Mattel Disney Pixar Diecast CARS: Collecting CARS on Supercharged Cards (+ One More Canada?)
Last week, we covered collecting the Desert Art Series 1 & Desert Art Series 1.5 CARS “mint on card.” It’s hard to really even agree what constitutes a complete set – 15? 16? 20? all the way to 48?
In late 2006 – Mattel switched design motifs … SUPERCHARGED!
And the cardback design sort of showed CARS either out or coming but as people later discovered, it was not much help as sometimes the release was months away.
At the end of the day and at the end of the Supercharged motif in October 2007 and later on, SC was not a difficult series to collect – but in the midst of the year, it was CRAZY. It was not just crazy but RABID BAT CRAZY.
First, the market was way under supplied in September 2006, people were stripping the shelves bare except for the Lizzie pegwarmer. Then suddenly CARS re-appeared in October with the Supercharged design. No one at the time could figure out if these were variants or IF there were variants – the safest thing to do was to buy everything and sort it out later. People weren’t sure if the SC versions had different eye positions? If they were not shown, were they retired? Brand New Mater – were they the only person in America who did not have him?
This first card also fueled the first CARS craziness … two CARS shipped in the last case (s) of 2006 as Supercharged contained a Cruisin’ McQueen & a Hamm but they were NOT pictured on the cardback.
So, a frenzy ensued. People quickly convinced others that CM & Hamm were secret SUPER CHASE TREASURE DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION TRIPLE DOG DARE TREASURE HUNTS. Yes believe it or not way back in 2006 and early 2007, people paid as much as $125 for a Cruisin’ McQueen and $60 for Hamm.
This was NOT the case as the post Christmas reset of 2007 literally drove the price of Cruisin’ McQueen from $125 to $3 OVERNIGHT on eBay when stores got more Hamm & CM.
It should be noted that Cruisin’ McQueen was readily available in a movie moment 2-pack for not much more than the list price and could usually be found by looking a little harder but hey, who needs money when you can get the single of Cruisin’ McQueen for a only $124.99.
Now because the success of the line surprised Mattel, the post Christmas reset and WAVE 1 of Supercharged CARS did not feature a lot of brand new releases but were either repaints (hi Ramone!) or simply with different deco (Fabulous Hudson Hornet was based on Doc Hudson (I know, shock!) , Dirt Track McQueen was pulled from the playset and renamed from Willie Butte’s McQueen), etc, etc …
The Toyfair of 2007 featured an amazing bevy & motherload of CARS to come – it was the high of Supercharged … and those CARS started to appear in late June & early July … but then DISASTER.
The Sarge recall.
Since Walmart & Target put everything under one SKU, they pulled EVERYTHING to be safe. No single or Movie Moments (as Sarge was in one Movie Moment). In some stores, after a few weeks, they started to put non Sarge’s back out but Mattel shipped nothing for weeks on end to test and make sure everything was okay with CARS. The last thing you want is a second recall.
Finally CARS returned in the early Autumn with the infamous WM Cube of 8 exclusives.
As things normalized, CARS changed motifs again to the WORLD OF CARS in October 2007.
So, while it was a crazy year, and during that time, collecting CARS was not easy but with the passage of time and the essentially re-release of EVERY Supercharged CAR except for SARGE in the next series, WORLD OF CARS, I think super interest in a complete set of SUPERCHARGED has quieted.
Other than Sarge, there are three cards that are harder to find: Bob Cutlass, Dale Earnhardt Jr. & Mario Andretti explained in this post. But unlike the Desert Art series with promo codes, promo dates, spelling errors and cardback changes among 12-48 cards, there is only card design of these three so it’s just a matter of buying or not buying them.
For some super collectors there are four Canadian (and US territory Puerto Rico) releases with the typical US English-only front nameplate … presumably they were done with production during the recall and with the design changeover, it was decided just to slip them into shipments to Canada/Puerto Rico. It seems like only one shipment as the ones in Canada were soon the tri-language ones.
(Yeti, the Abominable Snowplow was released in the US on Supercharged as only YETI. On subsequent releases,starting with WORLD OF CARS, he is listed as Yeti, the Abominable Snowplow).
