READERS:



I'm still looking for more readers to share a little about their collecting and collections with me (I'll ask before I put you in the Newsletter!).





EDITORIAL

Second in a series of editorials. Please, feel free to email replies, responses and questions; I'll respond to what I can, and publish some of the best.

Was the Dover Race great or what?! All those cars sporting Red, White, and Blue and "God Bless America". It was great to see so many teams and sponsors showing solidarity for the 911 tragedy. Many of the sponsors donated big bucks, and several drivers were racing for $10 or $20 per lap. And how about that #36! Not a sponsor sticker on there, just the Stars and Stripes. I heard it took 11 hours to apply the graphics.

I hope M&Ms will make this car available as a Promo. Actually, I think they got more good press for not putting the name on the car at all. It sure would be nice to get some of these Patriotic Cars, especially as Promos, but I think I'll invest in some in any case. I can imagine the folks at Action, Team Caliber and Racing Champions are working overtime to get the graphics ready for these cars. From what I hear, there are about 5 or 6 cars planned in a big scale, 1:24 or 1:18. Hope they are planning 1/64 scale too. Let me know if any of you see some for sale or otherwise, I'll send out special Alerts for anyone else that wants to keep tabs.

This is actually the second time an Editorial got pre-empted. I had another one planned for this issue, and I changed the first one at the last minute too. At least I have lots of Editorials ready to go. I would like to thank the folks contributing to the Newsletter again. Both the Cars I'm missing and the cash are greatly appreciated.



Happy Meal - with Special Edition



There have been countless Hot Wheels included with Happy Meals through the ages. The bizarre fantasy cars, the funny looking street cars and the badly proportioned dragsters and race cars. But when they came out with the #94 NASCAR Taurus, in different colors, I had to get a set. I was pleasantly surprised to get a coupon discount on the Special Edition Transporter and Gold car set too. However I was disappointed to find a 'sticker activity' set in the plastic bag. Although, with careful application, you can make a pretty respectable model.

One of my favorite drivers, 'Wild Bill' Elliott drove the #94 McD Ford with several different paint jobs. The Red Ronald's Happy Meal, the Blue Mac Tonight and the Gold NASCAR 50th Anniversary Golden Arches. The layout of the decals and minor sponsors is the same on all 3 cars, as is the Reese's on the rear deck. The side stickers don't go over the wheelwell, so there's no Goodyear, or decals in front of the wheel. Minor differences are evident when looking at the front and rear stickers on the cars. At least they decided to paint the #94 on the roof, and graphics on the hood. The Gold paint seems better than the Red and Blue, they're a little thick.


Comparing the graphics with actual pictures (thanks to archives at www.jayski.com) was somewhat disappointing, but expected. Without the stickers going over the wheelwells, let's just say, you're really limited in faithfully reproducing the original. For the most part, most of the graphics are there, just compressed or shifted to fit the stickers. 'nuff said.

At least they did a pretty good job with the stickers. Since they are paper, they match the color of the car and stick well. From a distance, they look better than the Shell EPI cars, those little race product decals make a big difference!

From there we have 3 identical cars, that aren't! Between the body, chassis, and wheels, there are several subtle differences. The other cars I have are still wrapped, but it would be interesting to compare several cars of the same color, or maybe each color was produced in a separate factory. The front of the Gold car differs in the headlight, turnsignal, and grille area. Yeah! you really have to look, but when you know the difference, and the cars are side by side, you see it! The basic chassis (lack of) detail is the same, but look close. The U-joint bolts are very pronounced in my red car, rounded, but there in the blue car, and almost non-existent in the gold car. To some extent, the same holds true for the front suspension (?), oil pan, and differential. Even the wording stamped on the chassis is different, the blue being most different.

