Taking a Chance With The Hot Wheels Speed Graphics 5-Pack

Each year, there's a grand total of about two 5-packs worth getting, and they both revolve around the same theme. One is the annual Hot Wheels Exotics 5-pack, usually featuring five of the hottest European sports cars and supercars, with minimal graphics and occasionally the odd stripe or two. The other is Matchbox's version of the Exotics 5-pack, which is similar but with far better castings and more realistic designs. Otherwise, most of these multi-packs are best suited as children's gifts, for the ones who haven't yet reached the age to differentiate good taste from bad taste.

This year, there's a third, and it's this Speed Graphics fiver. There are two particular models in here absolutely worth having regardless of what you collect, and the rest is a toss-up depending on who you're talking to.

I personally like three of these models: the Corvette Grand Sport, Ford GT LM, and the Toyota Supra. Three out of five, for five bucks, is not bad at all. Last week, I took opportunity of Target's 40% off all Hot Wheels promotion on Cartwheel to snatch this quintet for $3, which brought me to a single dollar for each car I intend to keep.

Now that's more like it!

After examining each of these in person, I felt the Corvette was more ho-hum than I had thought. The yellow base is, naturally, hideous, at which point I had to remind myself that Hot Wheels and common sense are not synonymous with each other. The GT, while a bit simplistic, is pretty as always. The Supra really wowed with its bold colors and perfectly suited (and very underrated) Y5 wheels. It's fantastic and my favorite release of the Mark IV to date.

I think I'll keep those two tucked away safely and toss the others in the donation bin.

The Dodge Charger Drift car is merely a shell of its former self.

Love the colors and the livery, but this casting is plain awful.

Hot Wheels designers sure love their yellow bases!

A Titanium Trio: Three Models From M2 Machines' Latest Titanium Series

This just might be M2's best series to date.

It's the Walmart-exclusive Titanium series, and it's exactly what it sounds like - a showcase of some of their strongest and best castings, in the cool metallic color that we all love, finished off with earthy brown interiors. If there's been a better release by M2, I surely haven't seen it in the year-plus that I've been collecting them. Shown here are the '71 Dodge Charger R/T, '70 Ford F-100 Custom, and '58 Chevrolet Apache. Not shown here are the '68 Shelby GT500KR 'vert, '70 Olds 442, and '49 Custom Merc. All six models are well worthy of occupying your dwindling shelf space; these three are the ones that stood out to me the most.

I'd like to thank The Bell King over at LaLD for helping me scoop up a couple of these models, the Charger and the F-series. He is quite the lucky dude, always managing to find the latest releases before the rest of us do. These never saw the light of day in my neck of the woods, and based on the buzz that this series generated, they likely sold out before I could get to them. I did manage to snatch the Apache later on while I was out of town, but that's a different story.

The Charger is obviously my favorite of the group, because Mopar or no car. The '71 also happens to be the best-looking generation, in my opinion, with its sleek body lines compared to the boxier generations of prior (the '69 and '70 are shockingly absent from M2's casting lineup).

A neat little touch that M2 has added to these models is the "Titanium" logo on the front fenders and rear windows of each car. And if you look more closely, you'll see the "22" superscript, denoting the material's atomic number. The geek in me approves.

Seeing Green: Scoring a Greenlight Green Machine Dodge Charger Pursuit

The diecast gods have blessed me with another chase car.

That's two in a week, and suddenly I'm feeling very good about myself.

It's nice to get a reminder of how fun the hunt can be and how essential it is to this hobby. I used to rely solely on my weekly expeditions to the local store to get my diecast fix. Lately, I've resorted to obtaining most of my diecast from the world wide web, as a lot of what I want isn't available around here. But this past week has solidified my long-standing belief that, yes, the hunt is 90% of the fun in collecting diecast. It can be downright frustrating when stores are going through their dry spells, but damn right rewarding when they're overflowing.

So here we have the Green Machine versus the regular release of the 2015 Dodge Charger Pursuit, from the Greenlight Hot Pursuit, Series 19. I found the regular version a week ago, so it's already been liberated. I hate to say this, but I think the Green Machine will stay in its package. It's just way too rare. Too valuable. Like, you know, I could sell this down the line for a fortune and be a rich man.

I hope you realized that was sarcasm, because you know me: I open all of them. No "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s.

I vividly remember the first time I found a Green Machine. I was on the way back home from K-Day, many years ago, and I figured I would stop by Toys"R"Us for a quick peek. And there it was, the Green Machine Chrysler 300C from the Motor World series. It was pastel baby blue, and a casting I would normally have picked up. But I left the store empty-handed.

I can remember this particular event because I had never booked it so quickly to the restroom before, Seeing those vomit-inducing green wheels really gets your stomach turning. I'm glad Greenlight has started doing these Green Machines with the metallic green paint scheme in lieu of those horrendous wheels. It's like what Auto World does with its Ultra Reds, and it looks Greenlight has started figuring things out. Hopefully M2 is next in line, because those chases are just plain awful.

This one was hiding at the end of the rack, covered in shadows. I could barely make out that green paint color, but it was enough for me to instantly realize that something wasn't right. Yanked it off the pegs to confirm my suspicions. It's the first one I have in my collection, and it makes a great pair with the regular release.

Here's hoping for more.