For the Disney Pixar diecast CARS line, Mattel has not officially retired any CARS though there are some that have been unofficially officially retired …

Generally, if a change or a fix is made, it’s unlikely to go back for another “fix” – for good or bad – but Mattel (and every other company) doesn’t like to bandy about the ‘retired’ word unless they take a hammer to the mold because they don’t know if it might sell so well, they might have to re-release it – so they generally avoid the word or use it in a phrase such as ‘will not return in these colors’ or ‘will not return in this exact form.’ While there might be grumbling, they can use those weasel words so nothing comes back to haunt them … 🙂 … Occasionally and rarely will they utter the phrase – honestly, usually when the mold is about the give away and they have to do a new sculpt anyway 🙂 With certain smaller manufacturers and popular in Japan, in order to create exclusivity, they will announce, we’ll make 500, 1,000 of these and then smash the molds and you will never see us re-release these … along with a 4-year old swearing he will not eat the lollipop, you can take it to the bank of haha …

And speaking of molds, along the way, molds will wear out or in the specific case of CARS, when they switched from Thailand production to China, the molds and methods of production were slightly different so you could quibble that the Thailand mold CARS are “retired” and strictly by the dictionary definition, you would be correct but in terms of collecting, it does not generally fall under “retired” unless the difference is so significant and while they are ‘variants’ in some cases, they are not considered ‘retired’ in collecting terms.

But I digress … so you will unlikely see these return but also keep in mind, these are all relatively minor changes … so there’s really no cost savings to going back to the “first” or incorrect release so they might as well stick to the current “correct” one … so the roll call of retired CARS …

THE UNOFFICIAL OFFICIAL RETIRED CARS

In chronological order …

The Fabulous Hudson Hornet was released on SUPERCHARGED card and fixed by the end of the SUPERCHARGED release. As is shown on the card art, the Fabulous Hudson Hornet NEVER appears in the film sporting silver rims … basically because Doc Hudson was (and correctly released) with silver rims – for the first release of FHH, they took the lazy way out and just put FHH water decals on Doc and called it a day … but again, red rims don’t cost much to make so the change happened pretty quickly …

This is the first unofficial official retired CAR …

He is ONLY available on SUPERCHARGED cards.

The first FRED release on WOC’s was clearly too large. In this case, the bean counters at Mattel probably fought tooth and nail to get it fixed. Re-scaled Fred is about 1/5 of the metal of this guy 🙂 Fred was re-released on WOC in the last shipments at his new scale – no UPC or CAR # change. Fred is now tiny and while some people might claim he’s a little small, in comparing to screenshots from the film, re-scaled Fred is basically correct now.

Darrell Cartrip was released on SUPERCHARGED and WORLD OF CARS card before he was fixed at the tail end of WOC also (with a re-release on WOC – no UPC or CAR # change). Instead of painting his teeth white, they painted his lips white – you are a clown, man … with the last WOC and RACE O RAMA card release, his mouth is now painted more correctly …

While not 100% official as he has only made a corrected RED RIMS Mario in Europe cars, it would be hard to imagine they are not fixing it in every forthcoming release. He has already gotten a “mustard brown” release in RACE O RAMA and he is not scheduled for a return to RACE O RAMA but he is scheduled as a Movie Moment so his first return might be there but presumably his next single release should be fixed. His ‘mustard brown’ rims version is available as SUPERCHARGED, WOC & ROR.

And of course, the Big Kahuna of production changes and retirement, the McQueen without Rusteze decal sticker on the back spoiler … how many have been made? 2 million? So, other than the 12-cardback McQueen, you are not likely to have any trouble finding any version of now “error” version.

That’s pretty much it for the unofficial official retired CARS but there is a second group of CARS where the production change was less subtle so we can probably presume the current production version is the “new standard” but it’s not necessarily corrrect and they could go back but it’s impossible to say … but they shoudl be considered also …

NEW PRODUCTION CHANGES – Rendering “Old Versions” Retired?

Leak Less is less obvious but sometime around the SUPERCHARGED series, he was changed from yellow to “Prestone” green. It’s significant since he’s released in every series from DESERT ART 16, he’s a “main” character – the oddity is that his Pitty’s and Crew Chief are greenish but original Leak Less and the just released Leak Less hauler are “yellow.” Why the change – unknown. He is definitely yellow in the film but my guess is some lawyer at corporate with too much time on his hands figured parents might be get huffy about a CAR leaking YELLOW fluid … and shouldn’t a car be leaking greenish (Prestone anti-freeze like) color fluids to save legal grief and apparently an international tragedy? I would’ve argued that Prestone probably has a trademark on green car fluids … and of course, maybe the lawyer might like to BLANK where the BLANK don’t shine … but hey, that’s why I don’t have an office next to that lawyer. 🙂

Speaking of incorrect, for some odd reason (other than the cynical re-selling reason), Charlie Checker’s tail lights were changed from the CORRECT red (as a WM8 CAR) to the INCORRECT yellow … and now, a year+ later, it seems permanent as Charlie Checker has appeared as a WOC’s 3-pack, a WOC singles release and now a ROR Egg release ALL with yellow tail lights … so it aint’ right but it’s the way the yellow tail light cookie crumbles sometimes. I guess.

