Collecting Cars: July 2013

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Update on the New Categouries

This year Mattel started to organize the Cars and Cars 2 diecast models in 12 new categouries.
You´ll find them on Mattel´s site and on my site here AND down below where I´ve added my thoughts about each and one of all the specific "collections".

In general - The good thing about this new way to bring some order to all the cars is that there is actually a pretty logical way to combine the cars from both the movies.
The bad thing - well it is obviously a way for Mattel to get to people that collect the new shiny cars from Cars 2 and say "hey, did you know that we have some really cool cars from the first film too?"
And there was a perfectly nicely working system with the single numbers up and running. Why fix something that wasn´t broken?

Anyway. Here´s the categouries with my thoughts and my cars. This far.

Airport Adventure Collection

Seven cars from the airport scene in the second film. Finn is cool but two variants of one diecast model in the same categourie is not good. They could have lost Security Guard Finn and added som more special cars like Krate instead. I´ll probably go for the last one, Waitress, but the others are just variants of cars I already got.

1 - Grem with Weapon

2 - Airport Mater

3 - Holley Shiftwell

4 - Security Guard Finn

5 - Finn McMissile

6 - Krate Rainson-Wash

7 - Airport Waitress

Festival Italiano Collection

Here´s some really nice models. Both Uncle and Mama Topolino are small diecasts with lots of curves. Got to get Mama! I´ll also go for both Franca and Francesca (wouldn´t have bothered if they weren´t in this collection) and of course I´ll buy the four pittys that makes the Topolinos´ Band.
Great Collection!

1 - Uncle Topolino

2 - Race Team Luigi

3 - Race Team Guido

4 - Franca

5 - Mama Topolino

6 - Francesca (Chase)

7, 8, 9 ,10 - Uncle Topolino's Band

Lemons Collection

As you could see I like this one. I already got most of them. And even though I don´t go for variants I´ll probably make an exception for Tubbs Pacer with Paint Spray. Think I´ll collect them all here!

1 - J. Curby Gremlin

2 - Vladimir Trunkov

3 - Victor H.

4 - Petey Pacer

5 - Tubbs Pacer

6, 7 - Tubbs Pacer with Paint Spray & Tolga Trunkov

Lightning McQueen Collection

Rubbish. Variants. I got hte only one that is really beautiful.

1 - Cactus Lightning McQueen

2 - Lightning Storm Lightning McQueen

3 - Lightning McQueen with Cone

4 - Cruisin´ Lightning McQueen

5 - Nature Drive Lightning McQueen

Maters Collection

Same here though the Maters are more artistic and seemed to be done with a great deal of imagination. But nothing for me.

1 - Race Team Mater

2 - Ivan Mater

3 - Kabuki Mater

4 - Francesco Mater

5 - Materhosen

6 - Dracula Mater

Palace Chaos Collection

Some variants here (Sally, Mater, Miles, Finn) - and that makes this collection not so interesting. The other cars are rather small characters in the movie so I´ll wait until I go for this one.

1 - Holley Shiftwell with Screen

2 - Mike Lorengine

3 - You the Bomb Mater

4 - Miles Axlerod with Open Hood (Chase)

5 - Maurice

6 - Victor Paveone

7 - Mark Wheelsen

8, 9 - Doug Speedcheck & Palace Danger Finn McMissile

Piston Cup Collection

This could have been great. From it´s name you could think that this collection would consist by a lot of race cars. But here´s where Mattel started to f**k things up, pardon my Swedish.
Only 6 out of 17 cars are race cars. The rest? Tow Trucks, helicopters, judges, Mrs The King (ok a cool car) and some announcers.
This is a bad trick from Mattel to make us buy boring Tow Trucks with boring flags that probably will... work on me. Darn.

