[Photo] Minichamps 1/18 - Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series

Solid grills on a model car has always been a dealbreaker for me. I like too many cars, and as a means to hold a higher collection standard as well as spending less, I had put together a list of what I am and not okay with adding to the growing collection. It namely targeted features that took away realistic details for production cost-saving, such as making grills out of solid plastic without perforating the surface, opening bonnets that reveal an interpretation of an engine made out of a single piece of unpainted plastic and brake rotors that don't remotely look like the real material. Having a criteria to meet was doing great, as I would only have my eye on things that I would be more than thrilled to appreciate firsthand, but most importantly, it made it easy to keep the wishlist to less than a handful, and kept the budget in check. However, early 2019, I'm seeing where this hobby doesn't bring the happiness I pursue any longer. Although I've already answered this question before, I do find myself revisiting why I decided to overlook these rules I set on myself for the Fiesta and the Prior Design AMG GT. One actually feels like a play toy, and the other has some awfully big solid grills.

That's when I came back to evaluating how I should look at these models. Like all collectors, we hit that point where we start reaching the storage limit on these things. I finally hit that with the Supra in early 2019. Knowing that may be one or two models I could totally see myself getting from Almost Real (if they ever release it), I was going to have to get rid of some. It was going to be time to put together a collage of every item, and play another round of making the cut. "If I could only keep 20, if I could only keep 10, and even 5, which would they be?" The AMG GT and Fiesta held on very well. It really boiled down to whichever one left a better impression on me, cars I actually liked, and less about the scarcity or craftsmanship, though I still would not buy a Maisto. So I decided to celebrate the end of model car collecting by picking up the cars I really like but couldn't justify grabbing because they didn't have the same level of details of say- an Ignition. This was one of them.



Don't get me wrong though. The Supra was a thing of beauty. One of the best looking Ignition models I've ever laid eyes on. The issue I was beginning to notice were the long-term degradation effects of materials, the possibility of depreciated collector value as a result, and just the sheer amount of money spent that doesn't do anything other than become a glorified toy car. We buy one, hope it can still sell for a decent money later down the road, we don't touch it, we hope to god there's no dust on the inside, no scratches nor fingerprints from handling, we hope the resin doesn't go brittle, windshields don't warp or yellow, and tires that don't fuse with the base it sits on. We pour our money into mass produced pieces of what is arguably "artwork", HOPING it arrives undamaged in the mail, and then burden ourselves with keeping it in as perfect condition as possible, just so we can look at it now and then.