This year marks the 55th anniversary of Tomica, Japan’s favorite diecast car brand. To honor this milestone, Tomica worked with actual car designers from five automakers to come up with special anniversary graphics packages for models of their respective marques. Here’s what Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, and Suzuki came up with.
Nissan chose the RZ34 Fairlady Z to represent the company. Designer Mitsunori Morita opted for a colorway inspired by the livery of the Hasemi Motorsport Fairlady Z that Nissan campaigned in the 2010 Super GT season. Drivers Kazuki Hoshino and Masataka Yanagida won the GT300 championship with the yellow and black car, which happened to have Tomica as the main sponsor. As Morita says, “Tomica is the very origin of car lovers. I grew up playing with many Tomica cars since I was little. I hope you will pick one up and let your imagination run wild!
Toyota is represented by an A90 GR Supra GT4 Evo race car. Designer Kim SangWoo decided to divide the car down the middle, with each side appealing to two types of Tomica buyer. The matte black side has race graphics and is meant for adult collectors and parents while other side for kids is matte white with no graphics, so kids can let their imaginations run free. A red stripe down the middle divides the two halves.
Mitsubishi chose the Delica Mini kei car to represent the Triple Diamond. It may seem like an odd choice, but the Delica Mini is one of the company’s best sellers in Japan. Designer Tomohiro Okada says he chose red as Mitsubishi’s signature color, but also because it symbolizes the energy of magma. The gray patterns on the hood and roof stand for smoke, and the gray at the rear is the lava solidifying into bedrock. The graphics are also reminiscent of Mitsubishi’s revived Ralliart livery that appears on its Triton rally trucks.
Suzuki’s entry is the Jimny, which makes a lot of sense as it is probably the company’s most globally recognized and sought-after model. Designer Hitomi Itou used the yellow and white Suzuki Swift rally car livery as inspiration, adding a mud splash pattern to evoke the feeling of racing through off-road terrain. The mismatched wheel colors are meant to evoke “jumping into the great outdoors” and the rhino is the Jimny’s mascot.
Epitomized by the FL5 Civic Type R, Honda wanted to capture speed with its graphics. Yusuke Obikawa said the CTR embodies speed, and wanted to make the toy car look fast even when it was standing still, hence the blurred “55” on the side. Rather than go for a color Honda was known for, like red or white, he chose blue to make the graphics look more dynamic. However, he worked with Honda’s color specialist to come up with a vivid matte blue that wasn’t associated with any other marque.
Each car will have a 1:1 scale counterpart that will be displayed at various events around Japan. The Tomica models will be released later this year. For a deeper dive into the Tomica brand, check out our retrospective from when Tomica turned 50.
… Considering that yesterday was 505 (May 05 which is to US / Canada as 05 May is to Europe and Antipodes) as well, then since Peugeot (Stellantis) had made a model with the same number (505) – which was also the last of the Gallic / Peugeot front-engine, rear-wheel drive (FR) layout cars – I think, despite the limited presence of the 505 in Japan (as well as the fact that 305 was never sold there officially) when it (and 305) was in production, since Tomica is celebrating its 55th anniversary this year would have meant that the Japanese answer to UK’s Corgi and Dinky (the latter is owned by Mattel), Italy’s Bburago (which is however now owned by Chinese) and France’s Norev and Majorette (Tomica) would have made and released a scale model of the 505 (mostly in right-hand drive / RHD like ones sold in UK and Australia too) and put a number 55 on it to match the car’s name.
As well as with the livery / design being modeled after those used in cars that match the 505’s exterior design and even specifications (being the last FR layout vehicle for France and the lion badge) like that of Nissan / Datsun Skyline, Toyota (Celica pre-T16) and Mazda, three of Japan’s carmakers were also competed in WRC along with Peugeot, except for Toyota which is competing in the (World Rally Championship) series today, but the closest to the 505 per design would be Subaru’s Leone (called in different names like L-series, Omega, Loyale and Isuzu Geminett II) to which the latter was instead an essentially front-wheel drive (FF) layout car with 4WD available. (Plus, Subaru was another WRC participant that even competed with the aforementioned brands until it left the series in 2008.)
So, in particular, given with the impact of Trump’s tarrifs and even the legacy of South Korea’s reputation for protecting the country (SK) itself from Japan and Japanese as a result of its (Japan’s) historical role in the Korean Peninsula – interestingly because the designer involved in the Tomica scale model of the A90 Toyota Supra is was of South Korean origins (Kim Sang-woo aka King Sangwoo, Sang-woo Kim and Sangwoo Kim), I think if Tomy (which owns Tomica) were either acquiring Hornby (British owner of Corgi) and / or Norev therefore Tomica would benefit from either of these European / UK die-cast companies and strengthen its (Tomica’s) interest / focus on making scale models of European autos that are neither German nor Swedish (except RIP Saab) origins with the Tomica name, as having said that before since the last time I got Tomica scale models was that none of them were modeled on Stellantis (formerly PSA Peugeot Citroen and Fiat SpA later Fiat Chrysler) nor Renault Group (except Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors) cars – three of my Tomica toys modeled on European cars were all from South Korea and first was a FIat 500e while the others were a Volvo and a BMW…
My former motorcycle was the same shade of blue as that Civic and it looked so good in the sun, I hope Honda will make it available on their lineup, it looks great!
FYI – New for 2025: Takara Tomy seems to be trying to market the Tomica Limited Vintage line direct to consumers in the US with a monthly model release…
https://us.tomy.com/brand/tomica-limited-vintage/
I’m definitely gonna have to keep an eye out for that Jimny when I’m in Japan later this year! I always thought the SX4 WRC livery was underrated