1:18 Premiere Edition Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG

Although the blog has been looking like “all SLS all the time” lately, the 1:18 scale version of the object of our desires has just arrived at the U.S. warehouse.

Maisto 36196, 1:18 scale Premiere Edition

Mercedes Benz SLS AMG

Man, she is a beauty. And she is all done and ready to be shipped. The new 1:18 from Maisto…

Donk Chevy rolls out of the Maisto closet

It’s been a while since we’ve shown some of the things hiding in our deep, dark closet of prototypes and one-of-a-kind new product ideas. Several years ago, Brad (aka skidkid) built this donk from a Maisto 1:18 1972 Chevelle convertible. He installed wheels from one of our R/C cars and custom made the suspension and Lambo-style double-hinged doors. For extra bling he added monitors and speakers and he made decals for the upholstery pattern. At the time, Maisto made a line of 3″ East Coast Ryders cars in this style but we didn’t expand the idea into the larger scales…but we were ready in case the need arose.

Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R coming in 1:12 and 1:18 die-cast

Maisto 1:18 and 1:12 scale 2010 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R

Here’s the tooling model for our 2010 ZX-10R die-cast coming later this year.

Roush 427R Mustang coming in 1:18 scale

Maisto 1:18 31669

Here’s the tooling model for our forthcoming 2010 Ford Mustang Roush 427R convertible, number 31669, in the Maisto Special Edition line. Before production we’ll be revising the light bar shape and adding billet-style front upper and lower grilles.

You can see photos of the actual car at the Roush site.

New Victory 1:18 motorcycles coming this year

Maisto welcomes a new brand to our 1:18 scale 2-Wheelers line: Victory motorcycles. The Jackpot and the Kingpin 8 Ball tooling models have just been approved. We’ll be cutting the steel molds soon and expect the finished models to be at retailers early this summer.

See the actual Victory bikes at http://www.polarisindustries.com/en-us/Victory-Motorcycles/Pages/Home.aspx

1:18 1953 Studebaker ProRodz arrives

On April 24 we teased you with photos of our 1:18 scale die-cast 1953 Studebaker Starliner ProRodz, #31346. We just received our shipment so they should be in stores very soon — or your local shop can order them for you.

1:18 Audi R8 Crocodile

Maisto Audi R8 Crocodile #35899

Here’s a limited edition deco we did on our 1:18 Audi R8 die-cast in the GT Racing line. It has special one-race only livery from the American LeMans Series in Adelaide, Australia.

 

…in 2000.

 

We’ve got lots of cool new products coming for 2010 but we can’t say anything about most of them until January.

1967 Mustang tooling model for 1:18

Although this looks like a black-and-white photo, it’s in color. Before a die-cast model is made, we hand make one from plastic resin that is 1-1/2 times larger than the finished car. This tooling model serves two purposes: 1) it lets the tooling people know that all of the parts will fit together the way it was planned, and 2) we submit it to the licensor (Ford, in this case) so they can be assured that it looks accurate before we make the steel tooling for the production models. It may look a little strange to see the chrome, windows and tires in primer color but the purpose of this model is show the shapes and the way that they fit together, not colors. Plain cylinders represent the wheels and tires — CAD drawings are sufficient for these so it isn’t cost-effective to make a model of them.

Here’s the pre-production sample. You can see a slim area where the paint didn’t cover below the bumper ahead of the front wheels. That was fixed on the production models that are just arriving in stores now. In addition to the Highland Green Metallic color shown, it’s also available in Candy Apple Red. The SKU is 31166.

Vespa for the summer

Vespa 125 (1953)

Vespa 125 ET3 Primavera (1976)

Vespa PK 125 Automatica (1984)

Here are three of the dozens of Vespa scooter models that Maisto makes in 1:18 scale.

If you are traveling to Italy, be sure to visit the Piaggio Museum & Gift Shop adjacent to the plant in central Pontedera, near Pisa. You can see the official website, in Italian, for the museum at http://www.museopiaggio.it/collezionevespa/collezione_Vespa.html

Maisto is not responsible for the content on linked websites.