Great Britain and Northern Ireland 2016 Finds - Part 1

[boogity]

1.43 carbon racer twin packs are in disney store, check the www, at 12.95

[boogity]

said 4 pack are now down to 7.50!

[niftynigel]

Am I the only one who thinks these 4 packs area complete load of old dross, clearly I am! (thirty quid before christmas, now a tenner and still a right royal waste of space and time)
And talking of dross lets face it, ice racers,what are they about really, i,ve never seen any shorts toons etc, the same could probably be said for carbon racers and the rod lookalikes/ sheriffs,(the name escapes me) never seen any shorts of them neither!
As for the circus cars range, wonder if the UK will ever see this stuff?
Maybe its time to wise up to Mattel and their constant release of 2 bit cars 2 characters and assorted cr.p or maybe more sensibly its time to put the brakes on collecting til cars 3 comes out and restart, yep maybe i,ll do that.......but then again I probably..... wont

Someone needs to stick it to the man or in this case Mattel

Steady on Rodger, you'll blow a gasket!


Seriously, I know where you're coming from. A few years ago, we bought the Silver Racers at Disney Stores. All five of them! The other five were supposed to go to TRU, but that never happened. At least the US got all ten (Kmart). But then again, there should've been Rip too, but he was late for the Cars 2 party, so we had to wait until 2013 to finally get him! Cars 2 was unfinished in the UK/Europe. The last four cars (including two Chase cars) didn't make it.

Around the same time, there was a gap in the RS Classics at TRU. There are still around half a dozen singles that haven't made it to the UK. Luckily for us, a friend in the US sold us all her RSC collection last year.

The first reissue of Cars Toon saw only five of the eight make it to the UK. At least they all made it last year!

I'm glad we didn't buy the Neon and Ice Racers. Although the Carbons look great, they are just recycling the same old cars!

We only bought new cars and long time reissues last year. We'll do the same this year. This will be our last year of collecting them. It's an expensive hobby, very time consuming and you need a big house! We're struggling to tick any of those boxes!

[boogity]

this rant aint meant to offend any members

[boogity]

Am I the only one who thinks these 4 packs area complete load of old dross, clearly I am! (thirty quid before christmas, now a tenner and still a right royal waste of space and time)
And talking of dross lets face it, ice racers,what are they about really, i,ve never seen any shorts toons etc, the same could probably be said for carbon racers and the rod lookalikes/ sheriffs,(the name escapes me) never seen any shorts of them neither!
As for the circus cars range, wonder if the UK will ever see this stuff?
Maybe its time to wise up to Mattel and their constant release of 2 bit cars 2 characters and assorted cr.p or maybe more sensibly its time to put the brakes on collecting til cars 3 comes out and restart, yep maybe i,ll do that.......but then again I probably..... wont

Someone needs to stick it to the man or in this case Mattel

[niftynigel]

Interesting! What have you heard about these? I'm intrigued!

Back in 2011, when Cars 2 was about to hit the cinemas, Mattel withdrew the last few cases of the Final Lap style lenticular series from sale. WH Smith (stationers / newsagents / bookshop / etc) were the last major retailer in the UK to receive a significant shipment. All orders to other retailers were cancelled although there was a significant shipment (possibly 10,000 cases) in Mattel's main warehouse and distribution in England.

We started to collect Cars in early 2012. I joined a couple of chat boards shortly after. Hearing much criticism of Mattel's case contents and distribution, I decided to contact them myself. After a slow start, I started to build up a little bit of trust with Mattel UK. They were quite happy to feed me a lot of information (some which I was requested not to circulate widely due to business confidentiality).

They did confirm that the Final Lap situation was true, without divulging how many cases they were actually holding on to. It's actually possible that if there is a huge amount as has been suggested, then without the prospect of a significant 'mark-up' retailers have not been interested in taking the stock? Also, taking into account some fits and starts, there's never been a long enough period to effectively bombard the market with these cases!

If you consider that there are typically 1,800 - 2,000 singles cases in the UK and they sell through in about three - four weeks, then 10,000 cases is now five months worth of stocks! The UK market is just not big enough to sustain all the current product lines alongside that massive amount of extra stock! There could also be other Final Lap product lines too?

