The Biggest Diecast Store in Canada Had the Perfect Birthday Surprise!

[00:00:00] Rick: Today on the Model Car Vault, I'm visiting the biggest diecast store in Canada. So cool, look at this. With thousands of models from just about every brand theme and scale imaginable, you never know what you're gonna find. No way. No, no, no, no, no, no. What? And today, that might just include the rarest car I've ever had the chance to own. I don't even want to know what it's gonna cost. If I could walk away with it today, this makes it the most special diecast buy I've ever done in my life. You're kidding me. Hey guys, welcome to a very special edition of the Model Car Vault. I'm Rick, and it's my birthday. And as a model car collector, I can't think of a better way to spend my birthday than at the biggest diecast store in Canada, Nice Car Collection. But this isn't all about me. Today, I want to give you the experience of visiting the store as well, show you aisles upon aisles of cool diecast cars they have, and I'm going to speak to the manager here to talk about what trends he's noticed in diecast collecting for 2026 and what we can look forward to for 2027. All that and so much more. So let's not waste any time and head inside. Okay, the expression a kid in the candy store does not do justice to how I'm feeling walking into the store right now. On my left, I'm immediately greeted by a giant DeLorean from my favorite movie, Back to the Future. And on the right, some awesome dioramas of Dukes of Hazard, which is not only one of my favorite TV shows, but also some of my favorite diecasts to collect. I'm actually missing just a few grail pieces from my own collection, but they're impossible to find right now. Wow, check out this grease diorama. You know, just seeing these displays are worth the drive alone. This store is huge. There's so many sections, it almost feels like a maze. Only one you don't want to get out of. One thing I really like about this store is how it's laid out. Everything's organized by brand, scale, and even themes. So whatever you're into, it's easy to find your happy place. And I think I just found mine. So this is a lot of movie cars and TV cars here. We got some Back to the Future DeLoreans, mostly in 124 scale. A little bit of a Fast and Furious. These are the Jada Fast and Furious diecasts in 118. We've got a set here, I think in 124. You know, some, actually, you've got quite a bit of Barbie cars. If anyone's into Barbie, they've got a nice selection of Barbie cars here. Some John Wick, Godfather, Monkeys. You've got an Elvis Cadillac right here. It's a Monopoly car. How cool is that? Now, being a 118 TV and movie car collector myself, this is the section that I'm interested in the most. There's some Batmobiles here. But as huge as this section is, it's just a very small part of the store. So we have lots to explore and hopefully you'll see something you like along the way. But first, I want to introduce you to the general manager of the store, John. Follow me. John, how's it going? Good. Yourself? Great, great. Great to be here. Thanks. Thanks. John, what can you tell viewers what makes this store so special? [00:04:11] John: What makes the store special? It's part diecast store and part museum. As you notice, you can see lots of dioramas and different artifacts that we have in the store. A lot of nostalgia that you can feel from that. So it's one of the largest stores actually in the world, the square footage wise for diecast. So the selection is also what makes the store very unique. [00:04:33] Rick: And the selection here is endless. You've got every scale here from 164 to 1/6. Look at this Lamborghini Countach. This is a 112, I believe. And just about every category from race cars to low riders to JDM, trucks, motorcycles, and especially muscle cars. You've got an auto world section here, which is a lot of muscle cars. And here in Quebec, muscle car diecasts are huge. It's probably the most popular theme among all kind of themes for diecasts. So anything in the 60s, 70s muscle cars is a huge market for them here in Quebec. I'm also seeing a lot of niche themes too. All right, check this out. You've got a whole rat think section here, which to be honest with you, I'm not really into, but I'm seeing it more and more and more and it seems to be getting pretty popular. I can assure you if there's a niche you can think of, there's a diecast here for it. On this side, we've got 164 trailer trucks, got tractors, lots of farm diecasts, construction, tow trucks, garbage trucks, tanks, a lot of military vehicles, helicopters, planes. You know, the great thing about visiting a store like this is that, you know, you have so many themes that can go for anyone's interests, you know, from army to look at this hunting. So if you're into hunting, there's a diecast for you. But with so many categories for every interest, how would a beginner know where to start? [00:06:26] John: Well, the first team you got to go with is you got to do something you love. Whatever brings back a memory, a fond memory, a childhood memory is usually the theme you're going to start with. If your fondest memory was of a movie, and so you'd go in that, but you always start with that category. That's the most important thing. [00:06:43] Rick: All right, so once you've picked what you want to collect, the next big decision is what scale you want to go with. Is 118 the trending scale or is another scale taking over? [00:06:56] John: What we were seeing 10 years ago and even up to five, six years ago was a lot of 118. Now we're seeing an explosion of 164. [00:07:04] Rick: It's pretty obvious Nice Car has leaned into that growing demand. They've got entire walls dedicated to these tiny diecasts. All