My Simca has some silvery rust and I've painted the grill and front license plate silver and the emblems black.

I have the Impala as well, along with a faked version of it. (same mold, Majorette wheels, but a different paintjob and company)

I have three of that Impala - a blue police one in good shape, a yellow and black taxi in beater shape - it resided under our terrace for several years and the "fake" one in black. Interesting to note about the "fake" one is that the body is in plastic, resulting in a very light weight and high survivability rate. I bought it at the airport on Tenerife in the late 90s - as part of a set consisting of this Land Rover and this semi.

Strange...the Landy is a genuine Majorette (I have the same in unmarked white) but the other two are cheap generic toys (I think I have the semi as well)

Majorette is pretty cheap and generic to start with I like Matchbox better

Having a majority of Matchbox/Hot Wheels now, no matter which company we choose, all goes in Mattel's pocket anyway... . Almost all Majorette ones are from my childhood so chosen for wierd reasons ( liked he color, liked this or that or bought by my father or other family members ). Majorette also harder and harder to find here ( last ones i bought, a Renault Clio with a trailer and a Mitsubishi Outlander with a trailer too ) was over a year ago and did not saw any since.

Also like Hot Wheels tv/films editions ( BTTF DeLorean, Simpsons Homer's car, Star Trek's Enterprise, etc... )

Matchbox-cars are even more generic and too many phantasy-cars among them. For playing I preferred SIKU and Majorette, for collecting WIKING.

I'm talking about Matchbox of the 90s, the ones I grew up with not the ones made by Lesney - for those are indeed generic. My favourite toy cars are from Tomy - but they weren't sold in Norway past 2000 - I really liked their T2 camper and R5 Turbo - sadly I lost both of them

As a kid, as long as the car was still moving i was happy, no matter who the manufacturer was. Now i'm buying only vintage/muscle cars or new ones with for all selection criteria : has to be found on a road, no matter where so no fantasy cars ( except movies vehicles or concept cars actually designed by a car manufacturer like the Cadillac Elmiraj i bought 2 weeks ago ), no race car ( unless it has a full interior and not a single seat with a roll cage ) and no modified ones so they can do all the weird designs they want, i won't buy it


The only fantasy i bought recently is the Hot Wheels Rip Rod and i bought it only because Ford did a reproduction of it

and if you're looking for the cheapest ones, take a look at Maisto, not their 1:18 line but the toy ones....ouch, some are looking really cheap,some still in the packaging and wheels are already stucked inside the arch..

I remember that MC Toys (neither a rapper nor a fast food chain) always made ultra cheap versions of mostly 1980s cars, including the Peugeot 309, Ford Granada and Citroen 2CV.

Those from the 80s were quite good I usually preferred them over Matchbox.
And Siku even more, but they were more expensive.


Quite possible that Majorette decreased in quality in the 90s

Yes, because the company went bankrupt in late 1992. As a result, production in France was stopped and moved to Thailand by the new owners of the brand. The sudden change in quality was much more evident than in Matchbox' case a couple of years before when they moved their production from Hackney to Macau.
I personally liked the old Majorettes that were still made in France quite a lot (although the majority of my toy cars were made by Siku and Matchbox)because of their "suspension".

About the prices I have no idea any more, but in the late 70ies they were quite equal.

Yes, Majorette is worse now. I'm not buying them any more, but recently I checked some, when I waited at a gas station-cashier. Terrible.

But SIKU isn't better. Even the most hardcore-fan http://www.oldtimermuseum-hoeing.de/ confirms that. SIKU became terrible after the production went to China and especially when the bottoms became plastic and are not zinc any more.
My friends, who have children, buy used SIKU and Majorette, also Matchbox toys on flea markets for their kids, not the new stuff. The price is the same (even less, when you haggle well) they last longer - and it's better for a child's growth, when it got toys of real acceptable cars.

