I was hoping for some more responses to educate myself before I answered, but I guess not yet.  🙂

I searched ebay to see what was available and it seems the rubber tires have more listings and less expensive.  I didn't see any plastic tires for Tank Coat or Sparemint, other than their launchers.

I keep debating on chasing the 35 RT cars, but then new stuff comes out 🙂

Post edited 10:03 am – February 1, 2013 by Mike Manifold

Hopefully some longtime experts will chime in here.  There is an old checklist/grid on T5 somewhere that shows each racer and each format in which it was or was not produced.  Add that to Met's recent recap of lowest production cars and it would seem that plastic tire Apple, then Tach O Mint, then aggro-race-face Dale Jr. and Gask-Its would be the lowest run, and hence most valuable piston cup racers.  There were only 1000 hot wheels club sets, therefore there are only 1000 Apple I-Cars, only 1000 plastic tire Tach O Mints, only 1000 plastic tire aggro-face Dales out there.  Every other piston cup racer save for Apple has been released in 1 or more other formats, including singles cards, multipacks, pit row and/or lightyear launchers, and in KMart rubber tires.  Another factor to consider is that only the original hot wheels club set features truly superior, tangible, 100% great paint and deco quality control.  The quality was not all there for some releases, especially the rubber tire cars.  For many KMart days, you really had to pick through them to find a car without crooked or otherwise goofed up decals and/or paintjobs.  Another example: the cars in the rubber-tire 3-pack with McQueen, Gask-Its, and Faux Wheel Drive were erroneously given a matte or semi-gloss finish instead of high gloss finish.  Also, I would point out that the synthetic rubber tires will probably degrade much sooner than the hard plastic tires, especially if not stored just right.  Has anyone else noticed how fragile the rubber tires are on 30-year-old Hot Wheels rubber tire diecasts?  Their "lightyear" decals rub off easily with normal play as well.  So, although I haven't checked eBay/Amazon etc to verify this, I would think that the plastic-tire versions would still hold their value over the rubber-tire versions for all of the PC racers. Note for above query: Sparemint was available on a plastic-tire single card (K1), and later in a plastic-tire Target 4-pack, as well as plastic-tires release on Pit Row launcher AND LightYear launcher, as well as the KMart rubber-tire release.  Tank Coat has had multiple releases for sure, including Pit Row launcher. Long live the Piston Cup racers – Kaaa-Chow! 

Thanks for the illumination, BMW!  I had no idea what the quality was like on the first KMart day.  Excellent point regarding the retail pricing of plastic tire cars.  Aside from the few released as mainline singles, they were always more expensive than your average Car.  Then again, a person without a KMart, or a well-functioning KMart, within their grasp may have had to pay at least $6 or $8 or more for their rubber tire racers. I think we have an excellent case here for the superiority of plastic tire Cars, although of course it boils down to personal preference, as wisely stated previously.  Gee, now I'm wishing I had a complete plastic tire, or complete rubber tire, collection of racers.