4th runner-up…
as we mentioned a few posts ago, we had a little competition here to design the 2009 catalog cover for maisto. before we start with some of the runner-ups, how about a look at some of the past catalogs. lets start with 2005, the first year of Custom Shop. we used our Playerz brand to show a rendering by r2b2 of the MB S Class
in 2006, we went with a version of the VW Beetle, also from r2b2
for 2007, the mood switched a little bit from custom to stock, with the use of the dodge challenger concept – r2b2 did this one as well…
we showed you before the cover from this year, designed by jose…
so where does that leave us now. well we got a really cool entry from d-mex, like we would expect anything less. kind of a pre-apolyptical image of die-cast emerging from the ground, which is how it happens in the mind of d-mex.
at any rate, probably a little too close to the end of the world for the bosses, but we hope to use it in an upcoming ad somewhere.
that’s it for now, we’ll share a couple more runner-ups wicha over the next month or so, culminating in the unveiling of the 2009 cover in early october.
The Infamous Narco Bros.
Im sure you have all seen the Street Troopers commercial by now, probably a
thousand times courtesy of our friend r h b, “okay guys what are we posting
today? umm just post the street troopers commercial again”, but did you know
that before that commercial was released there existed two previous Street
Troopers teaser films? Indeed, and what’s more interesting is that these
teasers were conceptualized, produced, written, directed and scored by the
infamous Narco Bros.!
Who are the Narco Bros. you ask? They are a duo of talented young die-cast
designers, thinkers, and filmmakers who push the envelope by shunning
corporate rules and in some cases (dress codes). Using their influences of
grindhouse cinema, apocalyptic films, mayhem, giant robots, fast cars,
louder guitars, and classic kung fu flicks, they channel that into all of
their productions on a vast scale. Both are huge fans of every scorcese,
tarantino, robert rodriguez, and gangster flick out there. The Narco Bros.
are also known for working on projects with barely working prototypes and
little to no budget as you will see here in their first two releases, but
for God’s sake please stay tuned, rumor has that they have signed on to work
on a third film! coming to a youtube theater near you, enjoy!
Daily Dose celebrates post #100
thats right ya’all – it’s our 100th post. 60 days for the 1st 50, another 55 days for the 2nd 50. maybe under 50 days for the next 50 – who knows. but hopefully you are enjoying what we are putting out. one thing is for sure – you enjoy the posts by charles – we can tell that from the stats…
what else do the stats tell us – let’s see… there are a LOT of GT-R fans out there. of our top 10 posts, 5 of them are about our series on the making of a die-cast model, which centers on the GT-R. this includes the #1 post
the #2 post kind of blows everyone away – that being the recent
1:87 models…but not from Maisto
there are obviously a lot of train geeks out there.
so what about the next 100, you might ask. we can pretty much guarantee a blockbuster announcement or 2, the fulfillment of our contest promise, a few more gratuitous drops of our street troopers commercial, and for sure more motorcycle coverage.
and if we ever run out of ideas, there is always lunch… thanks for your support. and remember – you can always drop us a private line using the
COMIC-CON 2008!
Once again it’s the annual gathering of the nerds, comic-geeks, superheroes, scantily clad women, and fanboys! This year has been extremely busy for us in the CAPD and only a couple of Maisto heads were able to make it out. I had my lightsaber ready to go, but sadly did not have time to attend this year. I’m sorry, but it looks like you will have to wait till next year to see the “ghetto jedi”. These photos were taken courtesy of Julia. Thanks Julez!
HULK SMASH little nerd boys!!!!
there are some strange characters in this part of the galaxy!
As always, STAR WARS has a huge presence at Comic-Con. Here they are promoting the new animated movie, STAR WARS: The Clone Wars
I’ll get you Han Solo, and your little Wookie Too!!!
Han Solo frozen in Carbonite! AWESOME!
Hello Ladies! …No Mom, really, I just go to see the comics and my favorite artists! My Mom’s picking me up at 5 if you wanna go grab a bite to eat.
a Bat Cycle with sidecar….like Robin’s not cool enough to ride his own bike! HOLY TRAINING WHEELS BATMAN!
Batman…and BARTMAN! I want one!
REVENGE IS COMING!!!
Transformers….More Than Meets The Eye!!! I always wanted this Optimus Prime as a kid, and never got it! DARN YOU Santa Clause, DARN YOU!
vinyl toys are wicked cool, and buffmonster is cooler.
a huge Iron Monger!!! this would be awesome to have in the CAPD, or my living room.
I think comic-con is the only place a dude can walk around with a realistic looking military assault weapon and everyone feels “safe”.
snake eyes is rad, YO JOE!!! GI-JOE the movie drops next year folks! I have been waiting for this one.
I HAVE THE POWER!!!!…….Oh sorry, I can’t touch it?, sorry…
Thanks for the photos Julez!!! You Rock!
Oh yeah, there were also some custom painted cars from the “M-Pire”, but YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THOSE!!! (Waves hand in front of screen, using the force.)
