Wednesday, 8 June 2016

The Crown Jewel of Road Trippin' Series: '57 Buick Station Wagon

Woah hold up! A Buick Station Wagon? King of Road Trippin'? No, I'm not trippin', and yes, I'm aware of the Hakosuka Skyline, the Toyota 2000GT and '83 Silverado that made the lineup. Of course all of those castings are great, but for some reason the '57 Buick Wagon is by far the most expensive release to obtain on the aftermarket. Which probably means it's the rarest release from the set, and in my books the coolest.

This is a bittersweet post for me, because I am kicking myself for leaving 3 of these behind at my local Wal Mart around Christmas time. They're selling for $100 pop on eBay now. $300 would have bought me some pretty cool diecast for my collection, but hey, hindsight is 20/20. In reality, I shouldn't be complaining because I have one loose and one carded in my collection. When I first found one, I posted it on Instagram, and people seemed to want it so I went back for the other 3 I left behind, intending to pick 'em up as trade bait. But it was getting close to Christmas and I was heading out of town and didn't want the effort of dragging them around with me and having to ship them. I was so close to buying them I actually left them on a pile of towels on my way to the checkout lanes.

Fast forward to the other day and I was checking out the Road Trippin' cars on eBay. I was flabbergasted to see the Buick wagons selling for over $100. Yes I said Buick wagon, not Datsun wagon. Now that it's scorching hot on eBay, let's take a second to appreciate what a cool release this was.

To me, the '57 Buick Station Wagon is the best of all the Road Trippin' releases. Why? Metal base, metal body and an opening hood for $1 in the US and $2.46 in Canada. Either way, we're lucky to get metal/metal at the $5 price point anymore, and we certainly don't get opening features. On top of that, the dark green/lime green paint contrast is pretty darn cool. Plus, it's a wagon, and not just any wagon, but a big 'ole lead sled. I hope to track down the (much cheaper and even nicer) RLC sElections version soon.

At the end of the day, there were several Road Trippin' cars that were tough to track down. The series actually used some pretty awesome castings and sweet card art, but suffered from spotty distribution and the fact that the set was exclusive to Wal Mart. Despite all the great releases from this set, the Buick remains king for now!