Spotlight on ......... niftynigel

[MrBrownstone]

Next up int he spotlight is the man with the most attention to detail regarding case numbers I've ever seen...(and this spotlight is much shorter than I forsaw!)

Ladies and Gentlecars I give you..... niftynigel

2. Where are you from / where do you live now?
I was actually born in Charing Cross, Westminster, London. My parents were living in Barking, Essex at the time, but we moved to the Epsom area in when I was about five.

3. When did you start collecting Cars?
Friday 3 February 2012.

4. Why did you start collecting Cars?
My wife bought a Supercharged Lightning McQueen in 2009. I put it in box. About a year ago, I was having a sort out and found it. I hung it on the wall. A couple of days later I was shopping in Sainsburys near work and I saw a few Cars 2 singles. Mater, Finn, Francesco and McQueen HHC. I bought them. I got them home and showed my wife, not sure of her reaction and she loved them! We noticed they were numbered! There must be at least 26 of them as McQueen is no. 26. We looked on Amazon and found all of them and we were amazed at the prices! The next day, after football, I went into Hamleys for the first ever time! I bought six more! I was hooked! My wife said there must be some from the first Cars movie as well. We discovered Pixar.Wikia. My wife started to collect Desert and Supercharged. I decided just Cars 2 singles was enough! Shortly after, I was in Bentalls and they had got 24no. World of Cars in their sale. They had the five Kmart WoC cars! They looked so good. I bought one of all 24. I wasn't hooked, I was obsessed!

5. How many cars (roughly) do have currently have?
We have over 600 incl. singles, deluxe, Movie Moments, Lights & Sounds and a handful of box sets.

6. Which diecast car is your favourite (only one allowed)?
Probably McQueen as it started it all off and we are big Owen Wilson fans too!

7. Which car (from the movie) is your favourite, and why?
Too many to list!

8. What has been your best ever find?
Every new car in shop! The internet is good, but there's nothing like finding a new/rare car in store!

9. What car(s) do you currently own?
Ford Focus (2006 Zetec 1.6) since 2006 ex AA driving school car!

10. What is your dream car?
Ford Mustang (any), if not a Ford Focus Titanium TDCi - top of the range model. The Focus is truly great car. Forget the badge, it's the best small/medium car to drive!

11. What do you do for a day job?
Local government officer - Road Safety Engineer

12. Other than Cars Collecting, do you have any hobbies?
Football (West Ham United, Epsom & Ewell), Rugby union (Harlequins), collecting programmes, visiting grounds (groundhopping), collecting CDs and Blu-rays.

13. What is your greatest ever achievement?
Nothing of note. I'm quite a modest person. Achievement is for other people to judge!

14. What is your favourite ever TV show and favourite ever movie?
Cheers, Only Fools & Horses. James Bond, Die Hard, Cars and loads more!

15. If you won "Who want's to be a millionnaire", what would you do with the money?
I have no aspiration to be rich. I don't gamble or do the lottery. If I were to suddenly gain lots of money, I'd probably give most of it away to charity and build Epsom & Ewell Football Club a new ground of their own.

[cac1959]

Great to learn more about you, niftynigel... we appreciate your contributions to our Cars community... sometimes I get so excited to see something new that I fail to pay full attention to detail.

600+ Cars in a little over 14 months? Wow... You may also have the longest time between purchasing a first Car and your second Car... but you've definitely made up for lost time.

[bobbyjack]

I've been collecting for a little over 3 years and don't have 600 cars yet. Bought a Supercharged Green Ramone in 2007 or 2008, but didn't start collecting until Christmas 2009.

[Clearysdad19]

Feb 3 is my birthday

[Bubba101212]

Thanks for sharing! 600 plus is a nice chunk!!
Awesome!

[GotFrank]

Thanks to Mr. Brownstone I was able to watch Only Fools and Horses.
I've always enjoyed British comedy. And I really enjoyed that programme.
And I grew up watching Cheers here in the US. Great choices there!

[niftynigel]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Working in local government, you get used to staff and service reviews, one after the other! The last review was different. Because of the precarious nature of the UK finances, the public sector was being reduced and the authority both my wife and I work for were having to make savings of about 20% on average. Being heavily reliant on people (as opposed to computers, robots and other automated things), this mean't huge staffing reductions, not quite 20%, as they tried to reduce using natural wastage as much as possible.

