Glad Midsommar!

Happy Midsummer to all you crazy car collectors all over the world! And Skål!

Sally with Cone - One of the rare but necessary

I started thinking of what cars I should give priority to, instead of buying random Cars 2 models.
And when I took a closer look to my collection I was stunned. I have not bother to get Sally!

I guess I´ve always counted her already in my collection since she was one of the three very first cars I bought to A in the very very beginning. (The other two: Lightning McQueen and The King).

So now... Well. I took care of things:

Other Must Have Cars that now are moved up in my priority list:

Red, Lizzie & Stanley.

The 50 cars from Cars 2 officially released as singles

Cars 2 - singles by official numbers

• 1. Race Team Mater
 

• 2. Finn McMissile

• 3. Lightning McQueen with Racing Wheels 

• 4. Francesco Bernoulli

• 5. Holley Shiftwell  

• 6. Professor Z

• 7. Jeff Gorvette

• 8. Carla Veloso

• 9. Raoul ÇaRoule

• 10. Race Team Luigi

• 11. Race Team Guido

• 12. Acer

• 13. Grem

• 14. Race Team Fillmore

• 15. Race Team Sarge 

• 16. Rod "Torque" Redline

• 17. Miles Axlerod

• 18. Petrov Trunkov

• 19. Hydraulic Ramone

• 20. Nigel Gearsley

• 21. Max Schnell

• 22. Shu Todoroki

• 23. Miguel Camino

• 24. Lewis Hamilton

• 25. Carlo Maserati

• 26. Hudson Hornet Piston Cup Lightning McQueen  

• 27. Mel Dorado

• 28. Vladimir Trunkov

• 29. Radiator Springs Ramone

• 30. Victor H.

• 31. Don Crumlin

• 32. Officer Murakarmi

• 33. Becky Wheelin

• 34. Acer with Torch 

• 35. Kabuto

• 36. Lightning McQueen with Party Wheels 

• 37. Bindo 

• 38. Celine Dephare

• 39 Erik Laneley
• 40 Cartney Brakin
• 41 Galloping Geargrinder
• 42. Prince Wheeliam

• 43. Otis

• 44. Suki
• 45. Alex Vandel

• 46. Nick Cartone

• 47. Fabrizio

• 48. Alexander Hugo with Party Hat 

• 49. Mary Esgocar

• 50. Sir Harley Gassup

 

I got 35 out of 50. Hmmm. Where to put the other 15? My cabinettes are getting extremely full!

Celine Dephare & Nick Cartone - not part of the Great Plan

Here´s some unboxing moments.
First - let me introduce ya´ll to something quite unique:

Celine Dephare is the only Diecast from both Cars and Cars 2 who has the eyes NOT in the front windshield, instead she has the eyeballs in her headlights.

Are you lookin´ at me? Are you looking at ME?! What!?!?

According to... sources on the internet... the director John Lasseter was inspired by Susie the Little Blue Coupe - a cartoon movie that put the eyes on the windshield.
And it is understandable. The cars are supposed to be alive. No driver. So when Mater meet Celine you can understand why he´s so afraid.
There´s a big pieace of nothing where the... brain... should be:

But it is a very cool diecast!

The other car I recently bought is this one:

Nick Cartone is a reporter, you could see him in the scene where McQueen has to explain why he let Fransesco overtake him so easily in the first race.
Being a radio reporter myself, of cours I like this car. But is it to much to ask to hve a somewhat cooler car as a reporter? I mean... a Honda Civic? Come on!

And it is a bit complicated whenever a car has to hold on to something. The use of a "hand" ruins the "aliveness" of the car.

Not a neat sollution to the "hand-problem". I don´t know how they should have done it, maybe it doesn´t have a better way of doing it, but... well you see my point, don´t you?

Far more alerting is the fact that neither of these cars should have been bought at all. Not by me.

I have some rules, some specific goals for my collection. Very early on I decided NOT to collect ´em all. There is simply to many cars!
So I started to collect the main characters in Radiator Springs. (Mater, McQueen, Sally, Doc...)
And then all the Race Cars from the first movie. And then the Team Chiefs... and the pittys.

When the second movie came along, I instantly went for the new Race Cars and their Team Chiefs.
And that was it. No more!

And I haven´t completed those goals yet. I got the Race Cars from both the movies. And the Team Chiefs from the first. And almost all the pittys. (I only miss NO STALL PITTY!)

But now I finding myself buying almost every new car I come across in the toy stores. (Yes I walk the lines of toy stores all by myself. I walk the line... humm dumm di dumm I walk the line)

It seems like I try to buy all the 50 cars released as Singles from Cars. How could that ever be possible? I have specifically told myself NOT to do that!

2 new cars to celebrate

I don't know how it is with you guys, but sometimes when I consider myself in a position where I've done something good - I celebrate with buying a car.

Tomorrow one of my radio documentary will be aired and when I finally did the last work in it - I celebrated. And I celebrated good. I bought TWO cars!

Scary incident in morning rush

V had a terrible accident a few days ago. He likes to help out in the kitchen and recently we have let him stir the porridge. He loves it, takes really great pride in doing so, making proper food together with me and my wife.
How could we deny him? And... he is also silent and stops moaning (he is not very good at patience) when we let him cook along with us.

Well. The other morning he used a different chair to climb up to the stove. And suddenly it started to slide backwards. V fell forward and used his left hand - his good one - to stop the fall.

Bad thing was - he put it on the stove plate that the porridge was boiling on. The pot flew away and the hand landed on the hot plate.

Panic.

It took us 15 minutes to get V calm enogh to put some cold (not very cold) water on the hand. He just couldn't stop screaming. A started to cry as well.

We had some advice from the national hospital advicing system and they told us to go to the Astrid Lindgren Childrens Hospital. That is a very good hospital with lot´s of nice people with tons of experience of treating children.
Bad thing though, the hospital is north of Stockholm. We live south of the city.

So off we went. During rush hour.

But it wasn´t that bad. It took us almost an hour but V was a trooper. We had managed to give him some painkillers hidden in a glass of juice. We sang to him and he smiled a bit. And he learned the sign for doctor quickly.

And the people at the hospital were very very good. They put him in a special waiting line, because of his brain disease. "He shouldn´t have to wait, that is clearly not something we should put him through".

The hardest part in the following days was to keep V from putting the hand with the bandage in his mouth. We had to dress the bandage every new day. First at the local health central, but then we managed to do it at home.

Now it has healed. And we are reminded never to take it easy, never to rest, never to stop watching our loved strange little boy again. Until it happens in a new way we never thought of...

Krate Rainson-Wash - a large pitty!

No. Krate is not a pitty, I know that. But when I open my newest find I kind of thought of it like a hybrid between the pittys and a "full grown" car.

I´ve always loved the small or odd cars that are used at airports. They seem to be very cleverly invented. Each and every one with a different special purpose.

I would like to see more of them as diecasts. Of course, I would like to see most cars as Disney/Mattel diecasts...