1 - Chick Hicks

2 - Race Tow Truck Tom

3 - Bob Cutlass

4 - Darrel Cartrip - photo soon to come

5 - Mrs. The King - photo soon to come

6 - Tex Dinoco

7 - Dinoco Helicopter

8 - The King

9 - Al Oft the Lightyear Blimp

10 - Nitroade No. 28

11 - Marlon "Clutches" McKay

12 - Charlie Checker

13 - Dexter Hoover with Checkered Flag

14 - Lightning McQueen

15 - Sputter Stop No. 92

16 - Elvis RV

17 - RPM No. 64

18 - Race Official Tom

Retro Radiator Springs Collection

I´m not sure about this one. But I WILL buy the Brand New Mater. The others are not great characters in the movies...

Yeah I know this is "Sally with Cone"

1 - Sally

2 - Hank "Halloween" Murphy

3 - Lightning Ramone

4 - Dustin Mellows

5 - Brand New Mater

6 - Greta

7 - Edwin Kranks

8 - Mildred Bylane

Rust-Eze Racing Collection

Same thing here. But the Rust-Eze brothers are cool. But No 4, 7 and 8? I don´t think so.

1 - Dusty Rust-Eze

2 - Mack

3 - Rusty Rust-Eze

4 - Jonathan Wrenchworths

5 - Lightning McQueen with Sign

6 - Fred

7 - Donna Pits

8 - Vern

Tuners Collection

This is not in my taste at all. I got a theory I would like to try on ya´ll: People who like the cars in this collection are the same people who actually pay money to see all the "the Fast and the Furious"-movies.

And that´s not me.

1 - Suki

2 - Kabuto

3 - DJ with Flames

4 - Wingo with Flames

5 - Harumi

6 - Yokoza

7 - Chisaki

8 - Snot Rod with Flames

9 - Boost with Flames

10 - Ichigo (Chase)

Wheel Well Motel Collection

Me like. I´ll buy them all. No, not Hudson Hornet Piston Cup Lightning McQueen and maybe not the Luigi and Guido, I do not go for variants. But RED - how could I not have got him already? Shame on me.

1 - Sheriff

2 - Sarge

3 - Red

4 - Hudson Hornet Piston Cup Lightning McQueen

Yeah I know...

5 - Sally

6 - Fillmore

7 - Flo

8 - Body Shop Ramone

9, 10 - Luigi & Guido with Shaker and Glasses

11 - COMING SOON

World Grand Prix Collection

I already got 12 out of 17 so YES this is my kind of cars. And the race car ratio is far more better here, 10 out of 17, but WHY did Mattel leave Carla Veloso out?
Why?

1 - Lightning McQueen with Racing Wheels

2 - Francesco Bernoulli

3 - Nigel Gearsley

4 - Austin Littleton

5 - Raoul CaRoule

6 - Bruno Motoreau

7 - Miguel Camino

8 - Rip Clutchgoneski

9 - Erik Laneley

10 - Max Schnell

11 - Lewis Hamilton

12 - Shu Todoroki

13 - David Hobbscapp with Headset

14 - Darrel Cartrip with Headset

15 - Brent Mustangburger with Headset

16 - Jeff Gorvette

17 - Alex Carvill

Friday, July 26, 2013

28 out of 28 - No more Pittys for me!

It was a long walk but now it finally has come to an end. The last of the 28 Race Team Pittys has arrived.

As you could see I had to buy three cars just to get the one I needed. Team No Stall in a Piston Cup Box.

These two... Under almost any circumstances two very nice diecasts. Lovely colors make No Stall a favourite among the Piston Cup Race Cars and the Team Chief is also a pretty pretty cool cat. Not least because of it´s name: Roman Dunes.

But they both have to step aside this time. All I wanted now was this fellow. The last of the 28 Race Team Pittys - No Stall Pitty!

A nice one. The colors are great, I really like the white wheels and the nice letters spelling No Stall.

And here they are, all together:

Click to enlarge. Do click.

As you could see there´s only six teams who got three Pittys (Octane Gain, Nitroade, Leak Less, HTB, Dinoco and Bumper Save). Nine team has one single pitty (Team Rust-Eze has two, but "My Name is Not Chuck" quits and is replaced by Guido).

There´s therefore 21 teams not represented by any pitty at all. But I´m happy with that. I got ´em all now! So please do not make any more of them. They have been hard to collect, they are not so popular and a lot of trading places on the internet has choosed not to sell pittys.