Are the new Majorette still have their suspension ? Always liked that feature too. I know Matchbox did lost their ( have a old Cadillac Allante and a Camaro Iroc Z that has a similar suspension feeling and a newer Cadillac that doesn't ). I stopped taking them out of their packaging about 4 years ago and the 'newer unpacked ' are either Hot Wheels or Matchbox

I think Siku were a little more expensive, but if a remember well actually many of the Majorette I got were not sold with Majorette packaging but as "produit blanc", a "generic" brand from GB supermarkets, I'd guess these were older models (e.g. from a few years before):
http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimages/289456/majorette045.jpg
(29 BEF = about 0.75€)
there were also some from Texaco around the same time:
http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimages/289456/majorette043.jpg

Sikus have plastic wheelbase, but their bodies are very good and much more detailed than in the 70s-90s. Most of details are painted and lights are separate plastic pieces. I expected there will be more cars in their retro series (VW Karmann Ghia is very nice, Traction Avant has less accurate face, but is solid), but unfortunately they don't expand it.
Together with Norev "3 inches"/Retro, Sikus are for me definitely the best toycars from these which you can easily buy in Europe now.

I also like more simple Welly cars, some are crappy, but some are quite good, e.g. Alfa GT or Opel Astra or very nice US VW 1303, not to mention they reproduced such a rarity among toy cars like Innocenti Mini.

Majorettes aren't as nice as they used to be in this brand glory days, but they are again much better than in the 2nd half of the 1990s.

Not a fan of Hot wheels style, but few weeks ago I found in store their 007 series. I'm not up to date with every toycars news anymore, so especially Bond's Esprit S1 was for me a very nice surprise.

Some rather opposite opinions here ! The truth is, well-known brands can be nice at one time, then become crappy... and then bounce back. Like Matchbox or Majorette, who've been fluctuating, quality-wise, in the past decades. And also-rans can become much better, like Welly, who's gone from copying Maisto designs in the 1990s to a maker of some of the most realistic toy cars around !

This Evoque, for instance, has its quarter window edges painted in black.




I hate the Mini Paceman, but this replica is quite good.



Nice too, the latest BMW 3-series and Porsche 911.



Gallardo and R8 quattro.



The big problem with Welly 3-inch cars, is to find them. They're not common.

Also, as said above, Norev cars are great too. They've done dozens of promotional die-cast models for the 1/1 manufacturers for the last fifteen years, but only a selection of them is available later in the market.



Some belgian exclusives.





Meanwhile, Majorette has enjoyed a renaissance thanks to its german owner Simba-Dickie. I don't have recent photos, but the castings are well done, with opening features and sometimes headlights molded in clear plastic, the wheels, although generic, suit the cars better than what Majo did in the 1980s, and an eclectic choice of models.

The first 1:18 K 70-scale model is issued now (but not from the company, which announced it as first).

http://www.ebay.de/itm/151864479271?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK- 3AIT

I haven't looked for that, but my friends are saying, that it's not worth that lot of money.

@ingo - a bit cheaper and more views - http://www.modelcarworld.de/uk/BoS-Models/197839/Modelcar-VW-K-70-L-gold.htm . BoS is modelcarworld's own brand for special commissions so they should be the cheapest source; however whoever actually made it might release their own version - maybe different colour etc - sometime soon.

Unfortunately, this is the way 1/18 scale models are made today : molded in resin, with no opening features, available online, in limited editions, and at very expensive prices. And it's becoming the same for 1/43 : the traditional collectible die-cast manufacturers (Minichamps, Norev, Schuco, etc) are also doing resin models with prices now in the 60-80 euro area, while their metal ones reach 40 euro, sometimes more...

Back when I was a kid, I used to get lots of 1/18 models, usually Burago and Maisto ones. These were always around £15-20 but there's not really as much of that now. I remember they were other makes around that level too like UT and Gate and if you found the right sales you could find even the really good AutoArt stuff for about £20-30 (I still regret not getting the Range Rover they did). Now it's all much too expensive for me to collect them. And I liked my opening bits.

The resin models all look good and the way the market is they can do lower-interest pieces profitably (cf the K70) when back when I bought 1/18s the ranges were mostly made up of Ferrari, Lamborghini etc.