UPDATE POST HERE.

Arriving with “Chase” Fred with Stickers will be the “re-scaled” Fred sometime in September, 2008.

And man, they aren’t kidding.

Fred has been down-sized … or right-sized depending on your perspective.

He might just be half the man he used to be.

How many more of these can I come with before I show you the picture? 🙂

And no, that’s not MINI Fred … it’s almost Fred Jr. though … but of course, it makes sense on a lot of levels to make the change … Fred (v 1.0) compared to the animated version was way, way too large – his hood line is higher than TJ, a Hummer!

It’s been suggested that Fred is a Studebaker Lark though he looks more in line with several Fiats* or its European/Russian knockoffs like the Riva or he’s really a combo of everything … In Wikipedia, Fred is listed as a 1962 AMC Rambler but I don’t see it.

* The Yugo was based on this Fiat.

Because when Fred is next to the Security SUV, he’s not that tiny (and if he were the Rambler, he would be almost exactly the same length as a Dodge Dart which Rust-Eze is).

Okay, now Fred might be a tad too small – more like a combo Fiat & the Nash Metropolitan. But, I guess at least he’s no longer larger than the Hummer and Mattel saves a ton of metal 🙂 Fred was a heavy sucker also.

So in September, we can say hello to Fred, The Biggest Loser in one sense but also special enough to warrant a “chase” version on top of reduced-weight Fred sans stickers version. So, what I believe is going to happen is when Fred v2 get released, intermixed will be 20,000 Fred’s with 3 stickers on the doors and the back trunk – so good luck!

(I THINK PHOTO PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN FIXED – LET ME KNOW IF PHOTOS DON’T SHOW – THANKS “H” FOR PHOTOS!)