I just bought a new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X more than a week ago. It’s red and shiny. And it’s now parked on top of my favorite shelf at home.I still do not have a car (that is bought with my own money) but I have a car collection. I may have given you the wrong idea about this but when I say ‘car’, it’s a diecast car, a smaller version of the real thing. First, I need to give you a background about this passion of mine.
The movie “The Fast and the Furious” and its succeeding sequels provided me interest on cars but it never really provoked my desire to collect then. Maybe because it was overshadowed by my love for Vin Diesel and Paul Walker (who played their roles like true racewar drivers) at that time. I started collecting seriously when I had finally completed watching the Initial D anime series sometime last year on DVD. I did not want it to end that soon so I needed more. I realized I couldn’t watch it over and over again. Otherwise, my social life would be dead. With the Internet being a best friend of mine, I became engrossed in researching anything about it and if I could buy something with Initial D on it, it could probably cure my Initial D complex. I was wrong. I started googling for any memorabilia I could find and voila! There are diecast versions of the cars from the series. And so the hunting began.
Toy Kingdom and other toy stores have been my sanctuary during the first few months of my buying frenzy. The cars were hard to find way back. I was a late bloomer when it came to that, I admit. The car I wanted to get hold of the most was the series character Ryosuke Takahashi’s Mazda RX-7 FC3S. I accidentally found the last stock at SM Toy Kingdom in Makati during my first 2 weeks of hunting; it was a diecast with a scale of 1:64 (a little bit larger than a Matchbox or a Tomica). No more other Initial D cars left because the Initial D phase has passed. They say I got lucky maybe because I was a newbie collector. Buena mano. My first few collections were in bigger scales of 1:24 (size is a little smaller than an average landline phone unit, to give you an idea) and I completed the four cars that were featured in the anime series in a month’s time because the stocks for this scale were still available at most department toy stores. These cars were: Toyota AE86 Trueno, Mazda RX-7 FD3S & FC3S, and Nissan Skyline GT-R32. I was happy and unable to stop looking for more. I got hooked.
The web was a nice place to shop (at first) and it was a good thing that there was Ebay Philippines already. I had a chance to buy a yellow Toyota Trueno (not from the series) through ebay.ph from a fellow diecast collector who also introduced me to a diecast collection association here in the country, I did not know that we had one here. I joined Diecast Car Collectors of the Philippines (DCPh) last July 2007 and I’ve learned a lot from the group by browsing or transacting through the group’s online forum and attending the quarterly swapmeet (which I consider as a haven for diecast, by the way) whenever I have the chance. Through this group, I’ve made a lot of collector friends and acquaintances, also my growing number of collections do not evolve around Initial D alone anymore but on other Japanese cars as well because I’ve completed the main six cars featured in the series in scale 1:64. This group also helped me expand my items. However, there are still remaining ‘holy grails’ that I have to find and the excitement of hunting is a motivation for me to continue collecting.
As of this date, I have approximately 100+ car items on my shelf and storage boxes. I collect Japanese cars that are tuned or used for drifting, similar to the cars featured in “Tokyo Drift” and yes, Initial D. Mostly bought, some given in RAOK (Random Act of Kindness) by my fellow group members and friends. At first it was a bit intimidating to meet other collectors who have vast collections. Being a newbie like me, it cannot be helped to feel insecure with my small collection and limited knowledge on cars. Being a female is also one thing because like some cars, female diecast collectors are rare. But the collectors have been supportive to me and I'm grateful for the encouragement.
Most people do not really understand this hobby of mine. If it were dolls, I bet they would appreciate it more. But with cars? Well, it takes a lot passion to be involved in this kind of hobby. They say it’s a waste of money and does not really fit my profile because I’m already an adult and do not have kids to share it with yet. But I do not really mind because it brings me unexplainable joy whenever I buy something uncommon or new, not to mention I’m forever a kid at heart. It just gives me something to look forward to in the future and who knows, this dream may even result to the real thing. So I never stop collecting.
Got my drift?
© 2008 Cat Ramos
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