Some thoughts on diecast scale

 And how this affects building miniatures for Gaslands.

1/64. That's a scale most people out there who like toy cars are familiar with. The most common brands for relatively cheap and nice to play with diecast toy cars may be Mattel's Hot Wheels and Matchbox. Recently Majorette and Maisto have joined the game. Majorette slightly upmarket, Maisto depending on product line. They have some super cheap cars in 1/64 and some more like Hot Wheels premium range.

And they normaly are considered as 1/64 scale. 1/64ish probably, more or less...

At least when growing up Hot Wheels and Matchbox for us were synonyms for 1/64.

So what is a scale, what does 1/64 mean anyways?

Scale ratio is a tool, which helps to make models or maps or projection of real things in a different size. It states how the size of the model is relative to size of the original. 1/64 simply means: 1 cm in my model represents 64 cm in my original.

That means if a Hot Wheels model of a car is about 7 cm long, the original car's lenght should be around 4.5 meters.

There are of course different ways to describe a scale. In war games scale is often measured in typical firure height. 20 mm means a human figure is about 2 cm tall. That's roughly the same scale as 1/72 which is very common for plastic models of fighter airplanes and tanks. Think of Airfix, Italeri and Revell.

Back to diecast toy and model cars

There are of course brands, that produce nice true to scale 1/64 cars. However to most toy manufacturers like Hot Wheels or similar, scale is just a very loose guideline. 

Hot Wheels cars in particular are seldom true to 1/64 scale. 

The main objective when calculating the site of toy cars is not scale, but material cost and very much: packaging. 

Products of a certain line have to fit inside standardized packaging. 

So vehicles that are huge in reality will be made in a smaller scale. Small vehicles will be made in a bigger scale. 

That means in mainline Hot Wheels or Matchbox you get scales from about 1/100 to 1/50 Sometimes even smaller.  (Think of space ships)

Here are three Matchbox cars. The Beach Buggy from the 1970s has been scaled up. The Mercedes 220Se is slightly scaled down. The Oskosh M-ATV is scaled down a lot to a smaller scale than the common model train scale HO of 1/87

Especially with Hot Wheels cars are hardly true to any scale at all considering the proportions of a vehicle. It's an aesthetic choice. They tend to be a little cartoony, even if they are not officially „tooned“. But they often are lower, wider and some details are exagerated in relative size

Especially the wheels are quite off scale most of the times. 

What Hot Wheels designers do is, they basically use the same methods as car customizers and tuning shops. Making cars look sporty and more aggressive. Lowered profile, wider stance, chopped roof and so on.

On top of that with huge vehicles like a bus or UTV designers have to mess with proportions even further than they do out of aesthetic reasons to fit it inside the box of usual blister. 

Hot Wheels Surfin' School Bus is good example for this

And there is another thing: toys should be playable. A true 1/64 scale VW beetle might be too small to handle for younger kids. 

Left: Hot Wheels VW Bug - Right: Shuco VW Käfer 

here is a good example. The Shuco VW Käfer is a true 1/64 scale model of a slightly modified VW Type 1.

The Hot Wheels version is significantly more massive. But it also has different proportions. The cabin is nearly identical in size. But look at the wheels...

And then there is a further reason for Hot Wheels' more creative approach on scale: Mainline Hot Wheels are supposed to be able to be used on the brand‘s tracks, so they should not be too wide or narrow to run smoothly.

The same two cars. Notice how the Hot Wheels is so much wider than the Shuco?

But to be fair Hot Wheels is not the only brand guilty of having a very relaxed attitude towards scale.

Shuco VW Käfer / Majorette R5 Turbo

So both these are sold as 1/64 scale diecast. The car on the right is a Renault 5 Turbo by Majorette. The R5 Turbo was probably the hottest hot hatch of the 1980s. It was produced for rallye racing. It's origins were the humble R5. A popular french compact car that competed with the VW Golf and Peugeot 205 and Fiat. And then someone thought it was a good idea to put a 160 hp mid engine in a compact car and take part in the insane Group B rallye. 

Don't get me wrong I truly love this car. The concept is so hilariously stupid. But the thing is: The R5 is a compact car. Roughly the size of a Golf MK1. Which is significantly smaller than a VW Beetle. 