See you next year suckaz!
Street Troopers…More exclusives!!!
These two bad a** PT-808′s arrived today, and they are awesome! I especially like the blue one! These two decos and packaging were made exclusively for QVC. The packaging was reduced to save space, so in this version PT-808 is in vehicle form, but he still transforms into Robot Attack Mode to open a can of Whoop A**!!!
and you know it wouldn’t be a Street Troopers post with out a link to our AWESOME STREET TROOPERS COMMERCIAL! (insert corny link segue here)
More Food? Maisto attends the Aprilia Dinner.
look – everyone relax, ok? this isn’t another one of those i went to lunch and got inspired kind of posts. not even close. cuz it was dinner and really, we didn’t even go. but we were represented, that’s for sure.
for the second year in a row, our pal michael fiduk, event planner extraordinaire of piaggio group americas, asked for some 1:12 scale replicas of the aprilia rsv1000r to adorn each and every table at their annual dinner during the laguna seca race weekend. these are the kinds of requests we like to fulfill. michael was even kind enough to invite us up for the event, but we cordially declined due to prior commitments (namely my wife doesn’t exactly get motorcycles)…
here are some photos of the event tables:
sand, surf, tiki lamps, heaters, maisto motorcycles… is this… heaven????
they have obviously just made an announcement of the suppliers of the beautiful die-cast replicas sitting on everyone’s table…
and here is Aprilia Supermoto Racer and Team Manager, Darryl Atkin, addressing the crowd..
all in all, another successful pr event by the maisto team – and special thanks to michael for allowing us to participate. we’ll see you all next year, same place and time…
Once in a lifetime
at least for me, our sales and top brass go every year, twice sometimes. These water towers represent the scale of this trip that Maisto sent me on three years ago to Hong Kong and to visit one of the China factories, HUGE!!
Okay all you diehard diecast fanatics, here is some insight into the process again, and ill share more from time to time, but for now take a peek inside the tooling shop!
A tool being perfected…
This is the precious metal our dreams are made of, zinc!
It then gets melted and poured into each and everyone of these machines….
it spits out a piece and then its onto the burring machine to smooth out all the imperfections…
Here is some of the crew responsible for keeping the Maisto Machine running
And thats it for now, please check back often for more of this diecast journey through the eyes of a guy from Inglewood Ca.
I miss this place.
R2B2
GT-R tooling model — comments from Nissan
This the latest in our ongoing series following the production of a die-cast 1:24 Nissan GT-R from start to finish.
The hand-made tooling model was submitted to Nissan who is requiring only a few corrections before we “cut steel” (make the molds):
1. Please remove the antenna.
2. The [hood scoop] opening appears too big — please make the openings smaller and position a little back.
3. The duct is being mounded abruptly agains the engine hood — please make the mound smoother along the surface of the engine hood. The mound should be bumped less toward the front (point indicated in blue).
4. The bumper looks dented toward the left (where indicated with red in the left image) — please correct accordingly.
5. The bumper should be angled according to the blue line.
You can bet that the Nissan designers took a very close look at our model so it’s gratifying to find that they only found a few things to be improved. We’ll make the changes and resubmit it to Nissan.
Maisto On The Road With Harley-Davidson
well, sort of. it’s not as if we are off on a cross-country tour with the venerable motorcycle maker, more like we are at their semi-annual dealer’s show in viva las vegas. these are great shows, with the dealers coming in ready to write, and EVERYBODY being a fan of H-D. here a shot or 2 of the maisto booth…
there were also all sorts of cool bikes and new introductions, some of which we’ll wait to report on. but the coolest, by far, were the new trikes – the tri-glide ultras. we have some great photos, but we don’t want to be first out with them, so we’ll have to wait a little before we show them. we did have a cool give-away, a poster featuring 3 of the new dark custom modified motorcycles – clearly a direction H-D needs to go.
Mini Around The World!
WOW! we have seen collectors do some cool stuff with Maisto product out there, but the guys over at DiecastXchange have taken it to another level! It all started on August 3, 2005, the members of DiecastXchange started a project aptly named “DiecastXchange Mini Around the World.” They took a 1:18 Maisto Mini Cooper, a spiral notepad to chronicle the journey and two magic markers to sign the diecast model and sent it on it’s way.
B-Rad pointed out the post over at DiecastXchange to the CAPD and everyone was talking about it, that is Hardcore! The Mini’s long journey ended just recently on June 17, 2008 and it covered about 70, 854 miles. That is some trip! It visited some 31 members over the course of almost 3 years. If you get a chance take a look at the photo gallery of the Mini’s global trek RIGHT HERE. The photos are awesome!
Check out the “Mini Around The World” post for more details and visit DiecastXchange, they have an excellent site!
If anyone else out there has some cool Maisto related stories, or awesome pics of their Maisto die-cast, send them our way and we will post them up on the blog for everyone to see. send all pics and stories to:
leave a comment