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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 6 of the Piston Cup racers from the Motor Speedway of the South set.
This set was originally advertised to be numbered as a limited release... when they shipped, they were not numbered and there was no certificate of authenticity... Due to the threat of lawsuits, Mattel did mail letters containing a hologram with the number on it... Mine is 283 of 1000... I'll add photos showing the letter and envelope that it came in.
The Box
The Speedway of the South set came in a large box:
The display box from the Speedway of the South set is huge... I finally took pictures earlier this week - over 4 years after I got mine... Here's the back of the box:
The thin brown box underneath the display box contains the 2 trays containing the 36 Cars.
Here are close ups showing the back of the box:
Side of box:
Other side of box:
Piston Cup Racers
Of the 36 Piston Cup racers in the SOTS set, Apple was only released by Mattel one time, in this set... This is currently also the only official release of Tach O Mint with plastic tires... At one time, there was a prototype of a Tach O Mint launcher... if they ever release Tach O Mint as a Pit Row Race-off launcher (or Lightyear Launcher) I will buy it.
The rest of the plastic tire Piston Cup racers have been released again as either singles, Lightyear Launchers, Pit Row Race-off launchers, or in multi-packs.
We'll look at photos of 6 more the 36 racers from the SOTS set in this article... as far as the order, I picked the ones in order starting with the tray on the left side in the earlier picture.
Gask-its
Each Piston Cup racer in the SOTS set came in a baggie... prior to taking photos for this article, I'd never opened 31 of the 36... I had opened Gask-its - it had not yet been released with plastic tires.
Here's a photo showing the production code, 2777 EA:
As mentioned in a recent article, Gask-its with plastic tires was released as a very limited promo in France and a Lightyear Launcher... it's also been released with rubber tires as part of the Kmart 5 Cars Collector event as a single and was also in a 3 pack with Lightning McQueen and Faux Wheel Drive.
Retread
Retread #79 is a light purple Car...
The tire tread can play tricks on you if you stare at it long enough...
Here's a photo showing the production code, 2777 EA:
Retread has been released only a few other times... It has been released as a Pit Row Race-off launcher on ROR cardback... It was released with rubber tires as part of the Kmart 2 Cars Collector event... I think I've got photos of some other unreleased Retread items.
Apple
As mentioned in a recent article, the only official release of Apple #84 was in the Speedway of the South set... Here are more photos:
Here's a photo showing the production code, 2847 EA:
Due to the limited release and the fact that a lot of people like Apple, it's been very popular for customs... I'll show photos of my other Apple Cars items in an upcoming article.
Lil Torquey Pistons
Lil Torquey Pistons #117 has also been released as a Lightyear Launcher and just recently as a single in the Toys R US Radiator Springs Classic series...
Here are more pictures of Lil Torquey Pistons from the Speedway of the South set:
Here's a photo showing the production code, 2777 EA:
Lil Torquey Pistons was also released as a rubber tire racer as part of the Kmart 2 Cars Collector Event.
Bumper Save
Bumper Save has seen more releases than several of the Piston Cup racers... we've also seen a hauler, crew chief, and 4 pittys as we've seen both a Bumper Save Team set (hauler/racer/pitty) and Team Crew Set (crew chief and 3 pittys)... The racer has also been released in a Mack Transporter set with Bob Cutlass and Nitroade and as a Lightyear Launcher.
Here are more pictures showing Bumper Save from the Speedway of the South set:
Here's a photo showing the production code, 2777 EA:
I think the black wheels on Bumper Save are very sharp.
Shiny Wax
Shiny Wax is another popular Car from the SOTS set... It was one of the 5 Kmart plastic tire racers from the first Kmart Cars collector event (along with Spare Mint, Sputter Stop, View Zeen, and Transberry Juice)... It was also released as a Pit Row Race-off Launcher and in a 3 pack gift pack in both WOC (vertical) and ROR (horizontal) gift pack series... The Shiny Wax Crew Chief was also released as an Easter Egg... And the most (in)famous announced but unreleased hauler - the Shiny Wax Hauler was announced, listed for sale at the Toys R US website... but it didn't exist... at least at TRU...
Here are more photos showing Shiny Wax from the SOTS set:
Here's a photo showing the production code, 2777 EA:
Shiny Wax has also been released as a rubber tire racer during the Kmart Cars Collector Event #4 and most recently as a plastic tire single in the TRU Radiator Springs Classics exclusive series... Hopefully we'll see the hauler... and more pittys are always good in my opinion.
In Conclusion
My wife was not happy with me for buying a Speedway of the South Set... with shipping, membership in the Hot Wheels Red Line Club, and the one set, I spent about $362.00... Within a week of receiving my set, she wanted to know why I didn't buy 2 of them... Limited to 1000... some have been broken up and sold as individual singles...We've not seen a large boxed set since then...
It may seem that most of the Cars in the set have a production code date of 2777 EA as 5 of 6 in this article do... but others were made on different dates... if I remember right, 17 or 18 of them were 2777 EA.
I wanted a complete set of Pit Row Race-off launchers; Mattel released 19 and GotFrank made me the other 17 as customs... I wanted a complete set of haulers and still do... same goes for the team crew sets with crew chief and pittys.
I have not assembled my Speedway of the South set... if any of you have and would like to post a picture showing the fully assembled set, I'd appreciate it.
As always, thanks for reading... I appreciate your comments.
Chris
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