Are Matchbox/Hot Wheels Cars HO Scale (1/87)? What is a good way to tell if they are to the right scale before purchasing any?
To my knowledge, Matchbox Cars are way oversize for HO scale, more like 1/60 instead of 1/87.1. I would not even say they are to scale at all.
Matchbox cars vary in scale. Whatever they could fit in those original small cardboard boxes was the scale! Usually the wheels were out of scale as well(seemed to have a standard size for all).
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Sir Madog To my knowledge, Matchbox Cars are way oversize for HO scale, more like 1/60 instead of 1/87.1. I would not even say they are to scale at all.
Some of the older Matchbox's, if you can find them, are pretty good. But I agree with Sir Madog, the newer stuff, including all Hot Wheels, are way too big for HO.
I have this one (but no box) and it fits in nice:
Best way to tell if something like this would work is buy a vehicle you know is HO and take it with you shopping to compare against others. You may be surprised by what you find!
I have found that most vehicles that are built to a specific scale will have it marked on the box, making it pretty easy.
Don't do it. Don't embarrass yourself and most importantly your family.
I collect matchbox cars from the 60's, and while they are beautiful, they are way out of scale and look silly on an HO scale layout. The newer Matchbox cars look even worse. I've seen alot of guys buy the trucks or cranes, thinking that they are close enough, and believe me they just ruin the entire layout. There are plenty of 1/87 vehicles out there to be had for cheap. Use them.
KyleMan Are Matchbox/Hot Wheels Cars HO Scale (1/87)? What is a good way to tell if they are to the right scale before purchasing any?
KM:
A lot of Matchbox cars have the scale molded into the bottom. Models of large autos and medium-size trucks are often closer to HO scale than others.
I say use 'em if they don't bother you. Lots of modelers do, and it's better than having empty streets. I used to use a lot, and I would use more now if I could find more 1930s vehicles. For $8-$10 or more each, the scale ones might as well be unobtainable. For $10 I'd rather have another boxcar or track switch, instead of a set piece that doesn't really do anything. I'm not a model-car hobbyist!
If I ever submit any Trackside Photos, I'll just throw my relatively few better-grade vehicles into the scene, so it looks like that's all I have. Sometimes I wonder just how widespread this practice is.
There used to be a neat set of off-brand vintage cars that were somewhat larger than HO, but still worked pretty well, since the prototypes were small. I wish I could find these. The drug store used to carry them, and IHC was selling them for a few years.
No family is going to be embarassed because Daddy is using Hot Wheels on his train layout. You might find them parked illegally, though, after the kids have been driving.
The run-of-the-Walmarts Hot Wheels are closer to S scale than to HO. There are two lines of 1/87 toy vehicles, "Fresh Cherries", and "1/87" that turn up at Walmarts intermittently. I have picked up a '53 Caddy, a VW Beetle, a VW Kombi, a '56 Chevy sedan, a '56 Ford pickup and a type 356 Porche, all of which work on a transition era layout. There are a fair number of 70's and 80's cars which I haven't bought, being as they are past my era.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I buy them for my S scale layout when I can find 1953 or earlier models without the fanciful paint styles.
Enjoy
Paul
Jim hit the nail on the head, Lesney set the box size back in the fifties and built the car or truck to whatever scale it took to fit into the box. A two-door economy car and a London double-decker bus had to fit in the same 'matchbox'.
They may have started marking the scales on the cars in recent years (decades) but I don't think any of my cars from the sixties had them on it. However the "Models of Yesteryear" did have it on the car or the box as I recall, or at least in the catalogue. Back when I was in O scale (in the seventies/eighties) I used many of them on the layout, many of those cars were between about 1:43 and 1:50 scale and they looked pretty good.
BTW when the "Scenemaster" HO cars came out I bought some of them, they're obviously not as good as CMW, Busch etc. but they really aren't bad either. I would prefer using them on an HO layout to Matchbox cars. They're scale sized and not expensive.
http://www.discounttrainsonline.com/graphics/433/L1699.jpg
Matchbox and Hotwheel cars range in scale, typically either 1/64th or 1/58th. Don't ask how I know, if I tell I run the chance of someone measuring me for a very unfortable white jacket with leather straps.
Autobus Prime For $8-$10 or more each, the scale ones might as well be unobtainable. For $10 I'd rather have another boxcar or track switch, instead of a set piece that doesn't really do anything. I'm not a model-car hobbyist!
Wal-Mart sells scale 1/87 vehicles for $1.99. Sometimes you can get good deals on vehicles through the walthers sale catalogs for as little as $5. Quality box cars range in price from $18 to $35. A decent track switch will run you at least $17.
