Mattel Disney Pixar CARS: Carateka Coming
“John H.” sends along great pics of the upcoming Carateka …
He’s basically another version of Officer Murakarmi (also a CHASE).
Create the scene!
Thanks for the great pics, “John H.” though it looks like you need a unibody Finn.
13 October 2014
17 Comments
Does anyone know if the SC case with Caio Francesco has a sister case with NO sure chase and an extra Hobbscapp with headset?
That is what I keep finding…no dupes of other new releases…does 2 hobbscapps..
(MET: Yes, there is a twin).
Since Carateka is a “Super Chase”, my statements and opinion will fit here best. I am now firmly of the belief, due to recent developments, that the Chinese “Back Door” sales of Chase and Super Chase Cars, as well as Cars not yet in release, is actually being done by Mattel itself. It’s a nice easy way to cut EVERYONE out of the distribution chain; from the Seatrans container people, to customs, US warehousing and distribution, and then all the various retailers. It is direct producer to consumer sales, and the wave of the future.
I cannot believe that with all the back door Chase cars like Vitaly Petrov, Flash, etc., that only 4000 were made worldwide — and it allows Mattel to say it is a limited production Chase item, and yet make all the market will bear. Note that nowhere does Mattel say “Limited Edition” as that has specific legal implications, they’re just “Chase”. There must be fifty rare Chase on eBay right now … and as a proportion of that mythical 4000 count production number, all items branded Chase or Super Chase are now suspect in terms of actual produced quantity.
Rant Over.
I’m sorry to disabuse you of your notion but direct-to-consumer sales wouldn’t be done through a third-party like eBay/paypal wherein a significant percentage of the profit margin is lost to fees for service. Mattel has the infrastructure in place to sell directly to the consumer through their own website. (And does.) Loose stuff leaking out the backdoor on eBay diminishes the value of their brand, as well as their profits. No way are they masterminding it.
They have to start somewhere though — and direct-to-consumer via a website would still entail some level of inventory and warehousing. Much easier to ship direct from factory. And so far, it is the high end “rare” items selling. As an example, a Chase on the shelf at Walmart will sell for what, $6, with Mattel seeing maybe $2.50 of that? Mattel can sell it for $50 on eBay, and even with the fees from eBay and Paypal, make more.
My point is more on the fact that “Chase” and “Super Chase” are purely arbitrary terms with absolutely no meaning now if one can simply buy as many as you want online.
If you are talking about the carded Super Chases, those are not back door, nor are the loose singles.
The carded Super Chases out of China, are all counterfeits. The Cars,cards and blisters were made somewhere in china, the bottom of the blisters do not match the originals. Someone is making cards and attaching common blisters to the card. Hence, the Cars are not the original Super Chases sold by Mattel. They could be Max Schnell repaints, but poorly done. I’ve seen enough pictures of loose ones people bought cheap, and the paint jobs do not match the real deal.
Now we see some people are flipping the carded counterfeits they got out of China.
Unless Mattel gets a handle on this problem, this will kill the SC problem
Since packaging has absolutely no bearing on what I collect, this can be a semantics problem, but the paint variations are likely normal and common when one is making a large production run over a period of time, with a number of variable employees and situations. Try finding one good Chick Hicks without some level of decal errors, as an example.
I also highly suspect the whole “counterfeit” thing, when someone at Mattel must have some say over how their tooling is being used. Again, notice Mattel never says “Limited Edition” anywhere, so their claims of “only 4000 produced” are nebulous and arbitrary. They can therefore make and sell as many as the market will support, and being back door, at a better profit margin. Mattel isn’t stupid.
In the end, I just want the Cars, so I have no cares about the worthless packaging (talk about a ‘collectible rip-off’ that is still debated), or who gets the end profits, and I know for a fact I will never find them locally on my store’s shelves.
The Chinese carded counterfeits were reported to Mattel, and then disappeared on ebay.
Now there are USA sellers and UK sellers reselling them. You say the card doesn’t matter, but that is how to tell the differences from the real to the fakes.
Mattel would not undermine its own program of superchases, especially since that would alienate its dealers, customers, resellers.
But if Mattel does not solve this problem, its going to continue to undermine all legitimate Cars sales.
“Mattel would not undermine its own program of superchases, especially since that would alienate its dealers, customers, resellers.”
My point exactly. Mattel doesn’t really care, because this could be the first step into a new way of marketing. Direct to consumer or collector, with no website to maintain, a proven delivery and payment system, and no limits on what they can sell, as well as no set MSRP.
Time will tell, but it is coming.
wouldn’t it be nice to have two with different eye and mouth expressions. can’t wait to look and look and never find this one either. boy I love this hobby. 🙂
Depends how you look? I have six already …
Mack_me_Bucko
Have you found your six Carateka at retail ????
Oh heck no. I haven’t found anything at retail in over five years — I gave up on traditional distribution systems since they never had anything except pegwarmers.
Would you be interested in a trade for one of your six Carateka ?
PM sent ..
pm not working for me…please feel free to shoot me an email at simonlittle21@yahoo.ca
I can’t help you with the mouth expression, but eyes can be replaced using a newish decal set available from Archer Fine Transfers. They are nicely made water-slide decals sold for military and figure modelers, but they have three or four sets that are nothing but eyeballs, in a variety of colors, iris shapes, and styles (Anime, Monster, Human). About $8 a set, but each set will do over 50 Cars. Paint over the existing eyes with white paint, then add new eyeballs.
Carateka is also a nice heavy lump of metal; so it feels like you actually bought something!