right, so here we have a 164 section. Now this is not your Hot Wheels section. This is true 164 scale diecasts. So you have, you know, you know, Tarmac, you've got Eno 64, Mini GT. These are your high quality 164 diecast cars. And you can see they have them behind glass because they're very valuable. Now they opened them for us, but you could see that, you know, a lot of them come in premium boxes, cases. Here we have BBR 164 cars, mostly Ferraris. And you can see these are really high quality compared to your average Hot Wheel. If you're a 164 collector, there is lots here for you to explore. Hey guys, if you're liking this video and the tour of this store so far, please go ahead and hit that like and subscribe button because I've got lots more to show you that I know you're going to love. Everywhere you look, there's something cool to take in. You almost don't know where to look first because it's not just about the cars. It's all the automotive decor that brings this place to life. You know, what's so cool about this store is that it's actually at a truck stop. And with that theme, they have all these signs and decoration everywhere, which really add to the whole car culture theme of the store. So if you're into vintage signs, there's a whole section of them here from iconic celebrities and musicians to race cars to classic cars, everything. So it's pretty cool if you're just into that. Why is Batman cooler than Superman? Batman has a car. Oh wow. So there's a section here of Ixo models or Ixo, however you want to call them. And if you remember, this is the brand that I did the Gran Torino car from, which was the unofficial movie car. And it looks like they have a bunch of other Gran Torino's here too. A red one, a yellow one, and look at this one. This is a green one, but it's not the same one that I have. Actually this, this is from Fast and Furious, I believe the fourth film of the franchise. And this was driven by the villain in the movie. And fun fact, actually, the filmmakers originally wanted blue for this car, but blue was given to Brian's car. So they ended up going with green, which I think is a great choice. Coincidentally, the same color as the Gran Torino film with Clint Eastwood. But I think for 135 bucks, I'll take it. Now at $135 Canadian or about $95 US, you probably shouldn't expect auto art levels of detail, but you're also paying a whole lot less. So where exactly are manufacturers making those compromises? [00:10:27] John: The easiest way to bring down the price point is do less opening parts. When you don't have as many opening parts, if you don't have the motor that opens, well, you don't have to make the motor, you don't have to do all that. So you just have the doors open. So you just have to do the interior of the door. Right. So that's how you save money. [00:10:42] Rick: And when it comes to value, there's probably no bigger name in this store than Salido. They've built a reputation for offering great looking 118s at prices that are still within reach for a lot of collectors. Check this out. You may have seen this one before. This is what they call the cool combi, but it's obviously modeled after the mystery machine. So it's kind of like a mini shrunken version of it. They have a lot of VW buses or like the vans. And there's a big variety of them here. They even have one that's modeled after Herbie with the 53. They have a lot of racing Porsches, McLarens, pretty much a big chunk of their racing cars. All right. So here we've got a lot of German cars. So we have BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, lots of European sedans and more American cars as well. You got the Mustang, Cobra, you got a Ford Raptor pickup truck. Then of course, a lot of European brands. They have Lancia, they have Fiat, Aston Martin, Renault, Citroen, a lot of unique European cars. Rally cars are getting really popular right now. And they are definitely capitalizing on that popularity with a huge selection of their own rally cars. So like Solito, there's a couple of other European die-cast brands in this section. And one notable one is Norev. And I really like the branding of Norev. You should check out their website and their packaging is really cool. So they specialize in European cars as well. So you have a lot of, you know, your classic Audis, BMWs, VWs. But you'll also find some really neat American classics like the Mustang or this Corvette. So some great variety with Norev as well. All right. So in this section, we have the brand model car group, which seems like right now they're into big four door sedans. So if that's your thing, then this is your brand. For example, you've got an old school BMW 7 Series. You've got an old school Mercedes S-Class. Same thing with Jaguar four door. You've got four door Cadillacs, four door station wagons. If it's got four doors, odds are they have it here. So pretty cool. Now, if you remember, I used this brand as my base for my Boss Hog build, which is the 76 Cadillac from the Dukes of Hazzard movie version. So if you want to build your custom Boss Hog Cadillac, this is the place to get them right now. So another European die-cast brand in this section is KK Scale. And I collect a lot of unofficial TV and movie cars from this brand because they don't actually advertise them as movie cars. But we all know that they are. Now, they're not always perfect, but they're pretty close and affordable. Some cars that I have from them are like the Magnum PI Ferrari, the Feldman Louise Thunderbird, or like this one is the Miami Vice Testarossa. Now, although they don't advertise it as that, they do give you a hint saying it's famous cars. And you can always tell by the license plate, which is a great giveaway, that