Here's a trick. Tale an HO person and prop it up next to a Hotwheels/Matchbox, and see if it looks right, then compare it to an HO car. Width is the real killer, but if the person won;t fit in the cab, or look like they will, then you know you need to hang it up right there. Matchbox has a series of semis that are the right size. The Hot Wheels Box Truck is HO. There are a few Hot WHeels that are the right size, if it weren't for the oversized motor. HW also put out an Octane truck in the 90s that is right if you dull down the shine on the tank.
EDIT: The Indy Car, the fireengine (flat front, not the hood) the cement mixer, the grader (okay, so the V200 trows it off) the Recycling truck, and a crown vic police car aren't far off.
Oh, and ddon't forget the HO scale Hotwheels train. And no, I don't mean the Rail Rodder. About 8 years back, Hot Wheels had a three car trainset, an engine, A passenger car roughly remesbling an RDC/Dome hybrid, and an autorack. The train ran on plastic track, ran on batteries with a remote control, and had a sound system to make MRC look like a luxury item. And the wheels were cake cuter flanges. There were push bars underneath to press levers in the track, tst responeded to builidnge that loaded and unloadted the autrack. But I tried it, the wheels were HO.
-Morgan
... just a word of caution.
We invest a lot of time and money to detail our layouts as much as possible to capture that realistic look - just look at the pics here in the forum. Yet we "populate" our layouts with oversized cars, poorly detailed and with a toy-like appearance.
I have seen pictures of many a fine layout and it was the cars and trucks on that gave them away as a model..
There is a lot of room for improvement! (Industry - do you hear this?)
Driline Autobus Prime For $8-$10 or more each, the scale ones might as well be unobtainable. For $10 I'd rather have another boxcar or track switch, instead of a set piece that doesn't really do anything. I'm not a model-car hobbyist! Wal-Mart sells scale 1/87 vehicles for $1.99. Sometimes you can get good deals on vehicles through the walthers sale catalogs for as little as $5. Quality box cars range in price from $18 to $35. A decent track switch will run you at least $17.
D:
Apples to apples, Dri. You're comparing a sale price with a regular price, but freight cars are always going on sale, too, and at any rate my purchases there have mostly been Accurail and Bowser, usually for about $10...and I use Atlas switches. Even if I could get myself to spend $35 on a boxcar, though, I'd still rather have "a third of a boxcar" that I can switch and haul in trains, than a $10 or even a $5 vehicle, which is just scenery. Indeed, the Hot Wheels have more play value, because the kids can drive 'em around.
I haven't seen the $2 Fresh Cherries at Walmart since Walthers started selling them for a higher price, but at any rate, they were way too modern. Basically, my cheapest choice is Jordan (I have their buckboard, a nice kit) or to squint and pick the smaller of the Hot Wheels cars, and go for effect, not perfection. It beats a vacant lot.
You're attempting to poke holes in my logic, but it won't work. I already know the stuff you're saying, but I've got a different perspective. When you're working on a strict budget, it forces you to think outside the box, and I've found fun in that, but it's something that shakes up a lot of people around here, I've noticed. There are a lot of well-entrenched dogmas in this hobby. Consider the recent thread on Dave Barrow's very unconventional ideas.
Of course, I'm not just trying to challenge established notions. More than that, I post stuff like this in an effort to connect with others who have their own wild ideas...people are often reluctant to reveal them, because audiences can be hostile, but it's those very ideas that I enjoy the most. They make me think!
There was a time when I would have completely agreed with you - that no real model railroader would use Matchbox. I did use them then, and I was actually ashamed of it. I felt I was breaking a "rule". Then I saw a local modeler's layout. He had lots of 'em, and the effect of a busy road was excellent - I realized that the overall effect can outweigh individual discrepancies...and if you can get that effect for $20, where perfect scale would take an additional $100 or more, it's easy to draw the line on the pavement...at least until cash permits an upgrade, and the kids don't want to go driving any more.
As for stamped scale, it is indeed there, and has been for a long time. Usually it's "S 1:xx", in very small raised letters, with xx being the scale factor, whether 96 or 87 or 59 or whatever. I remember seeing those on Matchbox and Hot Wheels at least 25 years ago, so it's nothing new...generally, the more fantasy-derived designs won't have them. For a few examples, the Matchbox Cadillac ambulance is 1:80, and the Mini station wagon is 1:59 (much larger than most, because the Mini is a tiny car.)
I was at a Greenburg train show a couple of years back and a vendor was trying to seel hotwheels type cars as HO scale vehicles. Obviously a mear amature toy vender who had no idea who he was dealing with. Well the crowd chastised this guy up one side and down the other. If someone had a rope I think they would have linched himout in the parking lot..........lol I know it might sound geekish but I've gone into places like Walmart and Toy R Us with my wife and kid and pulled out my 1:87 scle ruler and jsut measured a car if I thought it was something I wanted. Seems like true HO scale isn't very popular with anyone but us train people.