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When you really study the wheels, you can see they come from different molds. We won't even mention the lack of Goodyear on the tires or the sizes (if they were 64 times larger, they'd be somewhat close to the right size, but they're all different). As a matter of fact, my Gold one has 3 different widths, the Red ones' are too tall at 29.4", the Blue one has 2 different diameters, 27.1" rear and 26.9" front (OK, is less than a quarter inch getting too picky?). The widths range from 12 3/4" to 15", but with no rhyme or reason. The most annoying thing with the wheels is evident on the Red car, the inside of the wheel (closest to the chassis) has a neck that doesn't allow the tires to fit inside the bodywork. They look like those kids' Toyotas with 10" wide tires on 13" wheels that stick out a half a foot. The other two aren't as bad, but looking down on the model you still see some tire sticking out. Even the 'black windows' have some differences, thank goodness there's no interior!


Like I said, there was one saving grace, I also said if I knew I would be writing this eNewsletter, I would have taken better notes. I don't remember how much the coupon was good for, it seemed substantial, maybe $5.00. But I also remember the Transporter/car set being rather expensive - $25.00 or $30.00, I got lucky because I bought mine while Service was changing their Merchandise. I seem to remember $15.00 and they still took my coupon!

This set is boxed to make a large impressive display. The box measures 7" by 15" and almost 4" high (that's a scale 21ft high garage that's 37' X 80'! ;-D) The box is decorated with Bill Elliot's signature, #94, and sponsors McDonald's and Service Merchandise. There's a Ronald in a driver suit, McDonald's Racing Team logo on the left and Service Merchandise logo on the right of the front of the box. The top has a large yellow burst suggesting "Enhance your set of McDonald's(R) Happy Meal(R) Collector Cars". A large sturdy acetate window displays the car and transporter well.

The Transporter is the usual good quality Racing Champions DieCast Cab with plastic trailer. The trailer has stickers on it with graphics of Ronald in his drivers suit, McDonald's Racing Team, Bill's signature, and smaller logos for Service, Super 8 Motel, Coca-Cola, Reese's, Bosch, and Ford. There's a checkered flag draped across the top and down the sides, with the thumbs-up Happy Meal on top, and on the sleeper portion of the Cab. The number 94 is only on the Cab, the door and the side of the hood. The Cab graphics are also stickers, and the one on the side of the hood is a little crooked! I've been seeing other transporters lately with just paper decals on the cab too, come on now!

The car is a Gold-Chrome and is the standard McDonald's paint scheme, with the painted Ronald in a Driving Suit hood. I'm not taking it out and handling it or measuring it, but I can tell you it looks like a nice car. The only real problems I've seen with the "metal" cars is occasional smudging or smearing of the graphics because of the super shiny surface.

There is a large black plastic display stand, again with Bill's autograph, the Service logo and 94. There are ridges, so if you took the display out of the box, you could line up your Happy Meal Sticker Activity cars right next to your Racing Champions Precious Metal. It's a shame they didn't offer a nice clear plastic top for the base, but who in their right mind would take it out of the box!

They're both still in the box, I especially don't want to get finger prints on the gold car. This is a really nice set, last I checked, it was listed, but not valued in the DCD price guide. I've got to work on getting some contacts in the DCD Advisory group, there are several questions I'd like to ask. They're not promos, but there are a bunch of cars in my collection either not listed or not valued. Can any of you identify these two cars?


Other pictures will be on a new picture page titled "More of My Collection" (no, these are not for sale or trade, some of them are Aurora and Tyco HO slot cars, can you tell where my race passion leads?).



SCALE TIRES

Second in a series on scale measurements.

I have to complain about the tires now, maybe then I'll hold off measuring things unless there's a real big discrepancy. This complaint applies to a lot of collectibles, but the EPIs and Hot Wheels (see Feature article) really make it apparent. The tires are too big, maybe the wheels also, let's see. I happen to have my dad's machinist's micrometer, so these measurements are accurate to 1/1000" (.001 for you decimal oriented folks), that's about 1/16th real car inches! (Unfortunately it only opens to 1", I also have to be able to put the object between the measuring surfaces) I had to estimate the diameter of the wheels since the one piece design wouldn't let me unmount the tires, or the wheel couldn't be put between the surfaces to get an accurate measurement.

