The Veilside Fortune RX-7 was the hero car of the Fast and Furious movie Tokyo Drift. The black and orange wide-bodied rotary rocket was driven in the streets of Tokyo (okay, technically a movie set of the streets of Tokyo) by the character Han. While it didn’t play a part in any of the drift races, we actually did see the car drift while running away from the bad guys. The interesting thing about this car in the movie is that it was purchased directly from Veilside Japan. This means that the car is an actual show car by Veilside. By show car, it doesn’t mean that it was all show and no go, though. Veilside had actually modified the car with a plethora of performance modifications both inside and out. This car can go.
I have not heard of Peako64 before. Period. However, as my exposure to more diecast car manufacturers expanded, I was also slowly being introduced to collector pieces. I thought that I had already stepped out of my comfort zone when I bought my first AutoART Mazda RX-8 in 1/64 scale several years ago. And then I dipped my grubby hands on some Tomica Limited Vintage Mazda RX-7s. And now I have this piece from Peako64. Or rather, I now have these pieces from Peako64. As of this writing, I believe that there are three variants of this casting. They all sport the same two-tone paint job with black as the common denominator. They came out in white/black, yellow/black, and of course, the now iconic orange/black paint job. Another interesting fact then is that the original car from Veilside Japan when it was purchased by Universal Studios for the movie, was covered in shiny red paint.
This comes in an acrylic case with the car screwed onto the base and Veilside Fortune 7 markings. This is a nice touch and makes the premium price a bit easier to swallow. The first thing that grabs you is obviously the wide-body kit that is more or less a true scale representation of the original. Mind you, the first colors that came out were the yellow/black and white/black. While not the color used in the movie, the white one actually looked great and emphasized details such as the rivets that were used to hold the kit together. The wide GT wing is also nicely done and it looks sturdy enough to last. Floating side mirrors are a nice touch as well as having a proper muffler. The headlights are three-dimensional, meaning that there is a cover that is on top of the actual shaped projectors in place of the traditional pop-up headlight design of the RX-7. The inside of the car is nicely sculpted as well, although, some detailing would have been appreciated. You can see what appears to be the sound system from the rear window, but that’s about it. Jada had done quite a good job on interiors during their heydays and TLVNs continue to provide very good detailing of their car’s interiors. I would have expected such attention at this price. Outside, there are some Veilside pieces placed on where you would expect them such as the windshield and number plates. Taillights are painted in as well. The wheels are very nice though and they appear to be copies of the wheels used in the movie car.
Overall, I like this car very much. It is a must for Mazda collectors and movie car collectors (you should probably opt for just the orange one for this purpose). If you can get them below their original SRP, they are highly recommended. But there are people (especially on e-bay) that are selling them with a bump in SRP which doesn’t do it justice. I, however, collect Mazdas primarily and as such, these are going to be sitting in my collection.
Toy Box Garage 