IT'S A WHEEL THING!
by Raed Ammari

Collectors of all scales agree on one thing, that their cars have details that set them a part from from other die casts. We (collectors) wait for a nice car once a while from the die cast manufacturers, and here is where my story starts.

As a lover of BMW cars ( and ex owner of a brand new 1988 M3 ) I was struck by the new cast from MAJORETTE , I hold the new M3 in my hand and look in to the small details. It is just perfect, beautiful lines, scale, even the air bags and AC vents detailed on the dashboard! , But one thing was so bad, (MAJORETTE please take note) the wheels are pure ugly on this car!! They are small and the design is poor, so I started playing around with the wheel settings to get as close as possible to the real thing.

I always liked using big fat wheels on my cars like the HOT WHEELS Thomassima III. I also used taller ones on the WELLY Camaro Z28. I wanted my BMW to be perfect.(check out my previous articles).

I bought more than one M3. The first car I painted fly yellow but the stock wheels still look bad. On the second car I used a set of wheels from HOT WHEELS , The car's character just flipped! The rear (fatter) wheels fill the wheel wells and it just looks like a HOT ROD (and with hp 343 on tap it should). I still wanted a more EURO look for the car, so I used a set of wheels from MAISTO on the third M3 (of the same size) to simulate the 19'' wheels. It did really make it look nice. I wonder if MAJORETTE will make a deluxe version? That would be something, don't you think so?

Another car that I couldn't leave stock is the MAISTO BMW Z8. The cast is nice, clean with good details, but it lacks that rich look. I went all the way to the chrome wheels with rubber tires. I colored the stop lights and the aluminum dashboard. This car looks just right, I love it.