There is a lot to be said for creative thinking, and departing from accepted dogma. Model railroading is about illusion, and illusion can be created many ways. Absolute scale is not always the answer.
Even so, I use an HO scale ruler (3.5mm=1 foot) and knowledge of the actual dimensions of cars and trucks to determine scale. Typically, model road vehicles may be scaled by wheelbase, width, and height. You will find that the scale in each dimension may differ, due to proportional distortion.
Recently, there has been an onslaught of plastic German-made (unless they are Chinese), current era cars in Walmart, which appear to be true HO. Detail and contours are fine. Prices are low.
I have used several old Matchboxes on my WWII era layout, finding them VERY close to true HO. These include the horse drawn #7 Milk Float (wagon), #8 Caterpillar bulldozer series (in a variety of sizes), #13 Tow Truck (a little small, but within limits), #15 trash truck, #17 Removals (moving) van, #16 Scammel snow plow dump truck, #16 Case bulldozer, #18 bulldozer series, #47 1-Ton Trojan van, #69 Commer Nestle's van, and on and on. These are all "regular wheel" models, pre-Hot Wheels. Beat up toys with chipped paint and bent axles can be bought for a few bucks, as they are not in good enough condition to satisfy the collectors. They can be repaired, repainted, or retouched, and put in service.
Matchbox automobiles from the regular-wheel era tend to be close to British HO (1/76 proportion), and very 1950's in styling, so I don't use them.
The early Yesteryear series included a c. 1916 AEC 3 ton truck with spoke wheels and solid tires that used to appear on nearly everyone's layout, but they are now in the stratosphere of collectibility prices. Same for the Allchin steam traction engine and the Aveling Porter steamroller.
Jordan plastic car and truck/bus kits are still a great bargain, and are fine scale models, if you can handle the microscopic parts. They take a deft touch to assemble straight, but they are the best.
Herpa, Brawa, Viking, etc models are also high quality, and can be found for lower prices here and there. Variety is endless. They are among the few plastic models that don't require paint, due to excellent finish as-manufactured. A little weathering can help, to dull the shine.
When you isolate a fleet of too-large, out of scale vehicles together in a parking lot or a road, they look OK.
Robt. LivingstonRecently, there has been an onslaught of plastic German-made (unless they are Chinese), current era cars in Walmart, which appear to be true HO. Detail and contours are fine. Prices are low.
For me, it's a matter of if they look okay. I do have some Matchbox and Hot Wheels vehicles for on my layout but only for until decent models of those vehicles come out. Back when I had my old layout, I couldn't afford to buy models of ambulances that I'd seen, and models of fire trucks and rescue squads that I wanted weren't available. So, I raided my boxes of diecast vehicles and went with Matchbox ambulances and Hot Wheels fire trucks and rescue squads. I've done some detailing/touching up on them since the photo below was taken, and they look decent to me. On one fire truck and rescue squad, I even modified the numbers to #51 (anybody know where I came up with that number?).
Basically, if a good or affordable model of a vehicle I want is available, I'll get it. But if not and I see a decent diecast vehicle that I can tweak to work for the time, I'll go with that.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
For those saying "don't do it!", what would be better: a layout with minimal but "proper" scale vehicles or a layout that is populated with vehicles even if they are off a bit?
I would rather see a layout with vehicles than without and what Kevin has done above fits right in. We can not all afford to go out and buy HO scale vehicles to make the scenes look right all at once, it will take time and using Matchbox/Hot Wheels as stand-ins makes sense to me.
Those WalMart vehicles have not been available here for quite some time and when they were, it was a limited selection, so they are not the great saving that some might make out. I do what I can with what I have and as with the rest of the stuff, I will replace the real bad offenders over time as resources permit.
Autobus Prime For $10 I'd rather have another boxcar or track switch, instead of a set piece that doesn't really do anything. I'm not a model-car hobbyist!
Are you a model structure hobbyist?A model tree hobbyist?
Automobiles are just as important as any other part of the layout--like trees or structures--in helping to cerate a realistic scene. I'm not about to devote the time to handlaying track, kitbashing structures, and superdetailing locomotives only to place toy-looking cars and trucks around them just because they're cheaper.
PathfinderFor those saying "don't do it!", what would be better: a layout with minimal but "proper" scale vehicles or a layout that is populated with vehicles even if they are off a bit?
The former. I'll add cars and truck as I can afford them.
TA462 Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars are all S scale which is 1/64. They are no where near being close to HO scale. I don't understand why people use them on their HO scale layouts.
Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars are all S scale which is 1/64. They are no where near being close to HO scale. I don't understand why people use them on their HO scale layouts.
But they aren't all 1/64. Tell me the bus is 1:64 really. It belongs between HO and N. And the Go-Kart, seat is HO. the cart itself is too big, but the seat is HO.
