Hot Rods and Racing Cars

I know I said yesterday that today would be the November non-NBA/NASCAR/NHL people, but a check of the post office box changed that.

I received an unexpected, wrapped Christmas present from one of my best friends. He's not a card guy but he is a car guy, and in fact without him I would not be in the scale model hobby, I would never have gotten to Ohio, and I would have no need for a Facebook account- 99% of my interaction on there is with model guys. To say he's made a pretty big impact on my life would be an understatement. He's also the only person not blood related to me that I've ever walked around a car show with.

Even the wrapping paper was cars!

This was what I saw when I opened it up!

 These are all from the 1968 Topps Hot Rods set, which, although he didn't know it, is was one of my all-time most wanted missing sets! I've long been aware of it, and even bid on some on Ebay in the past, but lost. I had never actually even seen one in person before today! And now, thanks to the generosity of my friend, I have 32 of the 66 card set, or 48 and a half percent of it! WOW!

But wait...if you are counting, there's 33 cards shown...

One of them features the yellow back, which means it's from the Milton-Bradley board game, which has some exclusive cards in it! The yellow backed Hot Rod cards are indeed exclusive to that set, and it's my first from the Milton Bradley game set as well! (If you watch Pawn Stars on the History Channel, someone came in with a complete game earlier in 2018, and one of the Hot Rod cards was shown briefly on TV)

Some of the cars shown on these cards are pretty famous, too. The Silhoutte and L'il Coffin were both in the original 16 Hot Wheels cars, also in 1968. The Mysterion is legendary, and so are several of the others. The Emperor (my Card of the Day for today) and XMSC 210 were both replicated in 1/64 by Johnny Lightning, which I have, but this is my first photographs of the actual cars in my collection. Some of the cars were used in TV shows, and several have model kits issued of them, although, being 60s kits, I don't have them. I've held a copy of the Surf Woody kit in my hands, but it was too expensive for me to bring home.

To make it even better?  I saw an El Camino and several other classic cars while out and about today.

Every December I make a list of my favorite new card added each month. I've already written up the first 11 months of the year, but I hadn't decided on December's yet. Now, I think I know which set it's going to come from, even if I have not determined which card it will be yet!

Thank you so much Rick, this was pretty darn incredible!

(oh, and in case you are wondering, yes, the post title is inspired by the 1960s Chartlon comic series of the same name!)