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Respect the Classics: Spare Mint

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  • Respect the Classics: Spare Mint




    A few weeks ago I started a series about the Cars Piston Cup racers with an article on Mood Springs... In this article, we'll take a look at another one of the Piston Cup racers and his team - Ernie Gearson... better known as Spare Mint, #93.

    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 - Spare Mint (later called Spare O Mint)...


    Kmart 1: Spare Mint with plastic tires
    Spare Mint was one of the Piston Cup Racers released during the first Kmart Cars Collector Event on October 18, 2008...




    Here's the cardback:


    These racers were exclusives within the US at Kmart for quite a while... later, they appeared in the UK on clip strips at Tesco's... In fact, the Car shown above is from Tesco's (thank you, Rippers)... For some reason I thought I didn't have enough of the Kmart 1 racers so Paul and other UK friends sent me some more in trade...

    Spare Mint was based on the Leakless body... Almost all of the Piston Cup racers were based on 5 body styles.


    World of Cars 3 pack Gift Pack



    Cardback:


    During the World of Cars series, Mattel released a few 3 packs that consisted of a racer with plastic tires, crew chief, and pitty... Spare Mint was the last one of the gift packs released... In the WOC days, the gift packs were packaged in a vertical style and hung from pegs at stores... The first release featured New Model printed on ribbons as you see above... The Spare Mint pitty was named Piccolo Perry, and the Spare Mint Crew Chief was named Earnest B. Raykes... this 3 pack was never released in a case in the US...

    The WOC Spare Mint Gift Pack is one of the rarest Cars items there is... it was never released in the US due to the glue problem... I got one from a friend (Jared) in Singapore for $28 shipped... That was several years ago... There is one listed for sale on eBay for $499.99 on a Buy It Now sale... it might have also been released in Thailand...

    Spare Mint is one of 4 WOC versions of the gift packs, along with No Stall, Leakless, and Shiny Wax.


    Race O Rama 3 pack Gift Pack



    When the Race O Rama series started, Mattel released the 3 pack Gift packs in horizontal boxes... While these store better, they don't have quite the personality of their WOC counterparts... Mattel changed the name of Spare Mint to Spare O Mint... it's just not the same to me... Instead of having names, the pitty was called Spare O Mint Pitty and the Crew Chief was called Chief Spare O Mint ... Also, instead of releasing new race teams in this series, Mattel re-released the same ones... No Stall, Leakless, Shiny Wax, and Spare Mint...

    Here's the cardback:


    There were other 3 packs released, but none with Pitty/Racer/Crew Chief... and when the lenticular era started, that was the end of these team sets.

    The 3 pack gift pack was the only way to get the Spare Mint Pitty... It was also the only way to get the Crew Chief until Mattel released Easter Cars...

    I thought that the case that contained the ROR Spare O Mint Gift Pack was a pretty good case... It contained 2 of the Chick Fan Mia/Tia 3 packs, 1 Shiny Wax 3 pack, 1 Spare O Mint 3 pack, 1 3 pack with Mater and 2 Chick Hicks Pittys, and a re-release of the Finish Line McQueen (with no rear tires)/King/Chick Hicks 3 pack... Here is a picture showing the 6 3 packs that were in the case:


    I bought at least 4 cases - Mattel used to pack case assortments that were decent and I had at least 4 to 6 friends that split the cost of the cases with me... it was cheaper for me to get them shipped via UPS and then mail the items to friends via the United States Postal Service than for my friends to have the case shipped to them via UPS... I also bought every Spare O Mint gift pack I ever saw in stores... I'm down to the one that I have opened in my display case and the one carded set.


    Chief Spare O Mint

    Mattel repeatedly uses holidays to try to sell more (or leftover) Cars... In at least 2 years, they released a set of Cars in plastic Easter Eggs... One year they released the Piston Cup Pace Car (in a yellow egg), Lightning McQueen (in a red egg), Spare Mint Crew Chief (in a blue egg), and the Shiny Wax Crew Chief (in a green egg)... These were Target exclusives.

    Here's the Chief Spare Mint Easter Egg... This might have been a 2009 release - the production code on the blister says 3568 EA.



    I'll have to go back and look at older pictures and e-mails to confirm the date... Since I don't have a local Target, I received a set from a friend in California and 2 sets from a friend in Alaska... I'm since down to one set plus an extra Lightning McQueen.

    Again, the name Earnest B. Raykes just sounds better to me than Chief Spare Mint (or Chief Spare O Mint)... And like the No Stall, Shiny Wax, and Leakless Crew Chiefs, the Spare Mint Crew Chief was based on the RPM Crew Chief body.

