— April 7th, 2008
Cars collectors may have been wondering what happened to Cars case H. It was scheduled to be out in March 2008. March has come and gone and no case H. Well, the wait is over because Cars case H is finally here!
There are 2 new Cars in case H, Chuki, aka Anime Chuki, and Lightning Ramone. Technically, Lightning Ramone is not new, as he was released as part of the Cars 3 pack gift packs. But this is the first time Lightning Ramone has been available in the single carded version. Anyway, you should be seeing Cars case H soon at a retailer near you!
Here is the list of what is showing up in Cars case H.
— April 1st, 2008
It’s a sad day for Cars fans as Mattel has announced today that they are canceling the Cars diecast line. Mattel said that this is a direct result of the Blu-Ray McQueen mail away offer fiasco. According to a Mattel representative, the Blu-Ray McQueen incident disappointed so many collectors that they felt it was unwise to continue producing the Cars diecast line. Apparently, the Mattel executives were so afraid of their reputation being damaged in this case that the decision was made to end the line.
There aren’t many more details than that available at this time, but I will post when I know more.
Happy April Fool’s Day!
— March 27th, 2008
Update – 5/10/08: The Hot Wheels Collectors Club has announced that the Cars Motor Speedway of the South will go on sale Tuesday, May 20th. Ordering typically starts at 9 AM PT. The first 24 hours are usually open to Red Line Club members only.
You may have heard that the Cars Exclusive Speedway of the South set expected this year is coming soon. We don’t know the official details yet, but it is expected to be available probably late Spring/early Summer via hotwheelscollectors.com. You will need to have a membership to purchase it, but the membership costs only $24.99 per year. However, the set itself is likely to cost between $150 and $200.
The full set is expected to include all 36 racers from the Piston Cup series in the Cars movie. All 36 racers can be identified below. 12 out of the 36 have already been released in some form.
12 Piston Cup racers currently available
- Lightning McQueen
- Chick Hicks
- The King
- Leak Less
- Nitroade
- RPM
- Octane Gain
- Vinyl Toupee
- No Stall
- Dale Jr.
- Tow Cap
- Gasprin
So that leaves 24, so far, that are exclusive to this set. There are a couple of options. You can wait for the other 24 to be released separately at retail, or you can plunk down the $25 to have a chance to get this set. It has also been mentioned that some of the Cars, don’t know which ones, will be exclusive to this set and not available anywhere else (we’re looking at you Apple Car.) So if you are sure you want them all and unless you want to take your chances on eBay, you will want to go ahead and pick this set up.
Once the details for the Speedway of the South set are available, we will post them here so stay tuned. Here is the full list of all 36 Piston Cup racers along with pictures of many of the Cars taken from last year’s San Diego Comic Con.
- Tow Cap (#4)
- Dale Jr. (#8)
- Nitroade (#28)
- Mood Springs (#33)
- Trunk Fresh (#34)
- Shifty Drug (#35)
- Tank Coat (#36)
- View-Zeen (#39)
- Strip “The King” Weathers (#43)
- Easy Idle (#51)
- Leak Less (#52)
- Faux Wheel Drive (#54)
- Fiber Fuel (#56)
- Octane Gain (#58)
- Vitoline (#61)
- Transberry Juice (#63)
- RPM (#64)
- N20 (#68)
- Gasprin (#70)
- Rev-N-Go (#73)
- Sidewall Shine (#74)
- Vinyl Toupee (#76)
- Retread (#79)
- Creme Filled Gask-its (#80)
- Shiny Wax (#82)
- Apple (#84)
- Re-Volting (#84)
- Chick Hicks (#86)
- Bumper Save (#90)
- Sputter Stop (#92)
- Spare Mint (#93)
- Lightning McQueen (#95)
- Tach-O-Mint (#101)
- Lil’ Torque Pistons (#117)
- Clutch Aid (#121)
- No Stall (#123)
Update – 5/15/08: Two a Day somehow has early unboxing photos up on their site of the Motor Speedway of the South boxset. And yes, Dale Jr. is a variant.
— March 23rd, 2008
After making several trips looking for new Cars lately and coming up empty handed, I started to wonder which Cars are the most plentiful on retail shelves. The easy answer is Lightning McQueen since he has the most variants, but what would the other ones be?
Rather than go by my perceptions, I decided to dig into the lists of what Cars are in each case and how many. I used the list from the Upcoming Cars Checklist, from last year’s case T to the most recent case G, to calculate which ones appear most often and how many are per case. The actual stats are pretty interesting and match up fairly well with what I have personally seen.