I tried to get exact measurements from the Goodyear website, several other racing sites and a site that sells race used tires as souvenirs. Fortunately I didn't give up, sometimes eMails don't work and you just have to call somebody. I talked to Tom of Competition Tires West, and he gave me some good info. Width front and rear is 12", he quoted left and right tire circumference - which depends on the racetrack. Using good old Algebra and Geometry, C=2piR, I came up with an inflated tire of between 27.5" and 28" tall.

ProMoCo found some interesting stuff in a book titled "The Insider's Guide To Stock Car Racing" by Richard Huff (Bonus Books, 1997). "Goodyear currently makes about 20 different codes--or tires--for NASCAR Winston Cup competition. While each is different, there are some general rules. To accommodate higher levels of stress and heat, right side tires are made from stronger compounds. Right side tires are also slightly larger than left side tires--called stagger--to make it easier for cars to turn the corners. On superspeedways, for example, left side tires are 87.9 inches in circumference while right side tires are 88.5 inches around. Also, left side tires on superspeedways are good for about 300 miles, while right side tires are good for 150 miles. Road course tires carry the same circumference for both sides of the car." (p. 38) That's some neat info, especially the part about right side tires only are good for about 150 miles. Now the green flag pit stop strategy of only replacing right side tires make sense!

The 3 EPI cars all have different tire sizes, but the Indy car has the same tires front and rear. In any case, these are the measurements on the EPI models. I can report that the Indy car should have taller, fatter tires in back, than in front. At .385" tall by .248" wide, the actual prototype tires would be about 25 1/2" by 16" wide. I can't comment on that except to say the Texaco Indy cars I recently got measured about 25 1/2" by 14 3/4" wide up front, and 27 1/2" by 16 1/4" in back. The EPI front diameter is OK, but 1 1/4" too wide; in back the width is about right, but 2" too short. That's almost a 10% deviation in one of the two dimensions, for both sets. Anyway it looks funny with the same tires front and back.

The WC #18 tires measure .453" diameter by .263" wide, that's 29" by 16.8". The diameter is only off about 1 to 1 1/2", but the width is off by almost 5", that's 40% wider than prototype!

The BGN #44 is worse at .463" by .283" wide. At 18.1", that's a whopping 6.1" wider than the official 12" width, over half again as wide as it should be. The 29.6" diameter makes them about 2" too tall. The tire diameter alone doesn't explain the height problem of the last article, you can see it in the ground clearance that the axles are too high on the chassis, and the side skirting and front air dam don't come down far enough, but the tires do contribute. Looking at the profile, you can also see that the roof seems too high. Maybe one of these days, I'll get in good with a team crew member, and I'll get some good measurements - let me know if you'd like me to do an article (rant) on something like that (be careful, if no-one shows disinterest, I may go on for 2 or 3 more articles).

The RC Model kit I mentioned last issue has 2 piece wheel/rubber-like Goodyear Eagles. These measure .423" by .185" wide on a wheel diameter of .265". That works out to a tire diameter of 27.07" by 11.84" wide and a 16.96" wheel, now that's really good enough for me (percentage wise, that's 2%, 1%, and 1% respectively!).

I also have a nice Action Late Model Dirt car that has two-piece tire/wheels. Not only do they have excellent tire profiles, but these Hoosiers are grooved so accurately that I could identify the tires as the Super Chain-Link pattern on the Hoosier WebSite! (I can imagine the guy that grooved the mold saying that these people are looking too deep, I just made grooves!). They actually measure .463 by .255, that would be a diameter of 29.6" x 16.8" wide. The actual Eastern Modified / 358 / Sportsman Dirt tire you and I could buy, measures 29.3" x 16.5", how's that for close? (The asphalt tires are a little smaller at 28" x 13.5")


While I'm at it, let me go on about the Amoco HO Street Rods. They are so cool, I have to use these tires for comparison of all future cars. The 1969 winged Dodge Daytona would have run on bias-ply tires instead of radials. Tire sizes were measured a little differently then, and even sports car or race tires had a lot more sidewall. You almost never saw anything wider than a 60 Series unless it was a quarter miler. Most passenger cars had 80 Series and the Pony and Muscle cars usually had 70s. If I remember correctly, the Series number or Aspect Ratio meant the sidewall height was 70% of the width, and something about manufacturing bias-ply tires made lower numbers unheard of. So a 7 1/2" wide tire in 70 Series would have a 5 1/4" sidewall, above and below a 15" wheel would give you a diameter of 25 1/4". Well, I measured a 16" wheel (all my wheel measurements seem a touch too big) and a 25 1/4" diameter, right on for the sectional width of 7 1/2" - not bad.

