40: Tail Wagon

Station wagons are awesomeness. Muscle cars are awesomeness. If my math is correct, that means muscle car station wagons are awesomeness squared!

Continuing with our Hot Wheels 40th anniversary celebration (1969-2009) today's vehicle is the brand new for 2009 '70 Chevelle SS Wagon!

This Hot Wheel is simply gorgeous.

It has the perfect California rake and nice 5 spoke wheels. This one is sure to be popular, and hopefully it's released in many different colors. I will amass a whole fleet of them!


The details are really nice, with door handles, hood pins, and even auto parts molded to the interior in the back!

Great start Mattel - now if Hot Wheels will just heed my pleas and make a '71 Torino Country Squire like my old high school ride, I'll be in heaven!

His & Hearse

A couple years ago Matchbox released one of the coolest 1:64 die-cast ever.


That's Die-Cast - with emphasis on DIE!


This 1963 Cadillac Hearse was first released in black (naturally) and has been released a couple times since. The second release is this pearl white number, and I believe you may be able to find a grey version on the pegs now - if you're lucky.


They tend to be very popular and sell quickly.


The detail is beautiful, and it's quite a surprising selection for a toy car.


Then again, what kid isn't a fan of the macabre in some form or another?


This is what I call going out in style!


There's also a fun little bonus, if you have really good eyes that is - on the inside is a coffin with a hand reaching out of the lid!


As if the Hearse wasn't cool enough!

First Whiplash...and now a Stroke!

Deathstroke, that is.

This is "Blade Attack Deathstroke" from the Dark Knight movie action figure line by Mattel.



Deathstroke, like Firefly, did not actually appear in the movie. But the toymakers decided he'd make a cool "realistic" villain for your Batman action figure to do battle with, and I must concur.

This guy is clearly an assassin. And a well armed one at that. There is little to connect this figure to Deathstroke's comic counterpart besides the the orange and blue hood, but for some reason it really works, and he actually comes across as much more mysterious and threatening than the comic book Slade Wilson.



You can see his "action feature" button on his back, which is rather large but darkly colored so as not to "stick out" too much. It becomes slightly less obtrusive when he has his sheath attached too.



Oh yeah, and there's the "one eye" thing going on too. Cool.



Slade here is, as always, well armed. However his pistol, bandoleer and knife are not removable. That's fine - less pieces to lose. They are well sculpted and nicely painted and stand out well on the figure, as do his shiny leather gloves and boots.



The sword (and sheath) are removable, and the button I mentioned earler makes Mr. Wilson's sword-holding arm flail in a hacking motion.



Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! Cha! Cha! Cha! Cha!

Bumble Bee Thy Name

I picked up this Transformers Universe Classics series Bumblebee a couple months back. They are now starting to appear on toy aisles more prevalently, along with new representations of Brawn and Beachcomber in the same line-up. I only picked up Bumblebee on that trip, because he's one of my favorite Transformers of all time.



I love these little guys because they are small and cheap (about $4.99) and toys should be cheap. See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite, and gunpowder... and toys. Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!

Sorry about that.

Also, in robot mode they come pretty close to their 80s cartoon likenesses.



For Bumblebee, that means he has a face. Although I have a preference for the original toy Bumblebee's look, it is fun to finally have a small transforming Bumblebee that looks like the cartoon we all grew up with; after only waiting 25 years!



Unfortunately Volkswagen refuses to license their image/likeness to "war toys" (I guess they are still sensitive about that whole WWII thing.)

So Hasbro had to wing it, and pretty much followed the look of their recent Transformers Classics Bumblebee vehicle mode.



From the rear it's a passable Beetle-esque vehicle...



From the front...not so much. Oh well, we can't have everything.



Here he is next to a Matchbox VW Beetle taxi which was released a couple years ago. As you can see Bumblebee is pretty close to 1:64 scale, which makes him a great versatile toy compatible with Transformers, die-cast cars, etc. etc.



On a side note, this is a pretty cool Matchbox Beetle. I got it a couple years ago so you won't find it in stores now, but I think a green/white version is currently available. Of course, the yellow one is more Bumblebee-ish, and therefore my favorite. I can see Bumblebee disguising himself as a taxi to spy on the Decepticons - he is their espionage expert after all!

And the Decepticons are just stupid enough to fall for it.



Here they are from the front. Beep Beep!



You look...familiar.