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Several months 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 - Sage Vanderspin, better known as Gask-Its, #80.
Creme filled Gask-Its, the race track treat.
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 unreleased members of his team - Gask-Its.
As you'll see in this article, there have been limited releases of Gask-Its and officially none of his team.
Toys R US exclusive or Not
The first release of Gask-Its outside of the Speedway of the South set was going to be as a Toys R US mail in exclusive... this was to be the third US TRU exclusive after Sidewall Shine and N2O Cola... Buy 5 Cars... mail in the 5 cardbacks (with UPC) and $5.00 (paid online), receive one Gask-Its... we knew it was going to happen... Even Met on TakeFiveADay had posted about it many times:
http://www.takefiveaday.com/2009/01/...-promo-car-is/
Having bought the Sidewall Shine and N2O Cola Promo Cars, I knew I was going to participate... the first day that the promo was supposed to start I skipped church to go to Toys R US stores and bought 15 pegwarmers so I could buy 3 promo Cars... the store I went to knew nothing about the Gask-Its promo... but I bought the Cars anyway.
A few days later, Met posted an update... the Gask-Its promo and the Tach O Mint one that was to follow, were not going to happen... I was bummed, and so were many others.
French Promo
As it turned out, Gask-Its was released as a promo Car in France... buy 4 Cars, get a free mystery Car, Gask-Its... As Cars are more expensive in France than they are in the US, the 4 Cars needed to get the Gask-Its cost a lot more money than 5 in the US would have... I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get one - I didn't know anyone in France... and it was limited to on promo Car per address... as it turned out though, I met gipsy (Christina) in a Cars Cares (now Nathan's Playroom) live auction and she knew a way to get me one... I sent her several Cars she needed... she sent me a Gask-Its.
Here is a close-up:
Notice that the center of the axle is silver... the Kmart rubber tire racer had a blue axle; the Lightyear Launcher had a silver axle.
I later received a second Gask-Its promo Car courtesy of a good UK friend who had a sister who owned a home in France...
Production codes of my 2 Gask-Its are 0589 EA and 0619 EA.
It turned out that the French Promo was limited to 200 Gask-Its... if I remember right, they sent out Faux Wheel Drive after they ran out of Gask-Its.
Kmart 5 rubber tire racer
Gask-Its next appeared as one of the rubber tire racers for the Kmart Cars Collector Event #5 on October 23, 2010...
As these Cars were released in Australia several weeks before the Kmart event, I managed to arrange a trade with someone in Australia... here's a set of the Kmart 5 racers:
Here's the cardback:
Gask-Its was also released as part of a rubber tire racer 3 pack along with Faux Wheel Drive and Lightning McQueen:
I still have 3 or 4 of the 3 packs somewhere.
Some of the Gask-Its were released with black rims as opposed to blue rims... I never could find one of the "error" releases but thanks to my friend GotFrank I have as custom which is shown here with a custom Pit Row Race-off launcher:
Thanks to a custom Apple with rubber tires, I have a complete set of the 36 Piston Cup racers with rubber tires:
Note the custom Gask-Its in the second row from the top - the regular Kmart Gask-Its racer is in the 3rd row from the top.
Gask-Its Lightyear Launcher
Gask-Its was released as a Lightyear Launcher on the Night Skyline cardback... I only saw it at a few Walmart stores... by the time it was released, the Lightyear Launchers were not selling very well... too many stores had gotten stuck with too many pegwarmers of previous cases... where have we seen that before?
Here's a close up:
Here's the Lightyear Launcher cardback:
There was speculation that Gask-Its was to appear as a Pit Row Race-off launcher... however, like many Cars product lines, Mattel canceled the launcher series before finishing it... thanks to GotFrank, I have a custom Gask-Its launcher and have completed the set of 36 launchers:
Unreleased Gask-Its Team Members
If I remember right, at one time, Target had listed the N2O Cola and Easy Idle Team Crew sets with crew chief and 3 pittys for sale on their website... they were never actually available to purchase... I'd love for a Gask-Its team crew set to be released... I'd love to see all the remaining team crew sets be released... I have a photo of a Gask-Its Crew Chief from a UK Cars magazine... here it is:
I thought we also saw a photo of the Gask-Its Hauler somewhere...
And yes, "I'd give up my left 2 lugnuts" for the unreleased Gask-Its hauler, crew chief, and pittys.
In Conclusion - Team Gask-Its
Will we see Gask-Its team members? I don't know... I would like to see them... I would like to add them to my collection (even though it will mean spending more money on Cars)... the molds for the pittys, crew chief, and hauler exist... they'd just have to paint them and package them... I don't think we'll see them at retail stores... but many of us would buy cases of the team sets if they'd come with 2 each of 3 new team sets... those would be great cases to split with a friend... and some of us would buy a case by ourselves to have one to open and another to keep carded.
That wraps up this installment of Respect the Classics... 14 Piston Cup racers done... 22 to go... As always, thank you for reading... I appreciate your comments.
LOL
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