Sometime in the WOC Supercharged series, Mater was switched from mostly metal to a metal cab frame. As Mater is one of the main characters, it’s worth mentioning and considering that old production method Mater is probably retired – since there is cost savings and once you go cost savings, hardly anyone escapes from that ship alive … the “new” Mater is on the right, so basically only his cab portion is metal as he dropped over the plastic base  whereas before the engine before  was part of the cab and also all metal (left).

While the tow hook and wench have always been plastic, his bed side used to be metal and is now all plastic … the foreground one is the new plastic side bed – you can see the hole on the side (sort of) – it is an actual hole while the older metal one just has a representation of a hole … but the engine line is much easier to spot. While I have not verified it, it does seem that the SUPERCHARGED is probably the last of the mostly metal Mater while the new ones (WOC and on) are metal cab frame as metal only. So from about 75% metal, he is now down to about 35% metal.

We might add DJ here is the new “regular” Dj will be sporting green stripping as he should (and as the Impound DJ has) but until we get poof either way, I will leave DJ off this list.

CHANGED “LINES” AND/OR PRODUCTION CHANGE

Again, nothing official but when a CAR is moved from the regular to the mainline, you can pretty much presume that it’s “retired,” if for no reason than they can make an extra $2 🙂 so again, while it’s unlikely, it’s not 100%.

Al Oft the Lightyear Blimp, the small size which got two releases as a WM8 “CAR” and as a WOC. Of course, Mattel loves blimps for cost reasons but Al Oft was not exactly a huge seller as a single card CAR – as a megasize CAR, he’ll appear less often and acually looks much nicer plus of course, Mattel makes more money … another clue that Al Oft the single blister version is gone is that he is no longer listed with a Check Lane version available.

Another virtual certainty is that Barney Stormin’ is unlikely ever to return on a “mainline” blister card. While his size is unchanged, he has moved into the megasize lineup, not only costing $2 more retail – now that he is mostly metal, it seems pretty certain that ALL PLASTIC Barney’ Stormin’ is retired.

The Dinoco Helicopter is really the only copter in which we can gauge its scale as it parks on the Dinoco stand and later we see that Mater can fit into him. So the singles mainline version was definitely too small – so while the megasize is not really anymore accurate, it’s at least closer and again, it’s not like Dinoco Heli was all that popular in the mainline, no reason to keep re-issuing him in the smaller size. And again, no longer available as a Check Lane CAR. So, again, while not 100% definite – pretty likely retired in its small size.

Note: We don’t see Kathy Copter or Ron Hover near any other objects to measure scale so we can’t say for certain but since there are many helicopters not much bigger than CARS, we can presume that there are enough ‘copters already in the mainline singles blister size to keep Mattel from dumping this mold.

Now that we can confirm a megasize version coming, this TJ on single card which was always on the wrong-small scale will be retired.

PACKAGING RETIRED …

Well, all the CHASE CARDS are one and out – that is the word but what’s the interpretation of that rule? The word seems to be they will NEVER return as a single mainline release. But Mattel never said they would absolutely never be re-released … sort of like Bug Mouth McQueen will never be re-released on a WOC card again – is that the same or different? So, maybe we’ll see them as a box set in 2010 or maybe 2014? But for now, they are considered one & out: McQueen with Bumper Stickers, Fred with Bumper Stickers, Impound: McQueen, Wingo, DJ, Boost & Snot Rod …

So, these are either officially unofficially retired or essentially retired but without any ceremony … unless the CAR has been specifically replaced with another one, it’s impossible to say for 100% certainty and of course, what’s retired? Technically, once the card design is changed over, they don’t go back so in theory as noted, Bug Mouth McQueen on WOC can be considered ‘retired’ also … so ‘retired’ may not mean much in its value now or going forward … for instance, people are interested in older Mater’s to begin with, does knowing the Desert Art-Supercharged are more metal going to affect value all that much? Or yellow Leak Less versus “green” Leak Less? Or the fact that two of the WM8 will not likely ever be re-released as mainline singles as they have moved to the megasize line (TJ & Barney) is not really likely going to affect the value of the WM8 set very much because new megasize TJ and more metal Barney are really upgrades but on the other hand, they are not going to be sporting the WM 8 card design. The bottom line – nothing in this line is really retired, they are replaced – you just have to decide if you want the original, if the new one is acceptable and/or collect them all.