The Ram truck has big Wrangler MT type tires. They measure out to 30" tall on a 19" wheel, if the wheel seems a little tall, let me say a couple of things about my measurements. I said before that I had to get the item between the measuring surfaces. I didn't want to force the wheel off the axle, I tried one and it didn't budge, so I still had to estimate - but it's very close. Some of the model wheel is covered by the tire, and I was probably measuring too much. Second, to indicate how close - 1" is the thickness of 3 sheets of paper - so between 18" and 19" is close enough for me (we'll round up to 6%). The tread width is a scale 10.5", the width from sidewall to sidewall is 12". These tires in Metric would look like 295/55-18 or since they're truck tires, you could find 30 x 11.5-18 in a Goodyear tire store.

The Viper has GTS racing tires on. This car would be competing with Corvettes and Saleens (Chevys and Fords for those of you who believe - if it's not Stock, it's not Car Racing!) at Watkins Glen, Mid-Ohio, Daytona's 12 hour and Sebring's endurance races. So we have to expect these to be monstrous tires, and they are. They measure out to the same diameter as the Truck tires, although 30" seems large, it is only 2 1/2" taller than the NASCAR tires. The grooved tread width is 12", front and back are the same size on this car as well as the other two. I calculate the standard metric size of these tires to be about 295/45-19s, more than likely I'm too large on the wheel size, and after checking the Goodyear site 295/45-18 is an available Eagle GS size. Although the block tread pattern looks more like Eagle ZR or Eagle #1 NASCAR tires, but with regular white letters.

As you can tell, I'm still impressed with these "Free" promos. Quality, Hood Open DieCasts, with engines, detailed interiors and 2 piece tires/wheels that are extremely accurate. OK, I'll stop - for now! Let me know how you feel about these rants, remember, if I don't hear you scream Uncle, I might start measuring spoiler angles!





Coming Up!

I have received several cars from readers, either as trades or donations. I've also received a couple of donations towards the operating costs of the eNewsletter, and those fine folks had a chance to choose their car(s). As more people donate, my stock of extras will go down, and I may not have another duplicate of one you wanted. Operating costs have gone up dramatically as I try to keep up with all the new promos. So donate early and often! Also take advantage of my Swap Meet page - I've already had a reader complain they've eaten 6 boxes of HN Cheerios and only found 2 different cars. I've had better luck - 4 boxes, 3 different cars - I wait for it to be on sale too.



I finally got the Oreo's Car! I also have the last 3 years of Amoco Cars now, I was missing the 2 from 2000. ProMoCo also filled me in with the Toy Story 2 pair of Hot Wheels. I will also be getting the Kroger/Tide and Tide/Give Kids the World promos. I will be able to include these cars in future issues thanks to the ProMoCo and Tony.

To the best of my recollection, the Wisk/Richard Petty set comes next. Two big disappointments here, the detergent managed to get into the packaging, so I took them out! I also sent away for the '64 Belvedere - and never got it! That was before I was Promo savvy, there is usually a way to get someone to find out what happened, but it never seems to be an easy way printed on the Promo material. So I will be able to detail the 3 cars that I did pull out of the detergent. (If anyone has a duplicate of the '64 Plymouth, let me know!)

O.K. - enough for now. This is the first issue published on the web, and then an eMail is sent with a link to view it. Let me know if y'all like this better. I was disappointed with the way the eMailings cut a little off the end of some paragraphs, not to mention the Ads at the end of them. Tell me if this causes anyone a problem. I'm flattered to read that some of you have printed every issue of the Newsletter, and keep them in a notebook. Keep feeding me the tips, and I'll continue my ranting! Thank You All!

If you like the eNewsletter, let other people know, if you don't like it and you want to get off my mail list, send a response email to me with the subject = "REMOVE"

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