New Dinosaur Treasure Museum

Vol. 5 ♪A Tyrannosaurus painted on the body♪

This is a line from the song "Wagon ni Notte Dekakeyo" (Let's Go Out in a Wagon) from Yumin's 1980s album "SURF & SNOW." The song is about restoring an old wagon, painting a tyrannosaurus on its body, and setting off on a journey.
This time, following on from the previous dinosaur train, the theme is toys and models that combine dinosaurs and vehicles, such as vehicles with dinosaur illustrations like Yumin's wagon, or vehicles carrying dinosaurs. Please enjoy while listening to "Wagon ni Notte Dekakeyo" on YouTube or elsewhere.

First, miniature cars. It would have been great if there was a Tyranno-wagon exactly as described, but unfortunately, there wasn't. (There was a Smilodon-wagon.) The dinosaur-painted miniature cars are all Tomica-sized toys, and "it's great that they don't cost more than 1000 yen."

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Photo 1
Photo 1 shows a model made by "Majorette" from France. Miniature cars from this series are now apparently sold for around 300 yen in the snack section of supermarkets.

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Photo 2
Photo 2 is a product by the Spanish manufacturer "GUISVAL."

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Photo 3
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Photo 4
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Photo 5
Photos 3, 4, and 5 are "Hot Wheels" from the American company "Mattel." Photo 3 is a painted car, but in Photo 4, a Stegosaurus is driving!? Photo 5 is a Pteranodon-shaped three-wheeled motorcycle, part of the "Chop Cycles" series from the 70s. It's cool!

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Photo 6
The "Hot Wheels" series includes "playsets" for playing with cars.
"DINOSAUR MUD PIT" Photo 6 is a diorama of a fossil excavation site. It seems you can search for and assemble fossils from the special mud included in the set, make tire tracks in the mud, or pull cars out of the mud with a crane. In short, it's a mud play set for children?

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Photo 7
Photo 7 shows the assembled dinosaur skeleton and the off-road car included in the set.

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Photo 8

Photo 8, "Giant Dinosaur T-Rex," is a course where the T-Rex itself runs cars, but since it is 83cm tall, once assembled, it's clearly going to be an unmanageable obstruction, so it's quietly stored in a corner of the room in its box.
Other Hot Wheels dinosaur playsets include:
http://www.amazon.de/Hot-Wheels-N4730-0-Jurassic-Starter/dp/B001NW24TO

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Photo 9
Now, the 2006 movie "Cars" is a racing animation featuring cars with personalities, and the logo for the main character's rival, "Dinoco Oil," is a dinosaur. There are many toys of these character cars, big and small, from various manufacturers, but I settled for a Tomica version, which was reasonably priced. Photo 9

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Photo 10
The inspiration for "Dinoco Oil" was "Sinclair Oil," which also features a dinosaur in its logo. I previously discussed Sinclair Oil and its dinosaur merchandise in "Dinosaur Treasure House Vol. 35", but what I'm showing you this time is a "1963 Chevrolet Corvette" with a dinosaur driver (1:24 scale) that I acquired afterward. Photo 10

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Photo 11
Let me just briefly mention a few more vehicles that appeared in dinosaur TV shows and movies. Photo 11 shows the Bone Free, from Tsuburaya Productions' 1970s dinosaur tokusatsu anime "Dinosaur Expedition Team Bone Free." The blister-packed item is from that era. If only it were in good condition, it would be a treasure... The one in the foreground is a recent candy toy.

There are many types of vehicles from Jurassic Park, and a lot of toys have been released, so I can't introduce all of them here. Let me introduce two relatively rare items. Both are from the second film, "The Lost World."

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Photo 12
Photo 12 is made by "Matchbox," a long-established model car brand. It has a gimmick where dinosaurs rampage and destroy cars.

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Photo 13
Photo 13 is a Mercedes-Benz M-Class in HO scale made by "BUSCH."

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Photo 14
Japan's representative miniature car, "Tomica." As far as I know, there are no dinosaur-painted cars other than the "Cars" mentioned earlier, but for some reason, dinosaur transport trucks have become a series. From left to right in Photo 14:
"Funny Trailer Set 3" (2002), "Funny Trailer Set 4" (2007), "Dinosaur Transport Vehicle" (2011)
"Dinosaur Transport Vehicle" (2011 event model)
You can learn about the history of Tyrannosaurus restoration! Also, in 2005, a "Retchee Truck" with "Retchee," the character of the Dinosaur Expo, was released exclusively for the expo, but I regret not buying it at the time because I didn't like the character.

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Photo 15
Photo 15 shows a Jeep, a souvenir from the Dinosaur Discovery Museum in St. George, Utah, which I obtained on Yahoo Auctions. This museum is famous for its dinosaur footprint fossils. Since it's something you can only get there, it's a treasure to me.

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Photo 16
Moving from cars to trains here. Since I've already introduced the Keifuku Electric Railway, the only one left is "Thomas the Tank Engine." There are several freight cars in the Thomas series that carry dinosaurs, but unfortunately, this is the only one I've acquired so far. Photo 16
It's a freight train carrying dinosaur in situ fossils and a museum station (?). The Tyrannosaurus skeleton is quite good.

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Photo 17
One day, as I was passing by the passenger aircraft section of a model shop, a section I usually have no particular interest in, my eyes met with a red raptor among the neatly arranged packages... Sometimes I wonder if I have a special ability to sniff out dinosaur merchandise, and this was exactly one of those times. It's a 1:400 scale Airbus A320. Photo 17
It's an Air Canada plane, and the dinosaur painted on its fuselage is Raptor, the mascot of the local professional basketball team, the Toronto Raptors.

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Photo 18
In recent years, passenger planes adorned with illustrations of Disney characters and Pokémon have been flying around, so a dinosaur plane isn't particularly surprising, but I thought there wouldn't be any ships. Yet, there it was, and even a miniature! Photo 18 is a deformed Choro-Q, so it doesn't look much like a ship, but it's a catamaran high-speed ferry with the strange name "Natchan World."
How did I learn about this ship? It's another boast of my dinosaur superpowers, but on March 6, 2009, when I was on a sightseeing boat in Yokohama Port to see the Queen Mary II on her first visit to Japan, I happened to glance at the rain-shrouded Osanbashi pier and saw a dinosaur illustration catch my eye.

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Photo 19
This is the picture I hastily took. Photo 19
I later found out that it had just happened to be in port for a commemorative event. Furthermore, the dinosaur illustration is only on the port side, so if it hadn't shown its port side, I wouldn't have noticed it, which makes me feel like there's something beyond human understanding at play. But still, the outcome of that miracle being just one Choro-Q obtained on Yahoo Auctions is a bit too modest.

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Photo 20
Finally, although it's outside the scope of this theme, regarding dinosaurs and vehicles, please take a look at the brochure for the first-generation Estima (1990). Photo 20
Triceratops was its image character! There's even an explanation about dinosaurs written in it.
The TV commercial from that time can be viewed on YouTube. The Tricera moves with stop-motion animation.


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