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Respect the Classics: It's Great to be Part of a Team

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  • Respect the Classics: It's Great to be Part of a Team



    During Cars, Lightning McQueen realized that if he wanted to be a successful Piston Cup Racer, he had to have a team... he needed a crew chief and pittys (or a real fast Guido) during the races, and a hauler (Mack) to transport him from one race to the next... He thought at first he could do it by himself and as a result, his pit crew which featured "My Name is not Chuck" left... he tried to run the race without a crew and suffered two blown tires which led to a 3 way tie and a special end of season race to determine who won the Piston Cup Series... After an adventure on the way to California which led to McQueen ending up in Radiator Springs, he realized he needed a team and ended up with a great one for the final race.

    Mattel started several different teams which consisted of racers, pittys, crew chiefs, and haulers... some were released as singles... some were released in boxed sets or gift packs... many of us were excited about these and eagerly looked forward to collecting them... we bought what we could find and/or got help from others... and then those products were red-flagged for various reasons related to the not as many being sold as the US retailer (Target) expected... In this article, we'll take a look at the 2 main different styles of team sets - the Team Set with the hauler, racer, and pitty, and the Team Crew set with the crew chief and 3 pittys... Both of these team sets originally sold for $19.99; the hauler/racer/pitty sets eventually went up to $21.99.


    Team Rust-eze



    The Team Rust-eze set was one of the first 3 released... on Race O Rama cardback, it consisted of the Mack Hauler, Lightning McQueen, and My Name is Not Chuck... it was later released on a different cardback; I'm not sure I have a photo of the later version... the Mack cab was later released as a Mega (Deluxe) size single as well as as hauler (with the trailer); My Name is Not Chuck had been released as a single on the World of Cars cardback... other members who were later part of McQueen's team were released as singles (Pit Crew Hudson Hornet, Pit Crew Fillmore, Pit Crew Sarge, Guido)... we never saw more than the 1 Rusteze pitty; many of us would have probably bought the Team Crew set with multiple Rusteze pittys if only it had been released.




    Team HTB (Hostile Takeover Bank)



    The HTB team set consisted of Chick Hicks, the Chick Hicks Hauler, and a Pitty (originally known as Bruiser Bukowski)... it was originally released on the ROR cardback in the same case with the Rusteze and Dinoco set...

    The HTB Team Crew set consisted of a pickup truck Crew Chief and multiple pittys... it was released on two different cardbacks... Here is a photo showing the first releases of the HTB, Dinoco, and Leakless Team Crew sets:


    Here is a photo showing the HTB Team Crew Set on a Night Skyline cardback:


    I decided I wanted a "Super Set" and combined them to get this:


    I have used 2 compartments in one of my Carney Plastics CP-21/24 display cases to show the teams loose.



    The Chick Hicks cab was released as a Mega (Deluxe) size... Pittys were released in other boxed set (2 in a 3 pack with Mater and a Movie Moments showing Chick with a Pitty)...


    Team Dinoco



    The Team Dinoco set consisted of The King, The King Hauler (known as Gray Hauler), and the Dinoco Pitty (previously known as Luke Pettlework)... it was also released on 2 different cardbacks.

    The Team Dinoco Crew set consisted of the pickup truck Crew Chief, and 3 pittys... it was released on 2 different cardbacks as well... early versions of the first contained the HTB tires (tyres) with yellow rims and not the blue rims (which should have been silver to match the king)...



    Other versions contained wrong pittys...

    Again, I decided I wanted a "Super Set" and combined them to get this:


    The Gray Hauler was released as a single... the Gray Semi was released as a Mega Size single... Other Cars were released in Dinoco colors; Damaged King was one of my favorite Cars... I'll talk about those in a future article.

    Loose Dinoco Team sets:



    Team Leakless
    Team Leakless was released as a team set with hauler/racer/pitty (Stacy) and as a Team Crew Set with crew chief (Earl Filter) and pittys.



    Again I combined my 2 sets into a Super Set:


    A Leakless team set consisting of racer/hauler/pitty was also released as a 3 pack in both the vertical WOC cardback format and the horizontal ROR cardback format... All Leakless sets were big pegwarmers; so many of them were released in multiple cases and since the racer was a relatively minor character, Target didn't sell them all; as a result, newer sets didn't show up in stores until much later.


    Team Octane Gain


    The Octane Gain team sets were the next ones released... I did eventually find these at stores in Ohio and Indiana... The team set with hauler/racer/pitty featured a slightly different pitty and the hauler/racer were identical to the other releases... The team Crew set with an SUV as crew chief and 3 pittys showed up in California and then it was months before it showed up elsewhere... I got an early set loose from my friend musicnywu1 in California...

    I later found it in stores in the US and got International cardback sets from my friends toughenoughallnightlong and stukatso in Canada:
    US version:


    International version (with Nitroade Team Crew sets)


    Eventually I found them in stores on clearance for $13.98; I also got them from friends who found them cheaper than that... I helped others get them for display, play, and customs... I'd like to have complete sets of the haulers, racers, crew chiefs, and pittys but unless Mattel decides to finish them, will have to have others make customs for me.

    One Octane Gain Pitty was released as a single... The Octane Gain Semi (cab) was released as a Mega size; I never bought that for myself as I preferred the trailer... I had multiple Octane Gain haulers but am down to just the one loose one... Why Mattel kept releasing the same items for racers that we already had was (and is) a mystery to me.

