I collect the Mattel Metal Mini Racers. Of course, to get the rare Primer Lightening McQueen, I had to purchase the plastic 15-car Mack Hauler. But he's big and of unrealistic proportions when compared to the minis he's designed to haul.
I saw that Eli offered a 'mini-hauler' scaled to compliment the Mattel Metal Mini Racers. After about 6 months, I decided to buy him. The Cab is Metal... The Trailer chassis is Metal and the Box is plastic. Really high quality construction available from Takara Tomica Tomy in Japan. In fact, the box itself is about 98% japanese characters.
They also sell a Gale Beaufort (Jackson Storm Hauler) as a mini-hauler as well. It might be a bit different, as I think the back opens up?? I know that it's about 1cm longer, per the specs, than the Mack truck. As soon as Eli gets it in stock, I will order it from him. Meanwhile, I'll post an old photo from when he had them in stock (and I should have bought it) with a Jackson Storm Mini-Racer for size comparison..
Anyway, It got me thinking about the Haulers. I see there is a ton of activity around customizing generically available haulers (eg. Walmart hauler) into other haulers for the 1:55 series cars. But no such activity exists for the Mini-Racers. Understood, as we don't even have a single Pitty (where's Guido?), so no one is in a hurry to build 'haulers' and 'pit crews' for the Mattel Metal Mini-Racer series.
That said, there are really only 5 basic formats for the Haulers:
PeterBilt: This is based off of an older PeterBilt Cabover. Characters like Gil and Jerry (recycled batteries use this format). They always have really basic straight rectangular trailers.
Mack: This is a based off of an older Mack Semi. So far the only character to use this format is, well Mack, McQueen's hauler. He has a little bit of aerodynamics to the rear of this trailer.
AeroLiner: This is based off of the late 90s early 2000s aerodynamic Freightliner/Kenworth trucks, but not quite so 'ant-eater' in appearance. Every single Piston Cup Stock Car uses this hauler. They have a trailer very similar to Macks.
Iveco: This is the 'uni-body' cab-over hauler used in Cars-2, based off of an Iveco/Isuzu design. Characters like Karl (hauler for Victor Hugo) and Saul (hauler for Francesco) were based off this format.
NexGen: This is based of a new highly aerodynamic Volvo type Design. All next Gen racers (Storm, Danny, etc..) use this format. The trailers are highly aerodynamic and flow with the cab.
Tomica Takara Tomy gives us a good headstart with the Mack and Gale haulers. However, they don't have anything that is too suitable for the AeroLiner, which is where the bulk of the hauler customizations would come from. The Missing PeterBilt and Iveco formats aren't a huge deal either as PeterBilts are never 'race-car' haulers.. and 'haulers' weren't really a big part of Cars 2 at all (sans Karl Haulzemoff - crime boss Victor Hugo's personal hauler).
What I'm not sure of, is what is the scale of the two formats that we have available? Most of the Tomica cars appear to be 1:64 scale (smaller than the standard disney 1:55 series or 1:43 series cars). I don't know the scaling of the Mack and Gale Beaufort mini-haulers.
Any thoughts?
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