[thebankerstoy]

Well, I've been collecting 1:18th scale diecast models since 1999 and current have well over 700 cars and trucks in my collection. I'd say that roughly 85% of the collection are Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler vehicles and most of those are muscle cars and drag cars, but being a car guy as well as a Mopar guy, I do have some other U.S. and foreign brands in the collection as well.

I never remove any of my diecast models from their display boxes, so it got to the point where I had to completely remodel my family room in order to store and display all of these models. Thankfully my awesome wife of almost 35 years loves my real cars and model cars almost as much as I do, or I'd never be able to have built a collection like this!

I'll start off with some older pictures that I took several years ago that aren't very good quality, but they do show a small number of cars in my collection. On most of my shelves, the cars are stacked 2 cars high and 3 to 4 cars deep in each row. I move them around ever so often to show different models.

Here's a couple of pictures of some of the muscle cars.







A few of the race cars.









And some of my Funline Muscle Machines.



I'll try to add some much better pictures of individual cars in the future.

Richard

 

[PinkE]

Unbelievable...Love your display shelves, there just perfect...

 

[thebankerstoy]

Unbelievable...Love your display shelves, there just perfect...

Thank you very much Sue.

I designed and then had those shelving units built nice and strong and they are also securely anchored to the walls. The framework is built out of interlocking high quality 2x4's that are all screwed together rather than being nailed and the shelves are made out of 3/4 inch plywood. All of the framework and shelves were then sheet rocked, textured and painted to match the rest of the family room.

I also really wanted to add glass doors on each shelf section to help keep the dust maintenance down, but the shelving units are floor to ceiling and roughly 19 feet long on two different walls, so adding that many glass doors would have cost a fortune!

Before the cars and their display boxes were placed on the shelves, I cut and placed a high quality thin vinyl material in a matching color to the shelving units on the top of the shelves so that the display boxes would not be placed directly on a painted surface.

On the one wall, we also had a regular wood burning fireplace which I had converted to natural gas at the same time the shelving units were built. To solve the possible problem of having excessive heat affecting the models and their cardboard display boxes, special heat insulated materials were used around the fireplace to protect the cars. Luckily here in Phoenix the fireplace isn't used much, but I still made provisions for it's use if needed.

At this same time, I also had dimmable ceiling mounted tract lighting units installed on both side of the room to light up both walls of cars at night.

With this set-up, all that is needed to maintain all of these models is a dusting of the boxes and a damp cloth to wipe the dust off of the vinyl material that the cars sit on a couple of times a year. With over seven hundred models to do though, removing each model for dusting and replacing all of them on the shelves takes me several days to accomplish that task.

Richard

Once again I apologize for the lousy picture quality. These pictures were all taken with cheap throw away 35mm film cameras long before I purchased my Cannon digital camera.

 

[cu440da]

That is one sweet setup! I love those Muscle Machines.

 

[thebankerstoy]

That is one sweet setup! I love those Muscle Machines.

Thank you very much!

I noticed that you're located in MN, so have you purchased any diecast from my awesome friends Jim Thoren and Scott Dahlberg at Supercar Collectibles? I've been purchasing most all of my diecast vehicles from them for many years now and they are two fantastic guy's indeed!

It's also cool to hear that you like the Funline Muscle Machines! I purchased most all of the original versions of the following cars.

(pictures and models shown below are not actually mine, just used as reference to show them off. All of mine are in their original unopened display boxes)

1941 Willys

1966 Ford Mustang fastbacks

1969 Chevrolet Camaro's

1970 Plymouth Cuda's



2000 P.T. Cruiser's



as well as several versions of the

1950 Ford Woodie's



1955 Chevrolet Bel-Air's

1955 Chevrolet Nomad's

1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air's

1957 Chevrolet Nomad's

Sorry, no good pictures of this one right now.

1959 Chevrolet El Camino's



1963 Plymouth Savoy's

1968 Dodge Dart's

1969 Dodge Charger's

By the way, if you haven't heard yet, Maisto bought the rights to manufacture various scales of Muscle Machines and some have already been released and more are said to be coming in the future. Scales available will be 1/64th, 1/24th and 1/18th if you're interested.

Richard

 

[cu440da]

I had heard of the Supercar guys and knew they were local, but have not bought any of their stuff. Their price points are a bit higher than I usually go.

Its good to hear that the Muscle Machines line is getting new life. I was wondering why they pretty much disappeared for a while. They were hot sellers. I just picked up a few of the little ones that I happened upon last time I was in WalMart. I have space for about 10 more in this case...

 

[DusterBob]

1970 Gold Duster anyone?

Sweet machines. I like the '57 Bel-Air, looks cool.

I was wondering since you are in so much of these things if you happened to ever see a 1970 Gold Duster, in die cast or plastic, either one. It is a rare breed. I have a real one and I have never seen another one yet.

I would love to have either a die cast of it or a plastic version. I have a few mopar cars built but they are all plastic.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[DusterBob]

By the way... about that dust problem...

I thought of a simple way to solve the dust problem. How about making some slots for horizontally sliding clear acrylic window/doors? The only prob with this design is the dust will still get by the plastic sliding doors unless you seal them some how.

I was thinking of this design for my model collection. If your not into getting them off the shelves everyday you "could" drill small holes in the clear acrylic or that other clear plastic and counter sink the holes with a counter sinker and use small wood screws to screw the acrylic the other plastic. Or you could get a sheet of it cut to the size of the spaces between the shelves plus a 1/2" or so to screw into the shelving/sheet rock. They should cut it wherever they sell it.

Or you could use a full sheet, however big they make it, and use large sheets to cover the entire four or so shelves you have at one time and screw them to the shelving. That 'ell keep the dust out!!!

You could use the 1/8" x 1/4" insulation foam and put it between the outsides of the entire project. It has sticky to it so you could stick it to the plastic and then put it up against the wall and screw the sheets to the wall! But that is a little extreme : )

Bob