    Loose Team Octane Gain:



    Team Nitroade:

    (Photo used by permisison of djjd21... thank you, Jason)

    Nitroade Team Crew set:


    The Nitroade Team sets were released next... distribution of these were even worse than the previous sets... I got a hauler/racer/pitty set loose from a friend in California... I never did see the Nitroade Team Crew sets in a Target store in the US; Target had canceled their contract... eventually I got them from friends in Canada... and then they showed up at Gordman's (a close out store)...

    I saw the Nitroade Team Set twice at one Target and a couple of times at Big Lots; I never bought a boxed Team set - I had decided that the boxes took too much space and I liked how they looked loose in the display case.

    The Nitroade Hauler was released as a single; a Nitroade Pitty was released as a single in the ROR series... Mattel never released a Nitroade Semi; people didn't want Semis and quit buying them... We wanted new Mega (Deluxe) size Cars, not the hauler missing the trailer.

    Here's my loose Nitroade Team Set:



    Team Bumper Save


    One more team set was released... Team Bumper Save... this was the first release of the hauler and pitty... no Bumper Save Hauler was released as a single... I got a set from my east coast friend dad2spies... I never saw it in a store... I did find it listed on Amazon for $29.99 a month or so ago and bought one to have boxed...

    I also found an eBay seller who had the crew chief and pittys loose and bought them... and then one day while looking on Target.com I saw the Team Crew sets and bought them:







    Here's a photo showing my "loose" Bumper Save Team set (minus the custom launcher):


    And that's all the boxed versions of the Team sets and Team Crew sets...


    In conclusion
    In an interesting but frustrating time for collectors (where have we heard that before), Target.com had listed Easy Idle and N2O Cola Team Crew sets on their website for months... I placed orders for them as they would not charge before shipping... after a couple of months, I received an e-mail that my orders had been canceled... I never did see them for sale boxed; there were a few Easy Idle and N2O Cola loose pittys and crew chiefs sold, but they were very few.

    I did get an Easy Idle Crew Chief and pitty from my good friend lovemini (thank you, lovemini)... An Easy Idle Pitty was released as a single in one of the ROR cases.

    I have photos of loose team sets... here's one of my favorite ones... Team Apple:



    One of the racers is a backdoor Apple from one of my UK friends... the others are all customs made by 2 different customizers... I may very well order another Shopluckey Apple racer - the customizer who made the other customs appears to have disappeared... I also have an Apple Semi (cab only) that I got from a friend; I'll have to stage some more photos...

    And thanks to GotFrank, I have this:




    And a complete set of the original Cars launchers thanks to 17 great customs...

    As far as Cars2 teams are concerned, all we've seen so far are a handful of racers and crew chiefs... we've seen photos of loose crew chiefs... but other than the 4 Kmart Movie Moments and the Pit Crew Mater, that's all we've seen in the 1 year since Cars2 toys went on sale (May 16, 2011 in the US).

    Some of the team sets have turned up in the UK and in other countries... I believe some of you have bought them at Toys R US stores in the UK... If you're interested in them, I advise you to pick them up when and where you see them, because if Mattel doesn't re-release them, they're only going to get more expensive.

    As always, thanks for reading... On behalf of the administrators and moderators of PixarCarsDiecast.com, we appreciate your comments and your feedback... You are part of our team...

    And as our Anniversary Celebration continues, those of you who post a comment about this article will be eligible to win a prize; we'll award a prize in a random drawing for those of you who comment on this article... only one winner for this article... the deadline to enter this contest is Friday May 25, 2012...

    Hopefully we'll see new Cars in stores soon... many of us need to find new Cars in order to re-kindle our enthusiasm for these diecasts which we love... and take it from me - obtaining new Cars is often a team effort... without friends in the UK, Germany, Canada, Singapore, Turkey, and Australia I would not have many of the Cars that are in my collection... It's great to be part of a team.

    Chris
    Last edited by cac1959; 05-16-2012, 09:51 PM. Reason: Wrong photo


    I am cac1959... I am a Cars-a-holic... and a proud supporter of Nathan's Playroom

  • #2
    When I started collecting seriously in the beginning of 2010 it was clear that Mattel was not going to release all the pitties, crew chiefs, and haulers for each of the 36 Piston Cup cars. I decided to just stick with collecting the race cars because I knew eventually I would be able to get all of those. I hate starting something I know I won't be able to finish. The only team haulers and pitties I got were Rust-Eze, HtB, and Dinoco. If Mattel had completed all 36 Team sets, I would start collecting them.

    signature courtesy of BomBom77
    http://www.pixarcarsdiecast.com/foru...ars-for-trades

    Comment


    • #3
      superb article,thank's for taking the time to post it.
      those "super" sets are amazing and would have been a fantastic set to purchase had mattel got it's act together,but i suppose in their marketing strategy they were better off selling them individually.

      Comment


      • #4
        Another great article. It's a shame that Mattel couldn't get it's case assortment act together on this one, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. I think one of the worst choices were the overabundance of Leakless sets. I got so sick of seeing those things weighing down the shelves...

        Comment


        • #5
          Great article! I love the intro part about McQueen.

          Your Bumper Save hauler set mocks me!!

          Comment


          • #6
            Bumpersave is my favourite!!!!!!

            Excellent superb article again

            Comment


            • #7
              These sets are some of my favorite diecasts, the B$ team is particularly impressive

              Comment


              • #8
                Great article as always
                I remember when the pit crews were rare then suddenly they were showing up everywhere! Wonder if more cars items are gonna show up..i hope so.

                Love the photos of your displayed teams

                Comment


                • #9
                  I always liked the crew sets and I really wish they would have made them for all of the race cars. But in Germany we say: Hop dies at last - so maybe they will show up some day. who knows.

                  Comment

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