Top 10 Cars Peg Warmers
- Bling Bling McQueen – 6
- Dinoco Helicopter – 5
- Pit Crew Fillmore – 5
- Pit Crew Hornet – 5
- Radiator Springs McQueen – 5
- Ramone Green – 5
- Bug Mouth McQueen – 4
- Dinoco McQueen – 4
- Dirt Track McQueen – 4
- RPM #64 – 4
There you have it. Without having any actual numbers to go by, I felt that was pretty accurate to what I have seen in stores, not counting Wal-Marts that may have extra Wal-Mart exclusives still on the shelves.
Since I already had my stats, I thought I would keep going. Next I came up with a list of which characters had the most variants. As you might have guessed, Lighting McQueen had the most variants with 33 from case T to case G. Ramone was an obvious runner up but with not nearly as many as McQueen with 15.
Most Variants – Lightning McQueen = 33
- Bling Bling McQueen
- Bug Mouth McQueen
- Cactus McQueen
- Cruisin’ McQueen
- Dinoco McQueen
- Dirt Track McQueen
- Lightning McQueen
- Radiator Springs McQueen
- Tongue McQueen
Second Most Variants – Ramone = 15
- Cruisin’ Ramone
- Ghostlight Ramone
- Hydraulic Red Ramone
- Ramone – Green
- Ramone – Old School
- Ramone – Purple
- Ramone – Yellow
At the other end of the spectrum, I was able to list which Cars have the fewest in each assortment. These are the Cars that had only one release from case T to case G. I thought this list was pretty accurate as well.
Top 12 Rarest Cars
- Boost
- Cruisin’ Ramone
- Darrell Cartrip
- Fillmore
- Hamm
- Hydraulic Red Ramone
- Lizzie
- Nitroade
- Ramone – Old School
- Sarge
- Snot Rod
- Young Mater
There you have it. Your experience may vary, as this list is just speculative, based on the assortment lists, and each store will be different. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree?
— March 21st, 2008
The truck on the left is a 1951 international boom truck. It’s also the inspiration for Mater.
Almost all of the characters in Cars are based on real cars. I thought it would be fun for Cars fans to see the real world basis for the Cars characters. So I put together a photo guide of the automobiles the Cars characters were based on with character names, model, year and photo.
It’s not all inclusive, but I believe I covered most of the main characters. If I left out any easy ones or important ones you think should be included, leave your suggestions in the comments.
— March 20th, 2008
Back in November of last year, I wrote about the Cars 2006 Factory Sealed Set that was available through the Hot Wheels Collectors Club. This was a set of the first 30 Cars all on the desert cardbacks, including singles and Movie Moments, and it was limited to only 500.
You may remember Dirt Track McQueen and Rollin’ Bowlin’ Mater from that set. That was the first time, those Cars appeared individually carded, and the only place to get them that way.
Well, if you still need those Cars for your collection and missed the factory set, now is your chance. A seller on eBay has the Rollin’ Bowlin’ Mater and the Dirt Track McQueen from that set up for sale. Even though they may be cost you a little bit more to get them, it beats paying for the whole set when you only wanted those two.
— March 9th, 2008
I put together a photo gallery of unreleased Cars for 2008. I hope you like it. Click the link on the image below to check it out.
Anime Chuki (Case H)
— March 9th, 2008
Posting has been non-existant for the last week due to the fact that I have been busy working on a new design. Now that it’s complete and tested, I’m happy enough with it that it’s ready to go, so I pulled the trigger and launched it this morning.
It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I hope it is an improvement overall. My goals were to make it visually appealing and Cars related and also easier to use. I hope I accomplished that. I’m sure there will be things I missed or problems, so please bear with me in the weeks to come.
This blog is not for me however, it’s for you, the readers. So I would like to know your opinion. Do you love it, or hate it? Are there problems with it? Weigh in on the new design in the comments please. Thanks.
— March 2nd, 2008
After the Christmas season, Wal-Mart put a lot of their toys on clearance, and one of the things I saw go on clearance were Cars Movie Moments 2 packs. I saw these on clearance in more than one of my local Wal-Marts. The Cars in question were the peg warmers from the Supercharged line, Sally and Crusin’ McQueen, Buzz and Woody, Mike and Sulley, etc.
In the stores where I saw them, they were not discounted very much at all, but I heard a rumor that in one local store, they were recently spotted at less than $3 each. That is a good price, but only if you don’t already have them, or were needing to pick up some extras. Has anybody else seen this deal at a local Wal-Mart?
