Heh. I hear ya; I have a fair number of Burago and Maisto Mercedeses in the collection (as well as that Jaguar XJ-220 you immortalized in drawing form)...

Was that XJ-220 a Maisto? If so, I have the exact same one, now.

Along with the '65 Corvette, Maisto makes a splendid 1936 Mercedes 500 SSK. Bburago makes a surprisingly fine Aston Martin Vanquish and their old Ferrari F-50 is super value for the money. But Maisto also make a Maseratti Spyder which almost sucks, a contemporary Audi that's not much better, and some rather lackluster Vipers. Maisto bought out Bburago a couple of years ago, did you know? Some weird stuff started happening. For instance, the old Bburago '56 Corvette was re-badged a Maisto, for no reason I can think of.

Yeah, the XJ's a Maisto. I have the 1:24 version as well; I like that car. :D

I have a couple of XJKs in 1/24. One is by Welly, a British company, and is in English racing green. The other is silver, and made by Maisto. Of the two, I think the Welly is slightly nicer, and catchs nuances about the body lines that Maisto doesn't quite.

I've had an XJK in 1/64, made by Maisto. I replaced the godawful wheels with a set from some other /164 car, which helped a lot. I don't recall if I still have it. I think there was a XJK in 1/32 as well, but I passed it up.

Then there's the huge, Maisto made, XJK in 1/12. It's out of production and was costly even then.

Yus. I drooled over the 1/12 version when it came out.

I had no idea there were so many model scales. Thanks!

I've only scratched the surface! The ones I mentioned are the main scales available, but there are some notable exceptions.

1/12 -- a premium scale if there was ever one. Costly in that they start at around $100. I don't know of any currently available. I own not a one.

1/20 -- Not a common scale, but I had a trio of "tuners" with Japanese right-hand drive that were this scale. It's awkward because its just a little too big to fit with your 1/24 collection. I've one model kit of a Camaro in 1/20 as well. It was traded to me for something -- I would never have bought it.

1/26 -- some large cars are made in this microscopically smaller scale by the manufacturer to cut corners. A car that might be 9 or 10 inches long, and cost forty-five cents more to make, can be squeezed down to the 8 inches most 1/24 cars are. Maisto's Hummers are 1/26, for instance.

1/60. I'm only guessed at the exact scale. They're made by Jada, mostly, but increasingly by Hot Wheels too. I don't know the reason, but strongly suspect that the slightly larger size of the toy appeals to more children, and sells better. But it leads to incongruities such as a diminuative little Japanese sportscar looking bigger than a Ford Mustang, or a Mustang that's bigger than a '70s Buick Riviera.

1/36 to 1/40. Maisto and at least one other company made a variety of fairly well made cars in this range of different scales. I presume it kept them all about the same size, regardless whether it was a VW New Beetle or a Lamborghini.

I don't doubt I've missed other scales, but those are the last that come to mind. Since they are exceptions rather than the rule, I left them out of the article.

I never had any of these sort of toy cars growing up, but I did have a good number of sailing ship models - many of which I still have in various states of dusty dilapitation. I really need to go through them and either fix or get rid of them.

You mean the plastic sort, or wood? I've had a small number of plastic kits from the Age of Sail... in fact, I've still got two kits unbuilt. The only built one I have is a tiny thing about five inches long -- a replica of HMS Revenge, 1585.

Plastic, though at one time I made a couple of ships out of cardboard, construction paper, twigs and toothpicks, which worked pretty well. The largest on display is the Cutty Sark with its bowsprit snapped off and dangling, along with the Bluenose schooner (similarly damaged). I don't really see ships like these anymore.

There were some great plastic kits of the Cutty Sark and the Thermopolae, made by Revell. I seem to recall one being around the house, so that I was familar with picking around among the parts, but it wasn't mine and it was never built to my knowledge. I have a similar U.S.S. Constitution, also by Revell. And a 17th. century ship-of-the-line that looks French but might be English. Lindberg calls it "Captain Kidd's galleon" or some such gaudy lie. It's acutally quite a detailed kit and looks to be about the same scall as the Revell.

I wish I had that kit of the Bluenose that I had as a kid. But it was a Canadian schooner. Unless somebody is vacuforming them in his garage, nobody makes kits of Canadian stuff since Aurora went under, 40 years ago.

I had a 3-masted pirate ship model that looked too silly or something - I stripped out the rigging and replaced it with a 2-masted brigantine rig made of sticked etc. Back then I wasn't brand-conscious so I don't much know who made what. The Fall of Aurora saddens me, though.