It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

With a heritage rooted within the James Bond lore, the Aston Martin DBS is one sexy car.

It's a good thing that the Hot Wheels' version lives up to the old inverse adage that art imitates life. With no fuss, no weird nor unnecessary additions, this casting is purely faithful which probably made the British company's designers shriek in school girl delight when they saw the first prototype from Mattel... although I could be wrong.

Why the title? Well, its color reminds me of the shiny blue balls hanging on Christmas trees during the Yuletide season, which incidentally, starts oh so very early in my part of the woods.

The view from the side is this model's most photogenic, in my opinion. Just look at those curves! Have I mentioned that this car is sexy?

Of course a few licks of paint was needed to bring out the details that Hot Wheels is famously notorious for omitting, like tampos for the window trim, tail lamps, side garnishes, and rear emblems to name a few, but such a process is just a minor setback (two hours, tops) in order to make the casting look good when photographed.

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The legend of Godzilla

The legend started with Nissan's Skyline GT-R R32, nicknamed after Japan's monster of a myth, Godzilla. However awesome the R32 was, it all but died down with the fourth generation R33. Even the manga Initial D referenced the BNR33 as "meh". Then, taking a cue from another mythological creature, the phoenix, the R34 finally solidified the Skyline legend to the end.

The next GT-R that Nissan let escape from its bowels was nothing short of amazing, sans the "Skyline" badge. The sky wasn't the limit anymore. 0-60 miles per hour in 2.7 seconds could rocket the sixth-generation GT-R to the stars. Reality check? The world's fastest production car, the Bugatti Veyron, with twice the number of cylinders (16) and turbochargers (4), could only do 0.3 seconds better. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Porsches, with their price tag premiums, could only equal the time.

The sixth-largest automobile manufacturer did everything right with the R35. From the engine to the body styling, it just seemed perfect and worthy of being nicknamed "Godzilla".

On to Tomica's casting. Everything's pretty much in order. The proportions, the details, and the tampos, they're all fine. I just didn't care too much for the basic wheels that Tomica is fitting its models. If a GT-R was fitted with 13-inch wheels, this is how it'll probably look like... which is absurd.

Despite all these, however, I'd still pick its older brother, the R34, over it. For me, the R34 is more brute while being refined at the same time. Which practically means that I love its design more than the R35's.

By the way, a film is due the summer of 2014:

Let's just hope that it actually has a plot.

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Two eggs

Or should I say, two EGs.

Enough of the rant blog posts about diminutive die-cast cars made by blue-chip companies for tens (or hundreds) of thousands of kids and adult collectors. For now, at least.

This time, eyes will be on the beautiful craftsmanship of Tomytec, Takara Tomy's subsidiary which produces highly-detailed road-going vehicles that is the Tomica Limited Vintage line.

I can still remember the package arriving from Japan...

I got so excited that I took a pic at my office while the boxes were still in bubble wraps.

Once I got home, shots were fired...

...and the first time I got hold of one, there was no doubt in my mind that this is how 1/64th-ish die-casts should be produced. I let out a "Whoah!" when I took the black VTi out of its box.

Almost faultless (no rants on this post, remember?). This is how I could describe TLV and TLVN (Tomica Limited Vintage Neo) offerings. With the proper proportions and scaling to the tampo work, they're just glorious things to behold... and to hold... carefully, as these are a bit delicate.

They're definitely not for kids who would basically throw Hot Wheels into walls on a whim.

Going back, more shots ensued, and as a result, here's the black VTi:

And here's the yellow SiR II version:

Having owned a boosted, apple-green-painted EK9 (pic below), I'll always have a place in my heart for Honda Civics, especially the ones from the 4th (EF) up to the 6th (EK) generation.

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No milk needed

It's Friday and it's also time for another black die-cast.

Cayenne peppers are red in color and according to the Scoville scale, they register about 30,000–50,000 units of heat... which isn't that hot at all. They're at par with tabasco pepper as far as the scale is concerned.

If these peppers aren't that hot, then why did Porsche use "cayenne" as a model name? Why not base it on the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper, which basically sends your tongue on a one-way ticket to the netherworld? Hmmm... maybe the Moruga is just too hot.

So why not use names of other pepper princes? Naga Viper pepper? Dodge has got that one. Infinity chilli? Nope. Nissan already got dibs. Bhut Jolokia chili pepper? Nah-uh. Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper? Too horoscopey. Bedfordshire Super Naga? Sounds like worcestershire sauce's long-lost neighbor of 106-plus miles. 7-Pot chili? It might get pulled over so very often by narcs.

Let's go one level of heat lower. The cayenne is not there. Another level. Still not in sight. Three levels further down (this is getting quite frustrating!), but we'd still be disappointed. Four levels displaced from the top and the cayenne's shadow can barely be seen.

The fifth level of heat, not including the top, is where Porsche settled to have the name taken from. The metal namesake looks like this:

Put away the milk.

Finer points

If Tomica could make finer metal flakes in their metallic paint, their models would be more fun to photograph up close.

Their silver die-casts look nice to the eyes, but macro photography reveals flakes that look out of scale with the model's size. The only thing lacking from the current Tomica metallic paint are sparkles when the sun hits the models... something I'm pretty sure that teeny-bopper vampires like Edward would be really proud of. He would wish that instead of rolling around Forks, Washington in that lame Volvo C30, he's inside a 1:1 silver Tomica — like this First Release Special Color Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4.

Vampires love sparkly things... like their skin... bathed in sunlight. Well, except Blade. Blade hates sparkly vampires. I like Blade.

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