it is actually a movie car, which, you know, sometimes they fall under the radar. So you kind of have to know what you're looking for. And sometimes it's not as evident, but maybe we'll find one more here. Oh, I think I found one. Check this out. Oh, yeah. This is the Lotus Esprit Turbo from the James Bond movie, for your eyes only. And it doesn't say famous cars on it. It doesn't say James Bond anywhere on it. But visually, you know, it's the one. But the true indicator is that it has what I believe to be a matching license plate, both in the back and in the front. So we know this is the movie car. So this is a hundred and nineteen dollars Canadian. And I think it's a pretty good deal for a movie car. I'm going to take it. Hey, guys, if you haven't hit that like and subscribe button, remember, it's my birthday. So you know what to do. Oh, wow. This is a cool section. If you're into dioramas, especially 118 dioramas, they've got a huge selections of figurines. Well, check this out. That's John F. Kennedy in this 1958 Lincoln. So you saw some 118 dioramas in the front. But with 164s being so popular right now, so are dioramas for them. And there's a whole section of them right here, which are so cool. So what's cool about this store is that they have a lot of displays as well. So you can see a lot of vintage cars. Some of them are from private sellers, but it's really cool to see them on display out of their boxes. So there's also a nice little section of Jada's pink slip cars here, which consists mostly of Porsche 911s. You've got Nissan GTR, Dodge Challenger. Moving ahead here, we have a collection of green light cars, Highway 61, and these are a lot of muscle cars, especially. We've got some monster trucks, some tow trucks. Up here, you've got some Canada Post and US mail delivery trucks. You've got race cars, pace cars. Well, check this out. This is your classic NYPD police car. This is featured in like so many 80s and 90s movies. All right, up in this section, we have all of the Shelby collectibles, mostly the Ford GT. We've got some Cobras here. All right, now we have the Sunstar section here. And if you recall, I just did a Sunstar lowrider episode. And here we have a purple version of it. We did the black one on my episode. And they are some really cool cars, but they have a lot of variety in Sunstar. They've done all the DeLoreans, not only the regular one, but the back to the future ones. And they have classic cars, muscle cars, European cars, lots and lots of variety. But I especially like the Platinum collection. These are highly, highly detailed die casts from Sunstar. If you recall, I did the I Love Lucy last year. The quality on these, really top, top notch. All right, so in the back here, I've also discovered the auto art section, which is a very high quality, high value, high priced die cast car maker, especially in 118. And I've got a couple of auto arts and they are amazing. Now, the thing with auto arts is that they don't actually put the picture on the box. They just have the name of the car and no window or anything. So yeah, let me know in the comments what you think about these boxes. Would you like to see what's inside the box through a window? Or are you okay with the closed packaging like that? Let me know in the comments. So John, Nice Car has a full website with all the cars available online. But you also have this huge die cast store with a huge inventory. So tell me, what's the advantage of someone coming into the store versus shopping online? If they have that opportunity to actually come in here. [00:19:22] John: Well, the advantage you have is you can come here, you get to see the product. We open the boxes for you. You'll look at the car, you'll look at the engine, you'll look at all the details you wish to, which you cannot do online. Right. That's the advantage. So if you're the type of customer that really likes to be touchy-feely, when you can make the drive, then it's worth it. Because we do take the time to do that for you. [00:19:49] Rick: Oh, check this out. Texas Chainsaw Massacre pickup truck. This is going to be great for Halloween because I've got a bunch of horror movie die casts lined up for the entire month of October. So this is going to come home with me. All right, so this section is your more affordable die casts in a way. We have Brago, which mainly specialize in Ferraris. And they're at a much more reasonable price point. So you can see you can get like a 118 Ferrari here for about $54 Canadian, which is very reasonable. Of course, you have your more premium models that go up towards $100 and more. And if you come around the corner here, like Brago, same company kind of, is Maisto. And they are much more bang for your buck kind of die cast. So you'll get pretty decent quality, everything opening. So, you know, hoods, doors, trunks, you know, steerable wheels, great paint jobs, lots of variety. And they usually sell for anywhere between $25 to $40 at retail. And some of them are actually very sought after, you know, so great to get started with. If you're into 118s, go and get yourself a Maisto and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Now, we've talked a lot about 118s and 164s, but there's scales all in between as well. Another popular one is 124 and they've got a lot of 124s here as well. You have tons of Fast and Furious. And when I mean tons, especially from Jada. There's an entire section here of Jada cars in almost every scale, but especially 124. They've also got these cool dioramas, which they call nano scenes. If you're into Fast and Furious, they're celebrating 25 years of that franchise. And Jada's coming out with a lot of cool stuff for that. So in 124, you've got a lot of TV and movie car