But “Emeric de Q.” reminds us of an additional Canada-only release that I had forgotten about.
Yes, he was released in the US on Supercharged as “Cruisin’ Ramone.”
And in the WORLD OF CARS series, his name was changed to OLD SCHOOL RAMONE – presumably because he was ‘dressed’ like this in the flashback sequence and not the street cruisin’ scene – Pixar must’ve told Mattel that’s he’s OLD SCHOOL RAMONE. So, when he was re-released in the US for WORLD OF CARS, he was renamed OLD SCHOOL RAMONE but clearly, there was some ready to go in the factory so they shipped him off to Canada and maybe the UK?
The cardback is typical international.
And as with int’l cards, no poster.*
Thanks for the reminder, “Emeric de Q.”
* Speaking of which, the Supercharged CARS released in early Spring to early Summer in 2007 contained a poster folded underneath which is visible in the name plate-base gap. It is believed that every CAR released at that time except for Doc Hudson (silver rims & Sarge) contained a poster. The poster was discontinued when Supercharged releases returned in the Fall.
You can read our original post on the CANADA CARDS + the CANADA ONLY two Movie Moments HERE.
While the WM8 (or WM20) is not technically Supercharged card CARS, you can read about them and the other holiday exclusives here.
And all you ever wanted to know about SC Movie Moments & More …
Or our Issue #2 of the Guide & Checklist is devoted entirely to the Supercharged year.
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17 January 2011
27 Comments
lots of stuff happened during the supercharged era great post met thanks!
A quick question to all those who have these rarities from Canada:
Are the UPC stickered over with the Canadian UPC?
Recent research on my part has found:
a sudden re-emergance of about 2 dozen Ramones from SC of Green and Yellow, with UPCs stickered over with the Canadian one at a local TRU (woodbridge ontario, still several Yellows left by me).
That this past Summer (according to employees that i talked to at one location) that there was a huge selection of SCs (this part i cannot expand on whatsoever, unless there is a Ontario board member who experienced this firsthand) through a discount chain called Giant Tiger.
Everything seems to be gone, except for Maters, as i picked up 5 of them at one location that i found 9 at about a week ago. These were further stickered over (over the Canada SC sticker)with an in house UPC that shows up on bills as something like Cars Mater Assort.
One locations still has 133 SC Maters!
This stickering over may shed some light as to where these were really meant to go…………
Awesome post. Awesome times.
ok NEXT CARS TOON: HOODini mater as a magician!
well it so sounds like one but i just thought of it.
I believe we will be mixed of emotions in may… First, great excitement to see and buys CARS 2 🙂 … but also desapointement to not have all the promises CARS from line 1 in collector guides or posters because there is still way to many to be relased in a very short time. 🙁 I do not believe they will release two lines at the same time. My guess last week on february or first or march will be the latest.
I loved this post..very informative..lots of things I didn’t know…as for Lizzie, it’s true..when we weren’t in this fever of collecting, we saw many on the pegs..and left them there!!
Great job Met!
I don’t ever recall Lizzie being a pegwarmer! …maybe I was the only one buying all I could find since she was so hard to find in the Desert Art cards?
kmart had an entire endcap of lizzies near me..not anymore!
Must have been a joke in Mets post, to make sure it was being read.
🙂
Never ever a pegwarmer, Not Lizzie.
(MET: Nope, Lizzie was a pegwarmer from @November 2006 to @March 2007 … once stores started getting larger & more frequent shipments (there was still fewer than 20 CARS available on cards so each case pretty much contained everything – Lizzie’s started to pile up … by Spring 2007 yes, most Lizzie’s were harder to find but Lizzie was available every so often in SC cases … then a giant pegwarmer at Mervyn’s in the Holiday’s of 2008 when each store got about 200-300 from Target’s & Walmart’s who sent all their Lizzie’s back to Mattel. Mervyn’s closed after that but all the Lizzie’s were gone by then …
Old post on Mervyn’s).
I still think everyone is confusing Lizzie with Mater.
(MET: Mater on the other hand has never been a pegwarmer).
Yes…she was, we saw many at Target back then! A friend of ours recalled seeing Lizzie at the Mattel Store, about 200 pieces for $2 each! 😯
Thank you Met for the Mervyn’s post link and the pictures.