If the current Cars 2 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 stocks are exhausted around early 2017 in the UK, it would appear to be a good opportunity to 'fill the gap' until the Cars 3 launch (June 2017?) with the Final Lap stock!

That said, it's been suggested (if not confirmed) that Mattel have lost the merchandise rights to the Cars franchise and that it's moving to Hasbro (with other Disney products). If this is the case, I would guess that Mattel and Disney would have to come to some agreement over the disposal of any remaining stocks (without undermining the launch of Cars 3)?

[Silver Frosty]

Maybe Mattel (UK) can take the opportunity to clear the warehouse of the Final Lap (lenticular) stuff they've been hoarding for the past few years?

Interesting! What have you heard about these? I'm intrigued!

[niftynigel]

The 963P case (with Ponchy Wipeout's Pitty, Jay W, Brett Warnewagen and Mike Fuse) have been found at ASDA.

It's likely that Sainsburys, Tesco, Morrisons, TRU and others will get deliveries of this case over the next couple of weeks.

The 2016 singles will probably start to appear in mid/late February.

This raises a couple of questions ...

1. Will the final 2015 deluxe case find it's way to the UK? If so, where and what prices?

2. As Cars 3 is confirmed for next year, will the final Mattel (Cars 2 assortments) carry through to 2017 (they usually do in the UK) or will there be a gap before the launch of Cars 3?

Maybe Mattel (UK) can take the opportunity to clear the warehouse of the Final Lap (lenticular) stuff they've been hoarding for the past few years?

[cac1959]

Great finds on the Bob Moter and Max Sacar 4 packs, niftynigel! I'm glad that you found them.

Great comparison pictures of the 2014 and 2015 Bob Moter 4 packs, rossibutton.

I'm hoping for help on the Max Sacar 4 pack.

[rossibutton]

Here are pictures of the Bob Moter 2015/2016 Package

DSC00279.jpg

DSC00280.jpg

DSC00281.jpg

I personally prefer the 2014 Package.

[boogity]

nice one, they are 4 quid in tesco too, imagine most will have grem, ambulance, chuck and mater,great prices if ye havney got em

My Mum got me Grem with Camera for £4 at Asda today!! Great price for a deluxe!

[CarsCollector02]

My Mum got me Grem with Camera for £4 at Asda today!! Great price for a deluxe!

[niftynigel]

Thanks again to rossibutton!

I managed to get both 4-Car Packs in the first (and only) Tesco I stopped at today.

I couldn't access your photos until now, so I was quite surprised that they were in the predominantly red (2015/2016) packaging compared to the 4-Car packs at TRU which are predominantly in white (2013/2014) packaging on the front.

The Bob Moter 4-Car pack in TRU has a date stamp of 2624EAA so it was probably meant to go on sale in late 2014 at Target (US). There appear to be six in a case of these.

The Bob Moter and Max Sacar 4-Car packs at Tesco have date stamps of around 1885EAA and 1915EAA meaning they should've gone on sale in late 2015.

The TRU (UK) ones are also US style (with just the name in English on the front) and other packs to collect on the back.

The Tesco (UK) ones are the international style packs (with multi-language on the front) and no reference to other packs on the back. There appear to be 4no. Bob Moter 4-Packs and 2no. Max Sacar 4-Packs in a case! Why? Do Mattel not think we want to collect both of them? What happened to Collect Them All? There should be three of each in a case!!!

[rossibutton]

Awesome find on the Max Sacar 4 pack, rossibutton... some of us in the US may need help from UK friends to obtain that.

If that is the case i would be happy to help if i find anymore.

[cac1959]

Found the Max Sacar 4-Pack at Tesco
They also had the Bob Moter 4-Pack in the 2015/2016 package, nice at half price.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4476[/ATTACH]

I hope we see the Mini and BMW 2002 4-Packs this year.

There is no danger of my local Toys R Us running out of Bob Moter 4-Packs any time soon.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4477[/ATTACH]

Awesome find on the Max Sacar 4 pack, rossibutton... some of us in the US may need help from UK friends to obtain that.