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Several weeks ago I started a series about the Cars Piston Cup racers with an article on Mood Springs... In this article, we'll take a look at another one of the Piston Cup racers and his team - Ponchy Wipeout ... better known as Bumper Save, #90.
One of the earliest boxed sets and at the time of release the most expensive boxed set was the Speedway of the South set... Limited to a run of 1000 pieces, the SOTS set went on sale in May 2008... To be eligible to purchase the SOTS set you had to join the Hot Wheels Red Line Collectors club... I joined in April 2008, and bought one set when they went on sale.
One of these days I'll put the Cars in the display box and put it out on display... For various reasons, many collectors did not purchase the Speedway of the South set when it went on sale... Several of the Piston Cup racers had already been released and they didn't want to purchase Cars they already had... they wanted to purchase just the Cars they needed at the approximate $4.00 price of a single... Unfortunately, Mattel didn't cooperate with those hopes... most of the racers were released, but in various formats and with other Cars or accessories that you might or might not have wanted... In this article, we'll take a look at another one of the Piston Cup racers and the other members of his team - Bumper Save...
Kmart 2: Bumper Save with rubber tires
Bumper Save was one of the Kmart 2 Piston Cup racers... June 20, 2009 was the day of the event... There were 2 Bumper Save rubber tire racers in the case of 18; to many of us, the Kmart 2 case was the best assortment of Kmart Cars released... My Bumper Save rubber tire racer is in a display case containing all 36 Piston Cup racers with rubber tires - the 35 released by Kmart and a custom Apple.
World of Cars Mack Transporter
Bumper Save came as part of a Walmart exclusive Mack Transporter that also included Nitroade and Bob Cutlass... this was a Black Friday special that sold for $10... what a bargain... I got a few and opened one so I could add Bumper Save with plastic tires to my display collection... I gave the Mack to my grandson to play with... after Black Friday it returned to a $19.99 retail price... I never did see as many of this Mack Transporter as I did the previous one that came with Snot Rod, Wingo, and DJ... Eventually Walmart put them on clearance for either $5.00 or $10.00 and they disappeared from Walmart stores.
Launchers
Shortly after I bought the Mack Transporter with Bumper Save, it was released as a Lightyear Launcher... As shown above it was released on the WOC cardback; it might have been available on the ROR cardback as well... I bought some of the Bumper Save Lightyear Launchers and sent a few of them onto overseas friends... I still have the one shown in the above photo... I wanted Bumper Save as a Pit Row Race-off launcher - we saw a prototype during one of the SDCC events... but it never came out.
A few months ago I received a custom set of the missing 17 Pit Row Race-off launchers from GotFrank that included Bumper Save:
What a great looking launcher! Thank you, Josh!
Team Set
Bumper Save was released as part of a Target exclusive team set featuring hauler, pitty with no gun, and racer... this set was very hard to find in stores... I received one from a friend in the Washington D.C. area... Too many Target stores were still stuck with the Leakless set... Both the hauler and wide pitty were new in this set... I had it sent loose to save on shipping... I never did see it in a Target store... A few months ago I found it on Amazon.com for $29.99 and purchased it... We complained about paying $21.99 at Target stores for the set, but I didn't hesitate to buy it for $29.99 with free shipping when it was finally available... Like many Cars items, if you didn't get it when you saw it, you were limited to eBay and higher prices.
Note that the Only At Target label has been replaced with a white piece of tape.
Had more of these Team sets been released with both a new hauler and a new pitty, they would have sold better... at one time I'd hoped to get a set of 36 (35 from Mattel and Apple as a custom).
As it turns out, Mattel released the following team sets:
Rusteze, HTB, Dinoco, Leakless, Octane Gain, Nitroade, and Bumper Save.
Team Crew set
As you see in the above photo, a Target exclusive Bumper Save Team Crew set was released... this featured a new style crew chief and 3 new pittys... I bought a set of the 3 pittys from a Chinese seller as there were rumors that the Team Crew set line was going to be dropped... too many Target stores were stuck with too many Leakless sets... One day I found these online on either Target or Amazon and ordered a couple sets... I was one of the first to receive the boxed set... I took photos and posted them on carsthetoys.com and sent an e-mail to Met from TakeFiveADay who also posted them in one of his very nice write-ups (this was before PixarCarsDiecast.com was founded)...
They didn't last long online... eventually they turned up in a few Target stores... I don't ever recall finding the Bumper Save Team Crew set in stores but received several from friends who did... I helped out several people with these sets.
I'd hoped that Mattel would release all 35; Mattel only released HTB, Dinoco, Leakless, Octane Gain, Nitroade, and Bumper Save.
Speedway 4 pack
There was one more release of Bumper Save at retail... it came in a Target exclusive Speedway 4 pack that came with Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks, and Gasprin... I don't remember if I bought this or if I received the empty box from a friend... Why would I want the empty box? For a Poor Man's Speedway of the South set - 9 boxes each with 4 racers - of course.
I currently have Dale Jr, Tank Coat, No Stall, and Tank Coat in the Bumper Save 4 pack box.
In Conclusion - Team Bumper Save
Here are photos of loose Cars in my Team Bumper Save collection:
Crew Chief on a custom pit box (thank you, GotFrank, for sending me a CD containing the pit box files)
Racer:
Pittys:
Crew Chief, pittys, and racer:
Hauler:
Here's another view of the hauler:
Here's a "night shot" of the hauler... I did something to the camera and the picture turned out like this:
I have no idea how I did it... sometimes accidents work out for the best.
Hauler and racer - coming and going:
That just about wraps up this installment of Respect the Classics... I do want to mention my favorite Bumper Save... it's PCD member Bumper Save (Spencer) from the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) area... even though he won the NCAA Bracket Challenge this year and I didn't, he's still a good board member and friend... Thank you, Bumper Save, for your support of PCD... and we'll be out to get you in the 2013 NCAA Bracket Challenge.
I tried to lighten up the watermark as to not distract from the photos... I need to install another software package so I can move it around on the screen... one of these days... I work with computers and outside of work there's times I don't feel like working with computers.
As always, thank you for reading... I appreciate your comments.
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