I never shopped at Mervyn’s. I just don’t recall ever seeing many Lizzies on the pegs back then. But thanks for the history of the era.
Here I only found 2 Lizzies on SC. I have more DB Lizzies than SC.
(MET; I should have taken a pic of the side wall above the MM’s – pretty much a giant 8 foot by 10 foot shelf of most Lizzie’s … they had the oddball discount of like 40% off $5 or something so not much of a real savings at the time though I’m sure some far-sighted ebayer came along and made a nice long term investment by buying up 100+ Lizzie’s …).
This seems like a lot of trouble, making up a fictional store full of Lizzies that had a fictional demise as well. I’m guessing these pictures are photoshopped.
Looked at the case assortments for Oct06 to Feb 07, Lizzie was shipped in 4 of 8 cases, she was one per case.
(MET: At that time, since there were fewer than about 24 singles … some stores would get up to 10 cases … there were also floor displays available to some retailers. It should also be noted Lizzie was then available in several box sets also – not necessarily available at all times since most were exclusives but even one box set available at JC Penney).
It makes a little sense though. Mattel knew that they werent going to make Lizzies after the WOC series and did an over production of the supercharged series. As somebody mentioned before, that the molding of a few cars would make others, just the different paint and decals. As for Lizzie you can’t make any other car with her old body. Probably wasnt cost effective. But I dont recall these as peg warmers but I started collecting after the world of cars series.
My son loves Lizzie. He has pretended many various cars are Lizzie, from sand toys to model cars, over the past 2 years. It’s funny to see a chunky, bright, plastic sandbox car in the midst of the Cars cars. But if he says its Lizzie then to him it really is. Finally he got a real Lizzie this year thanks to a local T5er. It’s important to a lot of kids for McQueen to have all of his friends represented. Disney Store seems to do a good job of keeping the townies in stock, but there is no Disney Store Lizzie is there?
(MET: No Disney Store Lizzie).
It’s funny to read that Lizzie was a pegwarmer, as she’s such a chore to find for latecomers like me.
I guess also all the openers converted to non-openers like me…:-)
Thanks!
i literlly just typed in supercharged series 2 cars mattel in google i am looking for a list of all of them, to group on display. i know the series 1 by heart but not completly 2. the first result was this post i was like oh a really old post …wait a minute, this is the newest post.
My collection has all the SC singles releases except for the English Only Dinoco Copter. Wanted English only Flea and Flik MM but it was easier to get the trilingual Dino single and EU version Flea/Flik.
in 2010 i actually seen flick and pt from woc and mr and mrs king SIDE BY SIDE!
i never found them so i was like oh my gosh. also seen at a different store a purple sc ramone Dindt get it!
Been lookin’ for that same dino-copter for ages… Still think the picture is fake!!! Or at least I hope!!!
They did have a bi-lingual one available too… russian I think or something of the sort – But I could never get my hands on that English-only one!!!
Surprisingly – I find that if you really want – you can still get an English-only PT Flea and Flick on Supercharged backs… Maybe a little pricey but… Aren’t they worth it!?!?!?
I am looking for the Dinoco Heli SC card too and the USA first run Flick n Flea
The Supercharged collecting were fun-times. After having collected all the Desert-backed, when SC cards hit during the Christmastime, it was fun, especially getting Brand-New Mater, and Hamm. I remember climbing onto a shopping cart at TRU to open boxes above the toy racks and pulling down cars that we couldn’t find on the shelves.
one of the best, i remember finding buzz and woody , then tons of new ones, didnt have the money so i put them all in my cart and asked my parents if they would get me these for christmas, they said yes. then i ren back and threw in a yellow(i think) ramone. i had one ramone and i asked if i should get it beacuse its only a different color he said no, but i soon decided to colect them all!
Darn, just when I opened all of mine up…
Jon, I have those checklists if you want to borrow them
Hmmmm….
Interesting historical background.
I think I may have to check out the “Guide and Checklist” series, especially if it contains information on what the collector mentality was like during a series release and what events shaped how the cars were released. Great stuff in the past two “history” posts.
Jon