    Spare O Mint
    Mattel released several racers as Pit Race-off launchers... Several were released in the World of Cars series, several were released in the Race O Rama series, and 2 were released in the Night Skyline series... The Spare O Mint and Sputter Stop Pit Race-off launchers were released in case A of the Night Skyline series along with Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks... Here's a picture of the Spare O Mint and Sputter Stop launchers:



    While that looks like a lot of launchers, I bought those for at least 6 other people... I found them early one morning on amazon.com for $9.99 each with free shipping if the total order was $25 or more... I bought them from Amazon on at least 4 occasions... I also saw them at Meijer stores several months after I bought them through Amazon... I only bought them once at Meijer, as they'd gone up to either $9.99 or $10.99... I liked having the launchers; some of my friends didn't buy the racers that were released as launchers if they'd already gotten them in another format... I'm fairly certain I sent both Spare O Mint and Sputter Stop launchers to Rippers.

    I don't have a picture showing the cardback of this launcher.

    Here's a photo showing the Spare O Mint and Sputter Stop launchers opened:




    Kmart 4

    The 4th Cars Collector event was June 12, 2010... one of the 8 rubber tire racers released during that event was Spare O Mint... There were 3 Spare O Mint Cars in the case of 24.

    Here's the Car:


    Here's the cardback:



    Target Speedway 4-pack
    Target announce several 4 packs of the Piston Cup racers and released many of them... Spare O Mint was released in a 4 pack featuring Chick Hicks...



    As you might guess from the above picture, I used the boxes to create my own assortments; I have a set of the 36 Piston Cup Racers in 9 different 4 pack boxes... most have plastic tires, although I may have a few rubber tire racers in some of the 4 packs... A couple of friends who opened their 4 packs sent me empty boxes so I could create my Poor Man's Speedway of the South set.

    These 4 packs usually sold for $17.99 to $19.99... and again, due to poor assortments, Mattel and Target never released them all...


    Lightyear Launcher



    Spare O Mint was released as a Lightyear Launcher during the Night Skyline series... I found a few of these in Walmart stores and at a couple of other stores... Since I considered Spare Mint to be a little more common than some of the others, I only bought 1... I'll probably trade it to a friend.

    Here's the cardback...


    If I already had the Car as a Pit Race-off launcher, I usually didn't buy it as a Lightyear Launcher... exceptions were the more rare racers such as Easy Idle and Vinyl Toupee... If Mattel would release Tach O Mint as a Lightyear Launcher, I'd buy it... I don't really remember why I bought the Spare O Mint Lightyear Launcher... I probably hadn't bought anything new for awhile and a Cars-a-holic has to get his or her fix.


    Other formats

    I don't believe a Spare Mint hauler was ever announced... I know it still hasn't been sold... I'd definitely buy one for my collection...

    Mattel has announced a new product series called Micro Drifters... the Micro Drifters are about the same size as the Minis... Spare O Mint is one that has been shown in the pictures.


    In Conclusion

    Here are some photos of my opened Team Shiny Wax Cars... I did not include photos of my opened rubber tire racer... Note the Spare Mint pit box; my friend GotFrank sent me a CD containing the graphics (files) for the Pit boxes... I printed them all out; my wife folded 11 of the 36 for me.





    Piccolo Perry (Spare Mint Pitty - only available in the 3 pack Gift Pack)


    Earnest B. Raykes (Spare Mint Crew Chief):


    Ernie Gearson (Spare Mint racer)



    I hope you've enjoyed reading about Ernie Gearson... Spare Mint... We'll take a look at other Piston Cup team sets in future articles... I am going to take a break from writing for a little bit...

    Thanks for reading... as always, I appreciate your comments...

    Chris
    Last edited by cac1959; 11-24-2012, 02:47 PM. Reason: date correction


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

  • #2
    With all of these articles on the racers Chris you're really making me want those single pittys and crew chiefs I don't have....

    You're a bad, bad influence.....

    Great read once again...

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    • #3
      does anyone know why mattel changed the name from sparemint to spare o mint?great read again chris,thanks.that vertical 3-pack is certainly an acievement to cherish.

      Comment


      • #4
        I got a SOM Pit Row Launcher at Sears for $2 last year. One of my best ever scores!

        Comment


        • #5
          nice!

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          • #6
            Thank you for your comments. I have no idea why they changed the name to Spare O Mint. They have changed it back to Spare Mint for the new Micro Drifters series.


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

            Comment


            • #7
              Id love a spare mint pitty to complete our team.

              Another great article

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