Diecast Carshow: The F1 Experience

 I just have a few F1 cars.  I'm lucky to even have these.  

Back when I first became a racing fan, I visited the message boards for Racer magazine a lot.  In the F1 section, there was an announcement that AutoZone would be distributing a line of F1 Hot Wheels cars.  Autozone?  

They were supposed to be released on a certain date, so I went to the store down the street.  No luck.  I even went to the one across town and came up dry.  Everyone on the message board had the same experience.  Workers at the stores had no idea what the toy collectors were talking about when asked about it, but the original message was updated with a new date.

I went back again and, Wow!  There was suddenly a whole aisle with cars and a display by the register.  I bought all these at the same time.  I showed them to my dad and he really liked the little Ferrari.  I went back to the store to buy one for him a week later and it was all gone like it had never been there.  I even checked the other store.  It was a very odd, very limited time promotion.  (They should have run it during Christmas at least.)            

    

I wasn't into larger scale cars, but this was hard to resist.  They had McLaren and Williams cars, as well.  There was an even larger sized McLaren available.  I liked the Michael Schumacher model though.  It's well-made and very detailed.  While it rolls well, I doubt it would survive play with a child for long.  The CD has some Ferrari stuff on it.  Nothing special.  (It had a couple of sound effects of an F1 car at full speed.)  Mostly, there's the Velocity X car game Demo.  It's not a racing game; it's more of a combat-oriented puzzle game.  I thought it was fun, but I could never finish it.   

These were packaged like standard Hot Wheels cars.  They came with the team stickers, which I didn't want to remove from the display.  They're all the same, except for the colors and logos.  There were six available.  The other three teams were losers, but when I went back, I was going to buy them anyway.