This is sort of Part II to How to Begin Collecting CARS (Part 1 is here).

Then the rest of the list breaks down into how you plan on collecting – if your goal is simply own one of each CAR to open – You should not have much trouble finding them in stores ranging from the obvious big three of Wal-mart, TRU & Target but even in places like Walgreen’s and Long’s … (our guide to CARS shopping this holiday season).

This is known as the tactical portion of collecting CARS. You’re simply getting the train rolling – don’t worry about too many nuances or slight differences or known in collecting parlances as ‘variants’ (aka: production differences). You can read all the gory details in this post if and when you are ready.

You just want to buy CARS. They’re easy and hard – If you are starting from scratch or you have maybe a few dozen CARS and you want to get serious, your plan can go something like this – this is presuming you are going to open them or if you have ONE of it in some form, you are going to cross it off your checklist and move on to the next one.

Your best bet is to plot a path for largest numbers of Walmarts, Targets, Toys R Us (TRU) & Kmarts you can park and ingress and egress in the shortest amount of time.

See, this is a smart hobby – when was the last time someone used ingress and egress in a sentence? 🙂

There is no set pattern. You might cross 15 off in one store and none at the store a few doors away … that’s the thrill and fun of the hunt (that you keep repeating to yourself as a goose tries to eat your inverness … no, I’m not making up words -these are all words in the CARS dictionary).

Eventually you wil figure which stores around you are better or not …

98% of the CARS fall into three categorgies, Easy to Find (as long as you’re willing to check 10-15 DIFFERENT stores), the New Ones (not easy to find during initial release but gets easier and cheaper) and the Always Popular-Short Production-Exclusive Production ones.

To note again, one great thing about the CARS line is with a few tiny exceptions (and only essentially to fix errors), virtually no CARS have been ‘retired,’ so you can catch up in a relatively short amount of time (discountng that whole ‘money’ thing – what, like you’re going to buy stocks with it now? 🙂 ).

If you’re a longtime collector of other diecasts or other action figs, one way to go is of course, the factory sealed case which will usually allow you to knock off 12-15 CARS in one fell swoop (Mattel packs 18 to a case). Our sponsor, Children’s Toy Closet is a great place to check or many other places online.

THE RELATIVELY EAST LIST

If you go to 10-15 stores, you’ll find these as singles and in various other configurations (for instance, you can buy the 2 boxes sets currently at TRU) and knock ten off your list with ease.

Al Oft Lightyear Blimp
Bling Bling McQueen
Boost
Brand New Mater
Bug Mouth McQueen
Buzz
Cactus McQueen
Charlie Check/Pace Car
Chick/Chick Hicks
Crusin’ McQueen
Crusin’ Ramone/Old School Ramone
Darrell Cartrip
Dinoco Chick Hicks
Dinoco Helicopter
Dinoco McQueen
Dirt Track Doc Hudson
Dirt Track McQueen
DJ
Doc Hudson
Fabulous Hudson Hornet (Red Rims)
Ferrari F430
Fillmore/Filmore
Flo
Ghostlight/Blue Ramone
Gold Mia
Gold Tia
Guido
Guido (Ferrari Fan)
Hydraulic Ramone (Red)
King
Leak Less/Leakless
Lightning McQueen
Lightning Phase Ramone
Luigi
Luigi (Ferrari Fan)
Mater
Mike
Nitroade
Petrol Pulaski (RPM Pitty)
Piston Cup Pace Car
Pit Crew Member Fabulous Hudson Hornet
Pit Crew Member Fillmore
Pit Crew Member Guido
Radiator Springs McQueen
Race Official Tom
Ramone (Green)
Ramone (Purple)
Ramone (Yellow)
RPM #64
Sally
Sheriff
Snot Rod
Sulley
Tar McQueen
Tongue McQueen
Tractor
Wingo
Woody

The next group is only a little more difficult to find at times because sometimes they are just out of the release cycle such as Bob Cutlass or Hamm. For the most part, pricing is reasonable on eBay with patience. Essentially, these will all drop in price once a new shipment arrives – there’s demand but it’s not a frenzied demand.

A LITTLE MORE WORK

Bob Cutlass
Dinoco Mia
Dinoco Tia
Dusty Rust-Eze
Dudley Spare (Octane Gain Pitty)
Fabulous Hudson Hornet (white rims)
Fred
Hamm
Lizzie
Mario Andretti
Mia
Mrs. The King
My Name is Not Chuck
Octane Gain
Red
Rusty Rust-Eze
Stanley
Tex Dinoco
Tia
Tow (Piston Cup Tow Truck)
Yeti

A LOT MORE WORK (TEMPORARY or SEMI PERMANENT

Dale Jr and maybe red Mia & Tia might always be difficult to find because of their popularity but most are only on this list on a temporary basis as in the CARS world, anything that’s NEW will show a price spike that will then trend downward until it drops to retail store pricing such as Stacy (Leak Less Pitty) which ranged from $19 first-on-the-block pricing to a more corrected $3 now. Or such as Tow Cap/Gaspirin/PT Flea & Filk – while not exactly new – supply has not really met demand yet so prices will continue to be twice retail until supply does meet demand. This is not completely up to date as that would pretty much be a full time job but you get the idea – as long as you regularly read the site, you’ll get an idea of what’s new.

Axel Accelerator
Dale Jr.
Flik
Gaspirin
Kathy Copter
Leroy Traffik
Luke Pettlework
No Stall
PT Flea
Tow Cap
Trunk Fresh
Vinyl Toupee
Van

“CHASE”

Last month, Mattel brought the “Chase” concept to CARS. Chase meaning exactly what is says – you have to “chase” to find these CARS – only packed ONE to a case – two are out, both not easy to find on the store shelves but not impossible … @20,000 available in the US. They are marked CHASE on the card itself and has a white paper “tray” the car rests on.

Lightning McQueen with Bumper Stickers
Fred with Bumper Stickers

and the next two …
Impound Lightning McQueen (released this week)
Impound Boost (Coming in a few weeks)

EBAY ONLY (EXCLUSIVES-LIMITED RELEASE-RECALL)

Blu-Ray Blu Lightning McQueen
Lightning Storm McQueen (SDCC version)
Rollin’ Bowlin’ Mater
Sarge
Sidewall Shine (TRU promotion – promotion ended)