HO scale vehicles are now available from a surprising wide range of sources.
The first place to look for bargain-basement priced cars is your local dollar store.
You have to look carefully, but every now and again you’ll see a selection of reasonably-scaled
cars sold either individually or in two packs. Hey – that’s two cars for a buck.
I found a pretty wide range of BMW, Mercedes and Mitsubishi SUV’s and sedans from
a Chinese manufacturer called Joy City at a dollar store in Redondo Beach, CA. The
cars are 1/72, not 1/87, but look just fine in the driveway of my HO scale paper
houses. Joy City, it turns out, is a Chinese manufacturer that will make just about
any product to order – they just want to run the factory. Someone evidently had a
run of these vehicles and was unable to sell them. The dollar store was able to buy
the remnants which now sit on my model railroad layout.
The next place to look for low priced diecast cars is your big-box toy store, like
Toys ‘R’ Us. They often get runs of small scale diecast vehicles that scale very
close to HO. These will run you about a buck a car. Most often you’ll find 18-wheel
truck/trailer combinations for around three bucks. That can be a reasonable investment
if the detail isn’t too rough. You can use your GIMP software to create custom logos
for your trailers. You’ll sometimes find a run of cars from MotorMAXX that will match
pretty closely to HO.
You notice that we haven’t visited the hobby retailer yet? Neither have we gone online.
That’s because we’re looking for the best quality at the absolutely lowest price
first.
Next we’ll head into your local upscale toy store. We’re looking for the German brand
called Siku. They manufacture very high quality diecast trucks, buses, and farm
equipment in HO scale at a pretty fair price. You’ll often find a tub of Beka injection-molded
cars in garish colors on the counter priced at about a buck a shot. Look at them
carefully – say, that’s a nice Mercedes SUV, and a VW bus, and a Citroen 2CV, all
in HO scale. No windows, but complete interiors and realistic looking wheels. A little
clear plastic, a little paint, and a nice looking sedan for your neighborhood for
a buck.
Now you can go visit your hobby retailer. Bachmann make a six-vehicle set on a wide
blister card for about six bucks – again, it’s a buck a car. While these cars scale
out right on for HO, they are abominable models. You get a pair of mid-seventies
Cadillac El Dorados, two unidentifiable fifties-era sedans, and two could-be-Ford
station wagons from the sixties. They feature clear windows but no interiors and
generic two-wheel axles that snap, yes, snap, onto posts sticking beneath the car.
This is because there is no underpan to the vehicle. A glance through the windshield
shows you the road beneath.
For just the same six bucks you can get four SceneMaster vehicles from Life-Like
Hobbies. Although the vehicles are unfortunately only from the fifties, they are
much, much nicer models than the Bachmann cars. The colors are close to fifties prototype,
and the cars feature chrome accents. The bottoms of the cars are still Flintstone
Style – not there – but the quality of the cars is much, much higher than Bachmann’s.
Of course, you’re now paying a buck and a half per car.
There’s a line of seventies cars, Pintos and Gremlins and the like, from a company
called Motor Max, called Fresh Cherries. The colors are great, the detailing is excellent,
and the price tag runs you around $4.50 per car. That’s three times the price of
the SceneMaster, but the leap in quality, detail, and era-specificity is absolutely
huge.
Your cost-per-car goes up once you step away from blister-packed car sets. Model
Power makes a wide range of vehicles in the $5.00 to $6.50 range. The cars and light
vans in this group span from the fifties into the current decade – well, through
the 2000’s, anyway. Here you’ll find excellent details in vehicles that come right
out of the box and onto your model railroad layout – correct colors, full interiors,
model-specific wheel covers, real rubber tires, thin windshields, the works.
There are about sixty manufacturers of HO scale model vehicles available to you once
you jump into $5 per vehicle range. The model become nicer and nicer as the cost
goes up, and you begin to move out of model railroading and into miniature vehicle
collecting as you approach the top end.
One of my favorite top end companies is a German company called Automobilia. They
don’t actually manufacture HO scale vehicles. They instead manufacture photo-etch
detail sets to improve cars made by other companies! These detail sets include sun
visors, door handles, gas caps, chrome strips, and a myriad other parts you might
find on 1/24th scale models, but in the nearly-microscopic 1/87th. A kit will run
you around $17 USD, and is designed for a European vehicle that will run you another
$17. Once applied, you’ll have a $35 museum quality model HO scale vehicle to park
in front of your free download paper model house.
You can find a fairly complete list of HO scale manufacturers here: Poolside Rails.
If your tastes run beyond model railroading and simply into miniature vehicles, you
owe it to yourself to take a look at these two sites:
1/87 Vehicle Club is a great place to get inspired and learn about the world of miniature
vehicles.
Miniatur World will simply blow your mind.
Finally, for the ultimate in realism, you could install a Car System from Faller.
Battery powered HO Scale vehicles, complete with lights and sounds, follow wires
imbedded in the roadways of your model train layout. Intelligent enough to keep from
bashing into one another, these accurately scaled cars and trucks kick your model
railroad layout up to a whole new level. You may find yourself asking “who needs
trains?” Be aware, however, that your entry level set into this level of detail is
priced comfortably over $100.
Do yourself a favor and start at your local dollar store. The toy aisle may just
hold the vehicles you need to bring your paper models to life.
