Several weeks ago I started a series about the Cars Piston Cup racers with an article on Mood Springs... In this article, we'll continue with a look at another one of the Piston Cup racers and his team - James Cleanair, better known as Vitoline #61.
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 - Vitoline.
And what's unusual about Vitoline? No grill/mustache... the product must really work... James Cleanair doesn't need the grill to filter out the bad stuff... fuel additive vitamin company that provides fuel for older active Cars...
Kmart 2: Vitoline Pitty
Vitoline Pitty was one of the Kmart 2 non-Piston Cup racers... June 20, 2009 was the day of the event... There was 1 Vitoline Pitty in the case of 18; to many of us, the Kmart 2 case was the best assortment of Kmart Cars released... I have my opened Vitoline Pitty and Vitoline launcher in a display case.
I liked the single pittys that came with a Toolbox and tires; notice how Vitoline Pitty comes with 2 of the thicker tires (tyres) - some of the earlier pittys came with 4 thin tire... the thicker tires look more like tires in my opinion.
Launchers
The first appearance of Vitoline with plastic tires outside the Speedway of the South set was as a Pit Row Race-off launcher in the Race O Rama series... I believe it was case B which included 2 Vitoline, 2 Shifty Drug, 1 Tank Coat, and 1 Chick Hicks... I'm trying to remember if I ever bought this case through an online Mattel retailer - I don't think I did... This case was fairly plentiful at many retail stores... Tank Coat was hard to find as it was only one per case and pink... Most of us already had Chick Hicks from other sets...
Vitoline was also released as a Lightyear Launcher - I never bought the Vitoline Lightyear Launcher as I already had it with plastic tires... if anyone has a photo of the Vitoline Lightyear Launcher that I can add to this article, please contact me.
Speedway Four Pack (Target exclusive)
Vitoline was released as part of a Target exclusive Speedway four pack with Leakless, Lightning McQueen, and Rev N Go... even though I already had all of the racers in the 4 pack, I bought the 4 pack anyway - I wanted to create my own Poor Man's Speedway of the South set with 36 racers in 9 boxes, 4 racers per box... as you can see in the above picture, I swapped out Lightning McQueen and replaced it with Sputter Stop.
According to the French World of Cars forum, this 4 pack was released first on the World of Cars Piston Cup Nights cardback (see the above photo) and then later on a Night Skyline Piston Cup Nights cardback... I'm not sure I ever saw this 4 pack on the Night Skyline cardback, and if I did, I never bought it.
Distribution of these 4 packs was spotty at best - people had gotten the racers in another format or as a Kmart rubber tire racer, and that was good enough for them... there are times I think that should have been good enough for me.
Kmart 4 rubber tire racer
Vitoline was also released as a rubber tire racer during the Kmart 4 event, June 12, 2010... The case assortment consisted of the following rubber tire racers:
3 each of Dale Jr, Spare O Mint, Sputter Stop, and Transberry Juice
2 each of Fiber Fuel, Gasprin, RPM, and Vitoline
1 each of the lenticulars Lightning McQueen, Tom, Ron Hover, and Sarge
There were issues with scratches on the paint on several of the Kmart 4 Cars - Vitoline and Gasprin were the 2 worst.
You can see Vitoline in with my complete set of Kmart rubber tire racers (the Apple is a custom):
In Conclusion - Team Vitoline
You might think that a team consisting of a racer and a pitty isn't much of a team... you won't get much of an argument from me... however...
On the back of either the Ben Crankleshaft or Oliver Lightload haulers, are prototypes of unreleased Piston Cup Racer haulers... if I remember right, View Zeen, Vitoline, and Gasprin... I hope they release them... If not, maybe I can get some of the new Wally haulers and turn them into custom haulers.
You can see photos of prototypes of Vitoline, View Zeen, and Gasprin in the TakeFiveADay post at:
http://www.takefiveaday.com/2011/02/...ers-brilliant/
Images of Vitoline hauler appear on the Cars Blu-Ray finder game - I need to look at mine, sometime.
From the Petersen Exhibit:
(Photo used by permission of a good friend who attended the Petersen Museum exhibit)
If anyone has any other photos that you'd like to add (Vitoline Lightyear Launcher, boxed haulers with Vitoline on the cardback), please post them in a reply to this article and I'll add them... I'll keep looking, but I'm not sure that I have the photos that I need.
That wraps up this installment of Respect the Classics... As always, thank you for reading... I appreciate your comments.
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