Both my wife's team and my team were going to be significantly reduced in number. As the process was going to take a couple of years (2009 - 2011), we decided to save as much money as possible, just in case the worst were to happen.

In the event, both of us retained our posts, in more or less the same pay and conditions as before, notwithstanding a near pay freeze for over four years now.

As we had saved some money, most of that has funded the Cars collection!

As I came from a poor family, collecting Cars is like the childhood I never had. There's such a buzz over finding a new car (or cars) in a store! As I've collected music (singles, albums, CDs, LaserDiscs, DVDs and now Blu-rays) since the mid 1970s (when I got my first job, a paper round or two), collecting is in my DNA! I get the same buzz finding something I'm after in shop at a great price! It's so much better than buying on the internet, although I (reluctantly) do that now that Amazon has more or less killed off all the competition! I do hope and pray that HMV survives along with the independent music stores. I can't help but think that the downloaders (illegal or not) are missing out on something!

My wife said that we used to live in a disposable society, now we live in a deletable one!

[MrBrownstone]

Nice to learn more about you niftynigel.

Great selection in OFAH as a great TV show. I know what you mean about collecting - it brings back the child in me, only with the finances to actually do something about it this time...

You've missed Video tapes from your list of collectables - how I cried when I gave my video collection away as they were worth nothing... I lost lots of money of films I'd only watched once but bought! At least I have them memories of my son (hopefully sons) playing with the cars.... Priceless (well not quite, but you get the gist...)

[boogity]

nigel, me and ru5ty reckoned you were an accountant!

[Junior]

Anther great post, well done NN. When i first joined here i spent ages going through all the info people put on, its really interesting finding out stuff you may have in common with people. For a while there were no new ones which disappointed me a bit so when i heard they were bringing it back i was delighted.

[Bumper Save]

Nice to see a West Ham fan on here, I know more about Denise Beam's location in the movie than English football but I know Steve Harris of Iron Maiden is a big West Ham fan so I like to side with him!

[niftynigel]

It may come as a surprise to some that I'm a metal fan and Iron Maiden 'The Irons' are also one of my favourites. Steve Harris is a top bloke. Fame has not altered him one bit. Someone once asked him if he wanted to 'invest' in West Ham United. He refused!

He said, owning a football club can turn you into a millionaire! You start with ten million and very shortly, you've just got a million!

That was 'Somewhere Back In Time' (excuse the plug for an Iron Maiden album). Now with the Manchester City situation, you can substitute a million for a billion!

Although the questions were understandably film and Cars centric, my other great love is music. Status Quo are my favourites. I've seen them over 100 times. I love going to concerts. There are so many artists in my favourites, but a selection are Deep Purple, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Marillion, Iron Maiden, Olivia Newton-John (my pin up in my youth), Tom Petty, AC/DC, Kiss, Rush, Genesis, U2, Bruce Springsteen and loads more!

It was great to finally see Olivia live after all these years. She hasn't played in the UK since 1976. I was just starting secondary school then!

[carslover]

It may come as a surprise to some that I'm a metal fan and Iron Maiden 'The Irons' are also one of my favourites. Steve Harris is a top bloke. Fame has not altered him one bit. Someone once asked him if he wanted to 'invest' in West Ham United. He refused!

He said, owning a football club can turn you into a millionaire! You start with ten million and very shortly, you've just got a million!

That was 'Somewhere Back In Time' (excuse the plug for an Iron Maiden album). Now with the Manchester City situation, you can substitute a million for a billion!

Although the questions were understandably film and Cars centric, my other great love is music. Status Quo are my favourites. I've seen them over 100 times. I love going to concerts. There are so many artists in my favourites, but a selection are Deep Purple, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Marillion, Iron Maiden, Olivia Newton-John (my pin up in my youth), Tom Petty, AC/DC, Kiss, Rush, Genesis, U2, Bruce Springsteen and loads more!

It was great to finally see Olivia live after all these years. She hasn't played in the UK since 1976. I was just starting secondary school then!

a fellow headbanger
i listen to alot of the same groups as you
iron maiden and judas priest are two of my favorites

[Bumper Save]

a fellow headbanger
i listen to alot of the same groups as you
iron maiden and judas priest are two of my favorites

I never knew you guys liked Maiden and other metal stuff! Up the Irons!