Diecast Update: Week of 5/4/2026

After a week off, we're back with tons of new diecast material from Lionel Racing to take a closer look at. There have been many new 1/64 scale diecast cars that have been queued up for preorder. There's no doubt that Lionel will be setting records this week with Carson Hocevar's massive first career win at Talladega, and then he followed that up with another win in the Truck series for Spire at Texas. Not only that, Nascar's most popular driver, Chase Elliott also notched a win as well. There's a lot of great looking cars in each of the top four series to review, so for that and much more, read on.

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Raced Version: (Texas)

Chase Elliott is enjoying a great start to the 2026 season. He has remained in the top five in points for weeks, and after picking up his first win at Martinsville, he backed it up with a big one at Texas. This is the first win that Elliott has delivered to Amazon Prime. This is the 23rd win of Elliott’s career. It ties him with Hall of Fame driver Ricky Rudd, and places him 37th all-time. This is the second Texas win for Elliott.  

While Larson has had some ups and downs this year in the Cup series, he’s taken care of business when he’s gotten behind the wheel of an OAPS car for JRM. He's raced four times and won twice. ​The other two races Larson still managed to secure two top fives (a second and a fourth). While things are clicking in the O'Reilly series, they are bound to get better in the Cup series soon. This win at Texas is trophy number 19 for Larson in the O'Reilly series to date. 

Hocevar has had an incredible week. Undistracted from the immense success at Talladega, Carson beat everyone, including his teammate and Nascar great, Kyle Busch during the Truck race last weekend at Texas. This was Carson's 87th race in the Craftsman Truck series and the result was his 6th Truck win. Hocevar last won in the CTS at Kansas in May of 2025. 

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Raced Version: (Talladega)

Carson Hocevar’s rise in Nascar should be studied. He’s gone from being a young talent to superstardom based not only on his exuberant love of Nascar, but his noteworthy ability to drive a stock car to the edge of its potential. Talladega was a fitting fist win and the unforgettable post race celebration of Hocevar driving down the frontstretch while holding onto the roof of his car will go down in history.

A few weeks ago, we discussed how important a season 2026 was going to be for Corey Day when Lionel announced his standard scheme for preorder. The young driver has had some difficult moments up to this point, but Talladega is the ultimate litmus test. Corey Day made a series of impressive moves which resulted in a huge victory. "Get outta the way, here comes Corey Day!" has new meaning now...

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Standard Versions (Cup)

Chevrolet:

Ross Chastain continues to lead the 2026 Nascar field with the most standard paint schemes being offered in 1/64 scale. Jockey has done a lot to support Trackhouse drivers, and their liveries are unique and frequently eye-catching. The strategy of portraying the driver sitting in only his underwear on the side of the car continues in 2026, but this time, Jockey is using the opportunity to showcase a new product (VentraCool) at Talladega. Ross brought the Jockey Chevy home in 7th place.

Until last week, we've only had two Austin Dillon 1/64 to pick from, but thanks to Bass Pro and Winchester, that number doubles this week. The patriotic paint schemes are beginning to show up now that the Nascar season is situated just a few weeks out from the Coke 600 at Charlotte. Bass Pro along with Winchester have been major contributors to the RCR No. 3 program in 2026, and so it is fitting to see two great brands that have long supported Nascar.

​A second or rather third Bass Pro Winchester scheme was also announced this week. This livery (which I had to admittedly do some research on) focuses on Winchester AA, which is a specialized line of performance shot gun shells. Dillon drove this car at Texas last weekend to a respectable 18th place finish on the lead lap. There’s no telling if we’ll see this car again in 2026.

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Ford:

Noah Gragson continues to make incremental, but meaningful gains through this 2026 campaign. A special collaboration between Grillo’s Pickles, and PBR means a great looking Mustang for Gragson at the spring Talladega Race.  Gragson finished in 9th place on the day. A top ten at this track is very important for the lower-tier Ford team, and the pre-race festivities surely gave the No. 4 group a boost. I've got this car ranked as the best 4 scheme yet.

Kroger’s move to RFK continues to prove that there’s a lot of potential as the major grocer showcases the many popular food brands that they carry. This past week, Ball Park Buns and Rolls got the nod to adorn the RFK No. 60 Mustang. Preece drove this colorful car to a 14th place finish. Preece continues to stack top 20 finishes and has kept himself in the top 16 in points for another week. This is the 5th 1/64 for Preece, and while colorful, I've got this one last.

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Toyota:

Kings Hawaiian has been a supporter of Nascar for several years now. In 2025, the company shifted their focus from RFK Racing to Joe Gibbs Racing and Denny Hamlin. Kings Hawaiian returned to the eleven for the first time last week at Talladega. Their first activation of the year is here to promote a very special flavor of roll. The Ube Coconut roll is the featured product on Hamin’s Camry that raced at Talladega. Denny finished 15th. Got this one ranked 1st overall for Hamlin out of five so far. 

Surprisingly, it's Chase Briscoe that currently leads all JGR drivers in the 1/64 scale category of offerings. The Zep brand of cleaners bring their bright blue and yellow colors to Chase Briscoe's No. 19 Camry. As I understand it, this car is meant to be raced at New Hampshire at the End of August in the Dollar Tree 301. I like this car, but with all of the other strong Briscoe schemes this year, I've got this one ranked 5th out of 6. 

