Rec - check!

Tomorrow the German Touring Car Championship - DTM - starts the 2012 season. And for the first time since 1994 all the three big brands are in - Audi, Mercedes and BMW.
The qulification rounds today was very promising - in pole position, for the 19th time in his career, we´ve got Mattias Ekström. Yes, the swedish driver I´ve been writing a lot of lately.

So now I´m going to record the race tomorrow, and when my wife will lay the kids - it´s showtime!

And NO SPOLIERS!

Good night!

Helping out

V did som serious cleaning today. He has never been keen on the vacuum cleaner, but since we bought a new one that can run on a very silent mode he has begun to take interest.

My wife attended at a lecture last week about small children (age 0-4) with brain diseases. I was going to as well, but then V caught a cold and I stayed home with him instead.

One of the things Katarina Lindström, children neurologist, said was that children with brain disease often has problems with loud noise. It´s very common among people with autistic syndromes but also with lots of other brain related diseases.

We also found out that there is a swedish "group" of children with White Matter diseases. Good. We often feel alone when we meet other parents that have disabled children. They usually have Downs Syndrome or Cerebral Pares. But V has just Hypomyelinisation. That´s odd, even among disabled people...
But within this White Matter Group there are others that we could learn from or get support from I guess. Hope.

Katarina Lindström also said a few words about the brains special ability to take shortcuts. The placticity of the brain. If you stimulate the brain properly it can develop abbilities in new places, especially if it is a young brain.
So the pressure is on. And it´s on us - the parents. Stimulate V in the right way and he´ll become less disabled.

I guess that´s what I did when I took him for a spinn with the vacuum cleaner today. At least a bit.
And that´s how we´re going to do it. Bit by bit.

And the house will get cleaner and cleaner!

Rare cars - and a sneak peak at Flash

Reading yesterdays post you could get the feeling that I´m a bit disappointed in the election of Janne Flash Nilsson as the Swedish car.
In that case... you´re completely right!

Just think of a black Lotus F1 with the name Ronnie and a swedish flag... mmmm.... ok - note to self: stop drawling, the keyboard is not built for it.

Down below you´ll have a sneak peak at Flash anyway. (Yes I´m excited about it nevertheless)
It´s 2:00 in the clip, but watch the whole thing, there are a lot of expensive diecast models in this movie.
You´ll see the rarest Pixar Cars diecast models and you´ll also get a brief introduction to each one in text. You´ll ALSO get some piano music. I´m sorry about that.

So the cars are:
* Blu-Ray Dinoco Lightning McQueen - only 15 000 ever made.
* Zemak Lightning McQueen, or Motorama Lightning McQueen - something about 500-2000 ever made.
One is in my garage. Whooo-aaa!
* Red Ransburg Lightning McQueen - 1 original and 50 copies.
* Super Chase car Flash - something about 3000 ever made. Release this spring
* John Lassetire - exact numbers of copies unknown but guesstimates says around 500.
* Mac iCar - only released in the super set Motor Speedway of the South, never as a single - therefore there´s only 1000 copies. Watch out for custom made replicas.
* Lightning Storm Lightning McQueen - 7000 copies and one of them is in my collection. 

The San Diego Comic-Con 2008 special comes in a nice case.

I paid almost 90 USD for Motorama - still a bargain, the cheapest on eBay right now goes for 150 USD.

The Real King

This is from an old post but that one is in swedish so I´ll translate it and I´ll also bring it up to date a bit.


I´ve always loved the Disney way of bringing things to life. Living things, like ducks, mice, dogs or dead things - like cars. It doesn´t matter - Disney makes them fly, dance, laugh and the joy infects the audience - me - and I love Disney for doing that and doing it so good. I even cried one time. You know that scene from Toy Story 2 where Jessie sings about how she´s been abandoned by her "girl"? Yeah, you know what I´m talking about then.

But what I like so much with the first Cars movie is the speed. The action (I love the pace in the slower parts too, more about that in future posts) but I really love the Nascar reference in this film.

Some people might argue that it´s only a matter of time until NASCAR will be the largest sport in the world, it "only" has to take over the Formula One circus. And when you hear swedish German Touring Car race star Mattias Ekström talking lyrical phrases about NASCAR (he is the only swede ever to compete in the series) you understand that even the European stars look up to the league.

The character "The King" is, besides an extremely good looking diecast, also based on the amercian racing legend Richard Petty.

The King - legendary diecast

Richard Petty drove an light blue Plymouth Superbird when he won seven (7) straight Piston Cup´s - or I mean Winston Cup (the real name of the series back in the days, now it´s Sprint Cup)

Richard Petty - legendary racer

Petty were elected into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1997 and he won over 200 races in his outstanding career.

