If you have vintage toy vehicles and want to use those, by all means do so. Tootsietoy and other vintage toy vehicles look fantastic with vintage trains. If I could find vintage diecasts on a regular basis and could afford the asking price, I would use them exclusively. Since diecast cars are collectible in their own right, it’s easy to end up spending as much on vehicles as on trains.

New production models of old model vehicles can be difficult to find, but not impossible. I set my cutoff at roughly 1949, so usually Matchbox and Hot Wheels issue 1-2 usable vehicles per year, as do Maisto and Jada. If you push your time limit out to 1959 or 1969, it becomes much easier to find vehicles. You can almost always find a 1957 Chevy or Ford Thunderbird in any toy aisle.

If I see a 1:43 vehicle that I like, I’ll buy it, but I prefer 1:64-ish vehicles. They match my O27 trains better, and their smaller size makes my layout look bigger. Plus, I can buy 1:64-ish (roughly Matchbox size) vehicles at Kmart. I usually have to buy 1:43 vehicles at train shows, or at train stores. Kmart is so close I can almost walk to it and I have to go there at least a couple of times a month anyway; the closest train store with a good selection of vehicles is 35 minutes away if there’s no traffic. So 1:64 would win out for me if only as a matter of practicality.

Regardless of what else you buy, several companies make a Matchbox-sized VW Beetle. Although the package often says 1:64, a Beetle in that size usually works out to anywhere from 1:52 to 1:56 scale. A postwar Lionel 6464 boxcar is about 1:55 scale, so these Beetles are a good match for them. They show you what size a boxcar really is, and a Beetle works for any year from 1950 to the present (some people might let you fudge back to 1949 with it).

Some people use any car they like on the layout, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But cars do more than anything else to set a layout’s timeframe. People who can barely tell the difference between a steam locomotive and a diesel can usually point out the oldest and newest vehicles on your layout and at least tell you what decade it’s from.

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