It all started with a simple artwork that looks almost like a game show. I pondered at the words ‘Mystery Matinee?’ And below is a movie ticket that says ‘Admit One’. Then below on the left is a fun fact about the truck but it does not even mentioned which movie this truck appeared on.
When I saw this my eyes went towards the truck and this was a casting I’ve never seen before from Johnny Lightning. For the movie buffs this is easily identified as Marty McFly’s 1985 Toyota truck which appeared briefly in 2 scenes in the original ‘Back To The Future’.
I also found out that after the first movie was made the truck used got sold and was probably junked. When the second and third installments of the movie were made, a new truck was built from another 1985 Toyota truck, with just a few differences.
After the movies were made this truck was stolen and ended up in Mexico. However it eventually was recovered and restored. Both trucks used Smitty Built tubular bumpers, KC lights, Goodyear tires, and US Wheel model 94 wheels.
This 2nd truck had a double loop version of the “roll bar” with the lights mounted on it.
Here is the restored 1:1 truck borrowed from the web.
Review of the casting:
JL did a great job in duplicating the actual truck. It has metal on both body and chassis. rubber tires, and even has opening hood and tailgate. The con is the tubular bumpers are plastic so they are somewhat fragile and painted lights instead of inserts and those cornering lamps does not look realistic at all.
I was curious to know if the license plate on the JL truck is identical to the movie however the front of the truck in this scene from the ‘BTTF’ part 3 which were borrowed from the web does not show any license plate and I can barely see the one at the rear.
That's pretty cool. It'd be fun to see a series of these - not just the star cars (DeLorean, Toyota, maybe Biff's 46 Ford) but the lesser known but still significant cars like Doc's Packard or George's E23 or Jennifer's Dad's Eagle.
I don't know if anyone has done a late 40s Packard. I know Matchbox has an Eagle now, and Majorette did an E23, but as it is an in-period toy car it would need some sprucing up to be on par with that Toyota: