One of my favorite things from Cars was Radiator Springs... the buildings... the Cars... the simple life... Like many of you, I wanted to recreate Radiator Springs in my Cars room... to that end I bought the original 4 building playsets at Toys R US... my grandson enjoyed playing with them... The original 4 buildings were Flo's V8 Cafe, Lizzie's Radiator Springs Curio Shop, Luigi's Casa Della Tires, and Ramone's Body Art... We wanted more of the buildings to be released, but it didn't happen... My friend GotFrank made me a few fantastic custom buildings that helped add to the town - Sarge's Surplus Hut, the Radiator Springs Court House, Fillmore's Tent...
Instead of new buildings, Mattel released the same buildings in other products lines such as GeoTrax and Lego sets... As my grandchildren enjoyed GeoTrax and I enjoyed Cars I bought the Cars GeoTrax items... I also bought a few of the Disney Store releases - Mater's Tow Yard and the Courthouse... but I yearned for more.
And several months ago we learned that Mattel was going to make a Radiator Springs town - in a new series called the Precision Series... The first 2 buildings announced were Flo's V8 Cafe and Fillmore's Tent... Flo's V8 was released first - at a suggested retail price of $99.99... It was available for online retailers to order... it has been listed on shop.mattel.com and on Amazon.com... At first I said I wasn't going to buy the Precision Series Flo's V8 Cafe... however, after seeing pictures, I've changed my mind... after all, it is a Cars-a-holics perogative to change his or her mind... We've already seen some photos of Flo's V8 Cafe in a previously published PCD article entitled "Respect the Classics - A Look at Radiator Springs" at the following link: http://www.pixarcarsdiecast.com/foru...diator-Springs
In this installment of Respect the Classics, we'll take a look at Flo's V8 Cafe - thank you to PCD member Toyfountain for sharing photos of the Precision Series Flo's V8 Cafe and comparison photos of the various Flo's V8 Cafe play sets.
Toys R US Flo's V8 Cafe:
As I mentioned in my introduction, I bought Flo's V8 Cafe at Toys R US... I opened it and the other building play sets... but I don't think I took pictures of the box... I want to say that Flo's originally cost $24.99 plus tax - it was the most expensive of the 4 buildings... there were lights... Cars hung out at Flo's... It was re-released at Toys R US for either $29.99 or $34.99 which was too much money in my opinion... but when it went on clearance for $24.98 I bought another one to keep packaged.... Here's the re-release:
Here's the back of the box:
And here's the UPC:
I wondered why the Flo's V8 Cafe did not include Flo... It's another example of Mattel logic... or not.
GeoTrax V8 Cafe
The GeoTrax version of Flo's V8 Cafe does not have nearly the detail that the TRU version had... but it did have good play value for young children who enjoyed playing with GeoTrax and Cars... Here's a picture from Toyfountain that shows the 3 V8 Cafe releases - the GeoTrax version is on the right:
And here's an older picture showing our Cars GeoTrax setup before we got the Fillmore's Tent:
Precision Series Flo's V8 Cafe
(Photo by Toyfountain used by permission)
The most recent release of Flo's V8 Cafe is the new Precision Series... Again, I felt that a cost of $99.99 was too high... it has been on sale on Amazon for $59.99... It's on my Christmas list but I don't know if I will get it as my family doesn't want to "enable" my Cars addiction... Thank you, Toyfountain, for sharing your great photos.
Here's a sign:
And look, Flo's V8 Cafe actually includes Flo!
Comparison photos
Here are photos comparing the Precision Series V8 Cafe with the TRU version.
Note how the Precision Series actually shows Tulsa Tea on the gas pump:
The gas pump on the TRU version is blank:
The Precision Series sign shows more detail:
Here's the sign of the TRU version:
Here's the TRU version on top of the Precision Series version:
Here's the TRU version lid:
The lights on the TRU version do light up... slowly.
Looking at the TRU version:
Precision Series version:
The Precision Series version lights up very nicely:
In fact, to see a short video about the Precision Series Flo's V8 Cafe that Toyfountain posted on YouTube, check out the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nQf9zQbPfY
In conclusion
Now that I've seen pictures of the Precision Series version of the Flo's V8 Cafe as well as pictures of the Precision Series Ramone Car, I'm more excited about the product line than I was when they were first announced... Hopefully I get Flo's for Christmas... and hopefully Mattel completes the product line... we've seen great pictures of the entire Precision Series Radiator Springs town thanks to PCD members such as Aaron Chandler:
(Photo by Aaron Chandler used by permission)
I'd love to display a complete Radiator Springs Precision Series town... Come on, Mattel... don't let us down.
Thanks for reading... as always I appreciate your comments.
Comment