We love our Piston Cup racers from the movie Cars... most of us love our Piston Cup Haulers from Cars... to capitalize on that, Mattel introduced Piston Cup haulers and racers in the Cars Mini Adventures product line... plastic Cars that were miniature versions of the diecast products... they started with 2 packs that retailed for between $6 and $8... Many of the non-racer 2 packs contained Cars that had very funky paint schemes; the racers that were included in this product line tended to be in the proper paint colors and schemes... after several cases, Mattel included haulers which were the only item in the pack (evidently the cab and the trailer counted as 2 items)... and then Mattel released some Mini Adventure 6 packs.
Like many Cars product lines, Mattel started but didn't finish the haulers and the racers... Case assortments and distribution have never been something Mattel has done well, and the Mini Adventures were no exception... I wasn't going to collect Minis, but then I changed my mind and bought ones that I liked - I'm sure that had something to do with not being able to find new Cars in the 1:55 diecast line... In this article, we'll take a look at the Cars Mini Adventure Piston Cup racers and haulers.
Haulers
Mack was the first Mini hauler released... it came out as a single in one of the cases that came with 12 2 packs per case.
The Mack cab had been released in some 2 packs and in some strange colors in some of the themes.
I believe the next hauler released was the Chick Hauler single:
The next and last hauler to be released as a single was the Gray Hauler, the hauler in Dinooco team:
I opened almost all my Cars Mini Adventure items... one of the few exceptions is the Gray Hauler:
Here's the Gray Hauler cardback:
If you look closely, you can see that Tank Coat and No Stall appear in the lower left corner - they appeared in the same 2 pack... if you look in the upper right corner, you can see a picture of the Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks 4x4 buddies (monster trucks)... you can also see what I mean about some strange looking items...
Only 1 more hauler was released in the Mini Adventures product line... The Octane Gain Hauler was part of a 6 pack that also included the Octane Gain and N2O Cola racers, the Lightning McQueen racer and the Mack Cab.
You can see the Octane Gain 6 pack and the Tank Coat/No Stall 2 pack in the following photo:
At one time I had an extra of this Octane Gain 6 pack (4 Cars plus the Octane Gain hauler), but I no longer do... I'm not sure I have a photo of it carded... While there were other 6 packs released, this is the only one I bought - I really liked the Piston Cup racers and silly me, I thought it would be neat to have a Mini Speedway of the South set and a complete set of the Mini Haulers.
The Mini haulers were also released in the same sequence that the full size haulers were released in... Mattel just stopped after the 4th hauler, Octane Gain.
Piston Cup Racers
Lightning McQueen (I believe this was in more than one 2 pack but was with a Mack):
Dinoco Lightning McQueen (I believe this was in a 2 pack with The King):
Nitroade (in a 2 pack with Leakless):
Carded Nitroade/Leakless 2 pack:
Cardback: Nitroade/Leakless 2 pack:
The King (in a 2 pack with Dinoco Lightning McQueen):
Octane Gain (part of the Octane Gain 6 pack):
Leakless (in a 2 pack with Nitroade):
Tank Coat (in a 2 pack with No Stall):
RPM (in a 2 pack with Shiny Wax):
N2O Cola: (part of the Octane Gain 6 pack):
Shiny Wax (in a 2 pack with RPM):
No Stall (in a 2 pack with Tank Coat):
Dinoco Chick Hicks (in a 2 pack with Dinoco Lightning McQueen):
(Photo used by permission of Bumper Save... Thank you, Spencer)...
You'll notice that I don't have a Mini Chick Hicks Piston Cup Racer... it was only released with a trailer and in only a few countries... I believe that Rippers has one... by the time it was released, I'd realized I couldn't collect them all because Mattel wouldn't release them all... Sigh... Just like other Cars product lines.
4x4 Buddies
Mattel released one 2 pack in the 4x4 Buddies series... Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks:
I bought 2 or 3 of these 2 packs - one was for my collection... one went to a good friend in Alaska - her grandson wanted McQueen and Chick Cars on his birthday cake for his 5th birthday... I'm glad I was able to help out... If I can find a photo of the cake I'll add it later... I'm pretty sure another one made the trip across the Atlantic to the UK... Rippers and I helped each other out with a lot of Cars for a couple of years... At one time I'd read somewhere on the Internet that Mattel was going to release the complete set of Piston Cup Racers in the 4x4 Buddies series... I'm pretty sure they stopped after releasing this 2 pack... I guess you can't believe everything you read on the Internet...
Team sets
Here are photos of my 4 Mini Adventure Team sets:
Team Rusteze:
Team HTB:
Team Dinoco:
Team Octane Gain:
I'll see if I can add some information as to which Piston Cup Racers were released in which 2 packs... I'm not sure I have photos going back that far, and I'm not sure which ones are even still available on eBay or Amazon... I'll also try to add more pictures showing the Mini Piston Cup Racer with the corresponding diecast (1:55) racer, like this one showing No Stall:
The Cars Mini Adventure product line was kind of brought back in Cars 2 in the Action Agents series... but the Action Agents line doesn't seem to be selling well.
In addition to the Piston Cup Racers, I also liked the Tunerz and the Bob Cutlass/Darrel Cartrip 2 packs... these Mini Adventures were painted a lot like their 1:55 diecast versions... that's probably why I liked them more than some of the others... but that sounds like another article... I'm probably starting to sound like Mattel... starting a series of articles on a particular item/product line, and not finishing it before starting another one... Hmmm...
Thanks for reading... as always, I appreciate your comments and your feedback... if you have photos of any of the carded 2 packs that you'd like to share, please feel free to post.
Chris
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