Thursday, December 8, 2011

#93 MICRO MACHINES – PRIVATE EYES COLLECTIONS #1, #6, #8 & #12 (1990)

Collection #8
The private eyes is in my opinion one of the most original subseries from Micro Machines ever. Maybe in a great second place after the “Shake and Sniff” collections from 1991/92.
The cars look like any other MM, as a matter of fact, most casts were already available in the regular series, with the only difference of a black window on the roof of it. This window is intended to peek through it, and to observe what’s happening inside of the car, just like the kid in the card is doing. Note that it was possible to peek through one of the cars in each blister.

Carded Private Eyes Collection #10. Picture taken from online shop.

Cars included in collection #8 are:
  • International Travelall (green) (in other sets available in yellow and bright yellow)
  • Ford Delivery Van (blue/white) (in other sets available in red and green/white)
  • Toyota MR-2 (yellow) (in other sets available in red and blue)
Collection #6
 Cars included in collection #6 are:
  • Porsche 959 (white/red/yellow) (in other sets available in blue/white and blue/green)
  • '55 Panel Van (light brown) (in other sets available in white/black and white/blue)
  • Taurus (blue) (in other sets available in black/white -police- and yellow -taxi-)
The combination of these three cars is probably intended to play “police and thief” with the Van acting as moving obstacle.

These collections were available during two consecutive years: 1990/91, but unlikely other collections, during both years exactly the same 12 packs were available, without colour variants.
This picture was taken from the back card of Private Eyes MM, and shows which are the different inside slides that you can find in these vehicles.

Picture courtesy of Alex from m-m-world.com
Note that the slides with the scenes were not randomly applied to the vehicles. Depending on the type of vehicle and it decoration, the most suitable scene has been selected. For example, in the dog pound van, the scene with the dogs is used; if it's a police car, then the policemen are inside, and so on.

UPDATE 1 (May/2017) - Collecton #12



Includes:
  • Edsel Bermuda
  • Step Van
  • '55 Panel Van


 UPDATE 2 (Jun/2020) - Collection #1



Includes:
  • '69 Mustang (blue/green)
  • VW Beetle (yelllow with colour spots)
  • Taurus (black/white, police)

FACTS AND FIGURES
  • Name: Micromachines Private Eyes Collections #1, #6, #8 and #12
  • Alternate Names: Guardaci Dentro (Italian), Micro-Vision (French)
  • Scale of the cars: 1:150 aprox.
  • Year: 1990 - 1991
  • Company: Galoob (U.S.A.)
  • Size: approx. 2 cm

2 comments:

  1. Estos eran sencillamente geniales, no solo por la idea sino por la innovación. Un coche a tamaño diminuto muy detallado con una microlupa y dentro un microdibujo que se ve perfectamente nítido. Y hablamos de una época donde no existían ordenadores capaces de hacer dibujos diminutos a alta resolución. Nunca dejaron de sorprenderme los MM :)

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  2. Gracias por el comentario, tienes razón en todo lo que dices, quizá por eso, los MM eran en su día tan caros... si no recuerdo mal, el paquete de 3 a 5 coches eran casi mil pesetas, según la complejidad. Los "deluxe" y estos "private eye", se ve que eran más costosos de producir, y sólo te ponían 3 por paquete. De las series normales, 5.

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