VW Beetle: 4140 mm * 1585 mm * 1500 mm (l/w/h)

VW Golf MK1: 3705 mm * 1600 mm * 1390 mm

R5: 3520 mm * 1550 mm * 1410 mm

R5 Turbo: 3660 mm * 1750 mm * 1320 mm

It is completely out of scale compared to the true 1/64 scale Beetle. Which is a pity, because I like the model. It just looks so weird next to most other 1/64 cars.

Gaslands problems

O.k., looks are one thing. My interest in diecast cars came back largely because of the game Gaslands. Which is a miniature skirmishing racing game played with toy cars (mostly).

The rulebook recommends 20 mm scale or Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. As I wrote above. 20mm is basically 1/72, Hot Wheels and friends are considered to be 1/64. 

Now, to be honest, there isn't that much difference between 1/64 and 1/72. Especially considering the inacuracy of Hot Wheels scaling.

But there is a problem.

The game rules feature a lot of different types of vehicles from motorbikes and buggies on one side of the spectrum to tanks and heavy trucks on the other. The rules even feature buses, helicopters and full size semi trucks called war rigs in the game.

In the background you can see a WIP battle bus I am currently working on. The scale looks compatible with the Hot Wheels muscle in front. The bus is a 1/72 collectors model by Atlas. But yeah. 1/72 and 1/64ish work from an aesthetic point of view. Which is good, because you hardly can find even remotely accurate 1/64 models of buses.

The mechanics, though

Now, the game clearly says it is not WYSIWYG. The miniature representing your car in game doesn't have to look exactly like the car you play. You can stick a machine gun to it and play it as though it had a flamethrower. It doesn't have to look like it at all. You could even use a box of Tic Tacs and call it a tank.

The game is meant to be very easy access and chill about stuff like that. 

But making the miniatures also is big part of the fun. And some people like to be accurate. 

The miniatures you use actually affect the game mechanics, too. Collisions, movement, shooting all interacts with your actual model on the table.

So it could be of advantage to have an extra long car, because a moving template is used to move your car, by placing a template at the front of the car, and then place the car's rear end at the other end of the template. That adds the length of your miniature to your movement. Longer car = faster car.

On the other hand, if someone shoots at you, he hits you, in case a template overlaps your miniature. Meaning smaller miniatures are harder to hit. 

Smaller minatures can also avoid obstacles easier.

For these kinds of balancing problem the rule book introduces bases in a certain size for several kinds of vehicles. Their use is not mandatory, but let's have a look at them.

A car should have a base of 30 mm * 60 mm. Most Hot Wheels are indeed ~ 30 mm wide, because as described above they have to fit the tracks. The Hot Wheels Dodge Dart in the picture next to the bus is well over 70 mm long, though.

Also in reality most cars are not as wide as a person is tall. And they told us the scale was 20 mm, but a car should be 30 mm wide?

But it gets worse.

A bus is considered to fit onto a base of 40 mm * 100 mm

A War rig should be 50 mm wide and 230 mm long, combining cab (80)  and trailer (150)

A war rig, I'm currently working on. The original truck was a promotional true 1/64 scale model. And yes, the size fits the buggy next to it.

US Semis are that huge. And war rigs are supposed to be behemoths in the game.

All three vehicles aligned at the front. The buggy is a Hot Wheels Custom Volkswagen Beetle that is closer to 1/64 scale than the afore mentioned VW Bug. It doesn't look out of place now, does it? And minus the exhaust it is about 60 mm long. The 1/72 scale bus reaches 150 to 160 mm. That's 50% bonus. Not even counting the gun turret. But it doesn't feel out of place.
And the war rig in 1/64 scale reaches over 300 mm not including the ram or other modifications.

Much larger than what the game recommends. But dammit I want to use them, because they are gonna be so cool.

O.k., so I'd probably never gonna use the war rig in an actual game. And I have several cabs and trailers of Hot Wheels Team Transport or Super Rigs lýing around. Maybe I'd build another war rig out of them and use it in the game, because this one is not very solid. Things keep breaking off. 

As an afterthought maybe it would be a solution, to use rather 1/72 scale for bigger vehicles.