OFF THE SHELF: Tony Perrone and the Cars That Stayed With Him

Randy Rusk · 2026-04-26T15:39:47Z

Tony Perrone has spent a lifetime proving that small things can carry enormous weight. At first glance, his collection is about cars in miniature, hundreds of them, many rendered with astonishing precision, each one polished, placed, and preserved with care. Look a little closer, though, and the collection opens into something larger. It becomes a record of taste, memory, friendship, grief, craftsmanship, and pure delight. It becomes a portrait of a man who never really stopped being fascinated by what an automobile can stir in the heart. For Tony, that fascination began early and hit hard. He still remembers the pull of the first Corvette, the 1953 model, the one that caught his eye when he was a boy in Hialeah, Florida, and never really let go. Born in May 1947, he was only six years old when that car entered his imagination, but some designs do not wait for maturity to make their case. The Corvette was sleek, dramatic, different from anything else on the road. Tony was hooked. Years later, he would describe the attraction perfectly, saying it drew him “like a moth to a flame.” That kind of response has shaped the rest of his collecting life. Tony is not the kind of collector who acquires objects simply to complete sets or chase scarcity. He responds to beauty, to detail, to memory, to the emotional charge an object can hold. A model car, in his world, is never just a model car. It can be a technical marvel, a time capsule, a tribute, even a companion to a real-life chapter he wants to keep close. His earliest route into the hobby was the same one that launched countless collectors of his generation. He built plastic models. Airplanes, tanks, ships, automobiles, whatever he could get his hands on. Still, cars were always the main attraction. Not long after his father found him a promotional model of that beloved 1953 Corvette in 1954, when Tony was seven, he was building car kits himself. AMT and Monogram became familiar names. Their 1:25 scale kits matched the scale of the promo models and gave him a way to participate in the automotive world before he was anywhere near old enough to drive in it. Then, as happens, the hobby gave ground to life. College came along. So did service in the U.S. Army. Then work after his discharge. The model-building years faded, though not because the interest had disappeared. It was simply waiting, tucked away until another phase of life made room for it again. When Tony did return, it was with the eye of someone older, sharper, and perhaps more appreciative of what great model-making could achieve. He built a few kits again, including tanks and hot rods, but the real spark came from a different direction. In 1995, a Sunday newspaper ad stopped him cold. Danbury Mint had released a 1925 Ford Model T First Pickup in 1:24 scale. It was close enough to the size of the kits he knew, but it belonged to another realm entirely. This was diecast metal, loaded with detail, executed at a level that made an immediate impression. Tony recalls that moment with clarity. Looking at the model, he realized he was seeing something he could admire rather than try to outbuild. “I remember thinking that I couldn’t compete with these at my age any longer,” he said. It was less a concession than a conversion experience. He bought the truck, then started digging for everything he could find about the world it came from. That curiosity led him to Jay Olins and the Diecast Car Collectors Club newsletter, better known as D4C, which chronicled 1:24 scale releases from Danbury Mint and Franklin Mint. For Tony, the discovery was transformative. He had found not just information, but a gathering place for people who cared about the same things he did. They noticed hinge designs. They compared finishes. They debated authenticity. They understood the thrill of a model done right. Tony quickly became more than a reader. He volunteered to help assemble manufacturing information for the newsletter, joining George Dill in the work. By 1997, he had become Jay’s associate editor. Before long, the club moved online and evolved into the Diecast Zone, where Tony helped moderate discussion and became one of the community’s defining voices. He wrote reviews, staged photo shoots, and created the kind of content collectors returned to, commented on, and archived. His work was informed, enthusiastic, and trusted, the product of a collector who knew how to look closely and explain what mattered. In 2007, Tony was supremely honored to be inducted into the Diecast Zone Hall of Fame, a recognition that meant a great deal to him. But the moment was also touched by sadness, because Jay and George had already passed. The industry took notice. Franklin Mint and Danbury Mint began sending him new models to review, with the cars themselves serving as compensation. For a serious enthusiast, it was an ideal arrangement and one that helped shape the character of his own collection. It became heavily rooted in the output of those...

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Tony Perrone

(@perrone1)

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27/04/2026 10:30 am

@rich-sufficool Blushed

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Bob Jackman

(@bob-jackman)

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27/04/2026 12:03 pm

Tony, like you and practically everyone here on the forum, I too started with plastic models and promos and gravitated to the mint models when they first appeared on the scene. You sir, and Rich Sufficool were a big part of most collectors really getting into quality diecast models through your wonderful pictures and writeups high lighting the details of each model. Your insight and personal experiences in the hobby have made you one of the stalwarts of this hobby . While the mints no longer produce the models we love, we still get benefit from your viewpoint as a moderator here on the zone. Thanks too to Randy for this fabulous look at our friend.

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Tony Perrone

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27/04/2026 2:21 pm

@bob-jackman

Thank you so much Bob!!

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