Lamborghinis going cheap

After some relatively expensive recent purchases (including the Rolls Silver Seraphs from Hong Kong and the Stamp ’59 Cadillac CdV) it was nice to walk into a local shop and find a model bargain. Not a model shop, I might say – none of those left in London – just a clothing and accessories shop with a small kiddie section offering a few random diecasts amongst the plastic tat.

So I got myself this little “gift set”, I suppose you’d call it.

Left to right: 1:43 Lamborghini Gallardo, Aventador roadster and Aventador SVJ. They are produced by Chengzhen International Limited under the brand name “MSZ” (“Metal Speed Zone”).

The 3-pack cost me £17.99. Or £6 per model. At that price it was worth it just for the rather striking blue roadster

So the other two were a bonus, and they aren’t too shabby. I’d say they are about the same quality as the new range of 1:43 Hot Wheels that some folks on the forum (not including me!) were enthusing about a couple of years ago. They have opening doors and pull-back motors so are obviously intended as "toys", but the better ones certainly wouldn't look out of place on a model shelf.

My apologies if MSZ models are old news to you, but I hadn’t come across them before. They seem to churn out large quantities of decent quality models on a par with Ixo partworks models – and like those, they seem to have made a special effort with some models while others look like somewhat less detailed “fillers”.

Here is a link to their catalogue.

Catalogue-MSZ Licensed Die-cast Car

Rather bizarrely, if you look at their "vaguely 1:43" models, they seem to be anywhere from 1:38 to 1:48. The range of quoted scales is crazy. Not sure what that is all about. People like Matchbox and Tomica used to make models in slightly different scales to fit their standard “matchbox” but that obviously doesn’t apply here. But I think at least some of them are a true 1:43.

Anyway, if you search online for a car brand plus “MSZ 1:43” you can find models at ridiculously low prices (not sure if those are wholesale prices, but they don’t say so).

Here's a further random selection . . .

msz 1:43 - Google Search

If this brand is unfamiliar to you I hope you might find something of interest there.