The history of ‘dirty” Lightning McQueen is not a pretty picture. The first attempt was Willie’s Butte McQueen. He was only available with the Radiator Springs Mountain Challenge track set. He was basically Lightning McQueen (also missing the Rust-eze tampo decal on the back spoiler) with dirt overspray, brown wheels and a matte finish versus the usual gloss overspray finish. The back of the spoiler is also only in matte red. Since they were running out of new releases, they renamed him Dirt Track Lightning McQueen in 2007 and moved him into the singles lineup.

A couple years later, in what might be their laziest release, they splashed a tiny tampo decal on him and called him Tar Lightning McQueen. While they added the spoiler tampo decal (as regular LM was fixed also) – he really should be sporting an annoyed expression.

Or an expression like Lightning McQueen with Shovel. There’s not much wrong with this release other than it would’ve been nice for him to be not segmented but it makes sense as a cost reason (expression-wise). While he has plenty of scruff marks, is he missing a tar mark? Did Red wash it off? He was also released in a lenticular version.

Of course, Tumbleweed Lightning McQueen is another release in the “dirt section” that also falls under the flawed ones … in addition to the hated broccoli/tumbleweed on the head, he really should have a lot more dust/dirt …

Same with Cactus Lightning McQueen. I don’t hate the green sploshes as most people do though clearly, they look more like green pieces of hedgerow than pieces of cactus … and also more dust & dirt needed.

And now Road Repair Lightning McQueen with a larger tar mark.

But once again, his expression choice is questionable.

Plus while he does have some dust marks, e clearly should have more …

So, other than Lightning McQueen with Shovel, the other dirt/tar Lightning McQueen’s are not quite up to snuff – we need all in on tar, dirt, dust, cacti, dusty wheels and the right expression … so I guess we’ll just keeping buying ’em until they get it right.

Thanks for the heads up, “John H.”