versions were easy to acquire off the pegs.

Getting two variants made by Matchbox was a bit more challenging. Luckily, I found the zebra and red (Lesney) editions being sold by a nice chap from one of the local die-cast forums.

The pearl-white variant from the 2011 Matchbox VW Classics 5-pack was a given due to it's recent release:

So was the HW Boulevard Series release (shown below with a Johnny Lightning one), since it was just released last year:

I got so into it that I grabbed another Johnny Lightning Thing.

That's not all. I'm still in the process of finalizing a sale and getting Jada V-Dub 1/64 versions.

However, until now, I'm still looking for the one significant variant that's missing from my MBX/HW collection -- the green Matchbox VW Thing from the 2008 10-pack. I let one being offered in eBay slip by a few months ago, and I still can't forgive myself for doing so. If you've got one, and are willing to part with it, kindly drop me a message (arnelmanlises @ yahoo . com) and I'd be more than willing to work things out.

Here's a pic of the Thing (excuse the pun) I'm desperately looking for:

Pic borrowed from http://www.freewebs.com/71westfalia/vwmatchboxthingghia.htm

Maybe you're wondering how come it took me 1.5 years to snag the 8 variants from Matchbox and 6 from Hot Wheels. Well, here's the great part -- it wasn't only VW Type 181s that I went after. But that's for another blog post. :D

See you all next year! ^_^

Shell and Ferrari

The partnership of these two go such a long way back that they are practically brothers on and off the track.

This post is more than a quarter-of-a-year late — hey, my posts are still trying to catch up with my collection — but I'm still gonna write it anyway, and you are reading it anyway. ^_^

I actually had no intention in getting any among the Ferrari-licensed 1:38 model line since they were practically the same with the earlier set I acquired, except for the addition of a dumb-remotely-controlling function that enables one to pre-program a set of movements that the pull-back toy will follow. But when my wife gave me 4 cars, I had no choice but to get the remaining 2 in order to complete the set. Yeah, talk about OCD. Besides, I'm still quite a Ferrari fan, so what the heck.

The 2010 line-up is as follows (seen in the photo above from top to bottom, left to right):

• Ferrari F2008
• Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano
• Ferrari 612 Scaglietti
• Ferrari 430 Scuderia
• Ferrari FXX Evoluzione
• Ferrari 360 GTC

I still haven't gotten them out of their respective boxes, though.

Shell releases model cars like these roughly about once every year, so I'm willing to bet that another set will see the light of day before the year ends; and just to satisfy the completist nature of small-time collectors such as myself, I would have to get the entire set. Again.

I just hope that they include the Ferrari 458 Italia just to make things a bit interesting —

On a side note, if the red Ferrari in the Transformers: Dark of the Moon movie is indeed Hot Rod, I wouldn't bash Michael Bay nor any of his movies again. Ever. Or at least I would try my hardest not to.

Edit: It turns out that the Ferrari isn't Hot Rod. It's Mirage. ^_^

Click the thumbnails below for larger images in my Flickr.

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Cavallino Rampante

I do not patronize Shell products. It doesn't even catch the minutest of my attention... unless its logo is slapped on the side of Ferrari's Formula One car. The only times I go to Shell service stations are when I bring my dad's SUV in for a re-fill of diesel... and that's about it. Yes, I'm a Petron Blaze-kinda-guy.

The last Holy Weekend, however, was different. My fiancee and I were gearing up for some 372 miles of journey up north to the Church of Manaoag, SBMA, and back to Manila. That would roughly equate to around USD52.00 of high-octane fuel. And, this time, Shell was offering official Ferrari-licensed model cars on a 1:38 scale at less than USD2.00 each (if one gets USD10.00 worth of petrol.) Hmmmm... not a bad deal, I thought.

There were seven cars available -- the Fiorano, the 250 GTO, the F40, the 360, the F430, the FXX, and the 575.

After 350+ miles, I've already had five of them cars... and, after a quick re-fill last night, I've already completed the lot.

Shell's April offering of Ferrari 1:38 scale model cars

I getting some more for the vroom-vroom-loving nephew of my fiancee.

And oh, by the way, these are pull-back cars which make engine noises (via batteries and speakers, I suppose) when turned on. Cool! ^_^

Trivia buffs, click here.