A couple of HO scale vehicles, some converted from beat-up Matchbox toys. MB tow truck upper left, MB Removals Van (in NYO&W Express Delivery livery). Derelict MB snowplow/dump trucks parked in the back rank where they belong:
Jordan Mack Bulldog westbound, Ulrich Mack eastbound:
Converted Viking WWII German Army trucks, now in civilian service in Brooklyn; Hanomag on left, Opel Blitz on right:
Re-wheeled Matchbox Trojan van ahead of Matchbox tractor, clear windshields cut out and glued in. At the loading dock, a MB Yesteryear AEC sits beside a re-bodied MB trash truck:
Midnight Railroader Autobus Prime For $10 I'd rather have another boxcar or track switch, instead of a set piece that doesn't really do anything. I'm not a model-car hobbyist! Are you a model structure hobbyist?A model tree hobbyist? Automobiles are just as important as any other part of the layout--like trees or structures--in helping to cerate a realistic scene. I'm not about to devote the time to handlaying track, kitbashing structures, and superdetailing locomotives only to place toy-looking cars and trucks around them just because they're cheaper.
MR:
In fact, I am a model structure hobbyist. I like building 'em. But usually you need more autos than structures, and even at that I don't spend a whole lot of scratch - I can build a good-sized building for five bucks, and in the meantime I use fillers, too, like printed buildings (homemade or copied from ancient RMC's), to stand by until I can get together time or money for better ones.
I don't spend a whole lot on trees, either. Most of mine are trimmed and ground-foamed dime-store trees, or cut-up garland treated likewise. I'm going to try Aggrojones' furnace-filter method one of these days, since I found a place that sells the filters.
Lots of fun, not much scratch, that's what I'm trying to accomplish here. I could be spending all my time griping about expense, instead, but I don't think anybody wants that. :D
Constructive placement can enhance forced perspectives. In the right place, no one complains about an obviously n scale building placed in the background to give the illusion of greater distance to the background building. A slightly oversized vehicle could be placed in the foreground to create much the same illussion. Vehicle with slight inconsistencies (such as the afore-mentioned HotWheels Mustang with the grossly oversized rear wheel well) can be staged so that another vehicle or a building conceals the offending part. Creativity and common sense can make some out of scale vehicles work in many scenes. Besides, the real eye catchers are supposed to be the trains, the surrounding scenery is supposed to enhance the train's realism.
I once caught a train in my pajama's. How it got in my pajama's I'll never know... (sorry, Groucho)
Hmmmmm..... Matchbox or true 1/87 HO scale. You Decide.
Matchbox
True 1/87 HO Scale
I know my comparison was drastic, but unfortunatley you do get modelers who will use these types of vehicles as well. The problem isn't only scale. Its the "fine" details that are included in most true plastic HO scale vehicles. The matchbox vehicles are just large blocks of metal with few details.
I'd rather have 5 quality HO scale vehicles as opposed to 50 oversized toylike monstrosities anyday. I've paid as much as $25 for a pair of vehicles with trailer. Although most of my cars are in the 9 to 12 dollar range.
Hotwheels does offer a line of 1/87 HO scale cars, they are pretty much their fantasy cars but they are to scale none the less. There are also 1/87 NASCAR cars, not much use to a 60's modeller like myself, but if you're modelling one of the race tracks that has NS running by it (and there are a couple) or if you want to have a display where the NASCAR team shows up to the local grocery store, auto parts store, state fair etc, they would work.
Matchbox is another story. The older (1960's) had cars that were very close to HO scale, as someone pointed out, they originally had to fit a matchbox, presumebly because the kids could only bring a toy that size or smaller in the English schools (trivia for today). There was a site that had the history and along with it, the approximate sizes of the various vehicles. I found it thru a Google search but unfortuantely didn't bookmark it as the chance of actually finding any of the right size ones would probably be cost prohibitive because of their collector's value.
Ricky
When I was about 8 years old, my folks and I were shopping for my first train set. I had a choice between Lionel and a Tyco HO set. I chose the HO scale because it was "kinda" close to fitting with my Matchbox and Hot Wheel cars.
Now several decades later, would I buy a Hot Wheel or Matchbox car for my layout? No. But I certainly welcome my 9 year old son to bring his Hot Wheels into the train room to play with.
RedGrey62The older (1960's) had cars that were very close to HO scale, as someone pointed out, they originally had to fit a matchbox, presumebly because the kids could only bring a toy that size or smaller in the English schools (trivia for today).
I collect the 1960's era of Lesney "matchbox" cars. They are not close to HO scale. And here's my display case to prove it.
Again, they are great to play with under the tree in the front yard, but look out of place on an HO layout. Even if they were in scale they would still look "toyish" because they dont have the fine exquisite details that plastic cars are capable of.
If you want that "toy look" then by all means use matchbox. But for those who prefer true scale fine modeling......well they just won't do.