New Maisto 1970 Chevrolet Corvette 1:24 Special Edition

CORVETTE SUMMER!!!
Bowtie fans here is a new 1:24 Vette dipped in bronze.

Add realism to your die-cast with paint and foil

Maisto Jaguar XK8 1:24 #31936

Dean Milano, best known for his excellent plastic model car building, added some details to the Maisto 1:24 Jaguar XK8. At the front he used Bare Metal Foil on the grille divider, fog lamps and on the headlight reflectors under the clear lens. On the sides he painted the marker lights in realistic amber and red colors and added some black to the wheel center caps that make the “leaping cat” emblem more visible. The rear shows a custom-made license plate label, white painted back-up lights and Bare Metal Foil on the exhaust pipe tips. Inside, Dean painted the brown on the steering wheel and gear shift and used Bare Metal Foil and black paint on the rear view mirror.

Dean’s detail work shows that with paint and foil available from your local hobby shop (plus some computer skills to make a license plate label) you can add more realism to your Maisto models. Be sure to take a look at Dean’s model car museum website at www.toys-n-cars.com — he’s got a lot of  fun stuff there.

Unfortunately, Maisto discontinued this XK8 from the line a few years ago but it should still be available on the secondary market. The item number was 31936.

1:24 Pro Street 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle

Maisto 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle Pro Rodz Pro Street, #31357

Last week we showed you the tooling model. Here are the pre-production samples. It will be a while before these appear in stores. The stock number for both colors is 31357. Colors are yellow and metallic grey.

New for 2010: blown Chevelle Pro Street 1:24

Maisto 1966 Chevrolet® Chevelle™ SS™ Pro Rodz Pro Street #31357

We’ve added a blower to our 1:24 ’66 Chevelle Pro Rodz to make this Pro Street version. This tooling model shows how mean it looks.

R/C Drift cars — new 1:24 action

Ever wanted to drift your R/C? It’s tough unless it’s specially set up for it like the new Maisto Tech Monster Drift cars.

Maisto Monster Drift R/C

They will be appearing soon at Toys R Us in the special package shown below with the exclusive blue body color.

Monster Drift — Toys R Us package

New 1:24 Special Edition for 2010

In addition to the 370Z mentioned below, here are our new 1:24 cars for 2010.

1:24 Nissan 370Z

Here are photos of our tooling model for the upcoming 1:24 Nissan 370Z, stock #31200. Of course, in production the windows will be clear and the wheels and tires will have authentic shapes and colors. This resin model is used to verify the shapes of the parts before the molds are made for the die-cast model.

Calling all cars! Be on the lookout for a 1:26 1955 Buick Century

See photos of the pre-production model as well as the tooling model at the Highway Patrol TV show website.

The Maisto die-cast has no direct connection to the TV show. However, the CHP supplied the patrol cars, including the ’55 Buick, to the show in its early years. On the show, the CHP door shield was covered by a generic shield. The Century 2-door sedan was unique to the CHP — it was a short run of Special 2-door sedans that had the Century engine and front fenders (4 venti-ports on each side instead of 3).

Be sure to cruise around to the other pages on the http://www.highwaypatroltv.com site — it has a lot of interesting material including a parody of the show that appeared in Mad magazine and a clip of Broderick Crawford being pulled over on the CHiPs TV show. The website’s host, Gary Goltz, is a real fan and even owns his own 1:1 Highway Patrol ’55 Buick. In addition, he is a big supporter of the 11-99 Foundation that is a nonprofit, charitable organization that provides benefits and scholarships to California Highway Patrol family members.

As always, Maisto takes no responsibility for what is posted on sites other than our own.

How low can you go?

Maisto Volkswagen 1600 Notchback, All Stars #31042

Usually we try to tease you with photos of new stuff that is still months away from the store shelves. Instead, here’s a 1:24 that came out last year. The beautiful liquid blue color was deleted for 2009 so you may have to hunt a little to find one. The notchback body style wasn’t common in the U.S. but it is highly prized by collectors now. The Maisto stylists have really done a number on it by adding huge five-spoke wheels, custom interior, chromed engine and, of course, a seriously lowered suspension.

Finally — 1:24 GT-R approved

Maisto 1:24 Nissan GT-R, #31294

On April 19, 2008 we started a series of blog posts about the Maisto 1:24 GT-R promising to show you the steps from beginning to end. We have recently received approval from Nissan for the pre-production samples in the photos above. Normally, the process doesn’t take this long. So now it’s on to production.