options, but there are also a lot of characterized cars. And I don't know if I'm saying that right, but a lot of cars that they base characters on, like, for example, you know, Stormtrooper car, you know, an R2-D2 Beetle, Woody's Chevrolet Belair, SpongeBob's Bronco. That kind of stuff is very common, you know, Transformers, Ecto-1. So you can have a lot of fun with this scale. Check out this mystery machine. That's pretty cool. It's got all the figurines in it. I think if I had to start all over to collect movie cars again, I might be tempted to go with the 143 scale, just because they're space savers and they actually have a lot of options available now in that scale for movie cars. I mean, you see here we've got the A-Team Corvette, you've got the Mercedes from Hangover, Flintstones or the Flintmobile. It's just a much more affordable and more widely available scale right now. And again, you can save a lot of space if you're looking at, you know, creating a big collection. For collectors who believe more is more, Hot Wheels are still king. And with walls upon walls of them here, there's a reason they're one of the biggest attractions in the store. Look at this huge wall of Hot Wheels. There are hundreds, if not thousands. Another wall of 164 cars. You've got Majorette, you've got Mini GT, more Hot Wheels, pop culture. You've got them all here. It's kind of amazing to think that a car hanging on a peg today could someday become worth hundreds of dollars. But is there a way to tell which ones are actually going to increase in value? [00:24:06] John: There's no crystal ball to that. There's no crystal ball to that. Like right now we had what was a few months ago, a race car driver died in NASCAR. So basically, you know, all of a sudden those cars have value, you know, whatever reason. And it always boils down to emotions and nostalgia and sentiments and all that. So always, always, always, always emphasize on what you love, what makes you feel good. If it gives you a good feeling, whatever, that's what you have to concentrate on. [00:24:34] Rick: At the end of the day, that's what I always stress. It shouldn't be about the detail. It shouldn't be about, you know, the rarity. It should just be about what you love. [00:24:43] John: When you walk in here, you know, people think they're buying a diecast. You're not buying a diecast. You're buying an emotion. You're getting a feeling out of it. That's what you're, you know, when you're coming here, that's the advantage of coming to a nice car. You feel, you feel the emotion. You feel the, you know. [00:24:59] Rick: So John, you're telling me, you're telling me that you're counting on people having really big emotions when they're coming in here. Because big emotions means big spending. And speaking of spending, I think I've reached my max with these three cars today. So I'm checking out. All right. I think that'll do it. Three new awesome additions to my collection. Not bad for my birthday. [00:25:25] John: But I got something else for you. I heard you're a Dukes of Hazzard fan. [00:25:29] Rick: Yeah, I love Dukes of Hazzard. I've got a huge collection that I'm building. And, you know, there's always obviously a few grail pieces that I wish I had. But, you know, someday. [00:25:39] John: You know, I do have access to a private stash here. [00:25:42] Rick: Okay. [00:25:42] John: Just give me a minute. [00:25:44] Rick: I'll be right back. Okay. All right. Now I'm curious. What is he talking about? I think we're going to find out any second. No way. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What? You're kidding me. Are you seeing this? Are you seeing this? Holy smokes. What? You have a white, black, and chrome General Lee. I've never seen either of these in person, let alone the three of them all at once. Do you have any idea how rare of an opportunity this is to see the three General Lee's like this? Extremely rare General Lee's. I mean, the chrome one, the black one, which is... Guys, check this out. I mean, this is the happy birthday General Lee. All right. So apparently one of them is for sale. Is it the white one, the chrome one, or John, is it the black one? [00:27:07] Speaker 3: Now, there ain't nobody that don't know what's about to happen. You can call it fate. In Hazard County, it's called Duke's luck. Happy birthday, my friend. Yes! [00:27:25] Rick: The black one is for sale, and you know what? I don't even want to know what it's going to cost, but if you're a Dukes of Hazard collector, you know just how special this piece is. I don't know if it's fate, coincidence, or just amazing timing. The fact that I could walk out of here today with a happy birthday, General Lee, on my birthday, makes it probably the most special die-cast purchase I've ever made in my life, and probably the rarest one as well. I don't think I have a choice. I'm going to take it. John, I'm going to buy this one. Sold. Amazing. Happy birthday to me. John, thanks so much for today, for your time, for giving us the opportunity to explore your store, and especially the opportunity for me to buy that happy birthday, General Lee, means the world to me. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure, my friend. Thank you so much. Enjoy. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. All right, guys. I know that I always encourage you to shop around, save your money, be patient, wait for a deal, but generally speaking, when it's your birthday, it's okay to splurge a little bit. Hey guys, thanks for joining me on this awesome tour of Nice Car Collection, and celebrating my birthday with me today. And if you enjoyed this video, you'll really enjoy these ones too. And as always, don't forget to hit that subscribe button right here.