Bubba Wallace fans received a late 1/64 announcement this week that his Columbia Camry from Darlington is now up for preorder. This is the fourth 1/64 offering from Lionel for Wallace this season, and I think it's the second best one we've gotten situated just behind the brand new Hardee's scheme we first saw at Martinsville. This car finished 34th at the Goodyear 400 in March. Certainly a tougher day for Wallace, but the car still looks amazing. 

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Standard Versions (O.A.P.S.)

Leading off in the O'Reilly section of the Update is a couple of new liveries for Connor Zilisch. Connor has participated in four O'Reilly races so far this year with a fifth race coming up next at Watkins Glenn. In that race, he will be piloting the No. 1 Jockey JRM Chevy. Jockey has already brought their 150th anniversary scheme to the Cup level, but Zilisch will help to continue to honor the significant milestone with the same design.

The other (and far superior looking) race car that we got for preorder this week is the car the Connor Zilisch just drove to a rather disappointing 21st place finish. Zilisch was able to lead 48 and collaborated well with Rodney Childers throughout the day, but lost ground later on in the race. The story here is certainly the livery however. This car looks awesome I've got it ranked as the best Connor Zilisch JRM scheme to this point. 

It's not too often the Sammy Smith has the opportunity to drive something different than his normal Pilot Chevy. The series sponsor will take a step to put their brand on a JRM Chevy for a couple of races this summer. The first being the Pocono race in June and the South Point 400 in October. Smith is still looking for win number 1 in 2026, but he still has 5 top five's and 7 top 10's. I like this car, it probably could be considered better than his primary. 

SVG is hoping for a re-do on the corners of Watkins Glenn International this weekend. Kubota will be back onboard the JRM No. 9 Chevy as the company was last year as well. I saw that car in person last year in August and while van Gisbergen was in contention to win, contact with teammate, Connor Zilisch sent the 9 car into the wall, and out of the race just before the line on lap 64. This is the first O'Reilly 1/64 of the season for Shane fans. 

The JGR O'Reilly program has collected two wins on the season so far. Both of those race winning cars are up for preorder. But now we have the first standard 1/64 of the year for JGR with William Sawalch's Starkey Supra. This is William's second full-time season in the O'Reilly series. After collecting his first career win last month at Rockingham, 2026 looks to be a promising campaign for the young driver from Eden Prairie, Minnesota. This is a nice looking car, I especially like the camo underlay. 

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Standard Version (Trucks)

SVG gets another 1/64 this week, this time in a Truck 1/64 scale deicast. van Gisbergen will be positioned to sweep the weekend at Watkins as he'll also sit behind the wheel of a Niece Motorsports Silverado. This will be the second Craftsman Truck event that van Gisbergen will participate in. His last attempt at a Truck race was in 2023 when he finished 19th at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in the TSport 300. The Truck looks good and should be made!

Thorsport expands their 1/64 footprint as well this week with the first 1/64s for truckers, Cole Butcher and Ty Majeski. Both of these Trucks are primary schemes for these respective drivers. The Thorsport liveries are some of the most recognizable Trucks in the field. It's a bit strange to not see Matt Crafton's name above the door on the 88 Truck, but the Menards colors look as proper as ever. 

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Standard Version (ARCA)

Landon Huffman's first year in ARCA has been off to a pretty good start. Two starts, two top ten finishes. With the support of Hoosier cleaning and shine products, Huffman will look to stack finishes and wins while growing his name in the ARCA series this year. Situated on the old Cup Chevy SS, this purple, white, and black machine looks great. This is the first diecast for Landon and CR7 Motorsports. I'm certainly hoping to see this one meet MOQ. 

1/64 number two for Hailie Deegan is on the books and ready for preorder. Following up a nice little Napa scheme which closed resembles a Chase Elliott scheme from a few years ago, Columbia Bank is now also throwing their support behind the former Indy Car, ARCA, Truck, and O'Reilly driver. Columbia Bank appears to be gaining traction in the garages as they also partnered with Chase Briscoe in 2026 as well. 

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Drop Preview Report

Popping up on social media this week, we're getting a nice preview of two more 2026 1/64 scale diecast. On the last edition of the Diecast Update we got our first look at Alex Bowman's 2026 ally Chevy. This week, thanks to X.com user, @elliotttism, we have a visual on two of Wiliam Byron's 2026 diecast. These look quite good, and I really like the transition of the Raptor scheme to the previously used Axalta colors. This means 2 out of the 7 current Byron cars will soon be widely available. 

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Conclusion:
There are some very impressive offerings from Lionel Racing over the past few weeks. Some of that has to do with the fact that Bristol, Talladega, Texas, Watkins Glenn, and the Coke 600 events all typically generate many unique and one-off schemes that are very exciting. We are in a good place in the 1/64 hobby right now, and there are so many choices for collectors. By my count in the Cup series alone there are currently 123 different cars available for preorder and there are already 7 cars from the 2026 season that have hit the open market. I'm hoping to run a report with a more detailed look at that data in the days and weeks to come. 

This week, there are some swamping looking cars up for preorder, a couple of which have rocketed to the top of my 'tier one' list. The top options have to be Carson Hocevar's Talladega win, Noah Gragson's pickle beer car, and the Kings Hawaiian Camry that Denny Hamlin drove at Talladega. By any standard, there are a bunch of great options from the lower Nascar ranks as well, and I'm sure a few of these standard schemes will also be offered as raced versions in due time. That's it for this week on the Diecast Update, we'll see you back here following the Watkins Glenn weekend!

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