Richard Pettys Plymouth Superbird ´70

In the film Cars there´s a scene when a red car, the number 8, drives up to the King. He thanks the King for all the inspiration and help. The red car is Dale Earnhardt Jr, one of the latest stars in NASCAR, (the voice is from the real Dale) His father, Dale Earnhardt, has also won the Winston Cup seven times, and though Junior still waits for his first victory in the overall season, his one of the most popular drivers in the circus.

Dale Earnhardt Jr - the diecast. A popular car in the US.

This is how Dale looked in the early 00´s - the Bud ad was removed in the Pixar movie.

In 2008 Dale changed teams from the family team to Hendrick Motorsports and when I write this, he is closer than ever to that first Piston Cup victory. After the first 6 races Dale is second in the series after finnishing top 5 in three races. Due to his popularity Dale was the modern NASCAR-driver to take place in the movie.

This Nascar references has made me a fan. In 2010 we swedes suddenly could see som races on TV. That was because Mattias Ekström made two guest apperences. I really loved it! I followed the first one on NASCAR´s site on the internet. Great service! Mattias did real good, he even had the lead in 7 laps on the Infineon Race track at California, but ended up at 21th place.
After the race he said that he´d been in more contact with other cars than he would in 10 years of DTM-racing. He said that with a happy smile on his face.

Last year he became the runner up on the German Touring Car Championship and I think there´s rumours about Mattias driving NASCAR again. I would really love that. But first things first, I know that he´s really going for his third DTM-championship this year.

Another diecast beauty based on a great driver is this one:

Mario Andretti

I like Mario Andretti because he was a team mate and a true friend of the great Ronnie Peterson. They both drove for one of the most classical racing team in history of motorsports - the John Player Lotus.

Gold and black. The only combination missing in the team line up in Cars.

Team mates. Rivals. True friends.

Team Dinoco in a new display

This is how the new plastic display box works IRL. Eventually i would change Giuseppe Motorosi, Franscesco´s Team Chief, to a Dinoco tool box. That way I could devote one display box to a single team.

Just imagine to have one box for each and every team! But the boxes aren´t exactly free. I paid something like $21 here in Sweden for this one. Even though all the teams shouldn´t fill up one box, only a few has three pittys, most teams consists of a race car, a chief and aonly one pitty, this would be a terrible cost....

However, the box is from Muji, it looks like you could order from here.

Storage with some elegance

I was out shopping yesterday and suddenly I found this plastic answer to my storage-problem-prayers:

21$ - a robbery?

Only if you use it like this - an ugly place to put your pens.

The small places is big enough for the pittys but also for Todd and Holly.

This is the way to use a plastic pen holder! Tilt it, park it, embrace it! Full display in two levels! I guess this will save me som space in my cabinett.

Look how cosy it is! I want to BE a diecast and live like this forever. Or...maybe not.

I´ll post another note about this when I´d move it out in my garage. We´re having some problems with the garage right now, it´s almost impossible to get there. We´re building another small house on our yard but we haven´t started yet so therefore the garage is full of wooden boards and tools. My cars are in the inner sanctum and I´ll have to cross a lot of stuff to get there. YES your´re absolutely right - that IS a huge problem!

Nicest looking car - ever?

Here´s a classical beauty!

Fabulous Hudson Hornet - Team Chief for Lightning McQueen in the later part of Cars 1 - Great beauty!

I guess I forgot all about this car yesterday - I was a bit excited about getting that last Rubber Tire... But this one is a very nice Diecast. Love the details and it rolls all so smothly - just as I imagine the real one would.

So this is now the correct numbers:


Goals reached:
35 out of 35 Rubber Tires Piston Cup Race Cars collected.

Goals left:
11 Team Chiefs from Cars 1 to collect - 1 left
28 Pittys from Cars 1 to collect - 7 left
11 Rubber Tires World Grand Prix Race Cars from Cars 2 to collect - 3 left
10 Team Chiefs from Cars 2 to collect - 9 left
6 Ultimate Chace Cars from Cars 2 to collect - 6 left

Final Car FINALLY FOUND!

Look at him! The Prodigal Son has returned! Finally I´ve got them all!
Yes, all 35 of the Piston Cup Race cars from the first Cars movie that are released in the Synthetic Rubber Tires series. (The Apple Car is not released as a rubber tire, hence 35 instead of the 36 you can see in the movie - if you are quick enough).

This is my first goal - and reaching it feels good! A feeling of completion, progress, forward moving. Illusive, but yet real.

Goals reached:
35 out of 35 Rubber Tires Piston Cup Race Cars collected.

Goals left:
11 Team Chiefs from Cars 1 to collect - 2 left
28 Pittys from Cars 1 to collect - 7 left
11 Rubber Tires World Grand Prix Race Cars from Cars 2 to collect - 3 left
10 Team Chiefs from Cars 2 to collect - 9 left
6 Ultimate Chace Cars from Cars 2 to collect - 6 left

All together that is only 25 more cars to collect. Wow. That´s not that many. The first feeling is a strange sadness.
But... I´m sure Mattel eventually will release pittys from Cars 2 -  then we´re on again!