Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,145: Millennium Falcon (Hot Wheels Carships)

MILLENNIUM FALCON Debut Release
Hot Wheels Carships Basic Car
Item No.: Asst. DPV24 No. DPV25
Manufacturer: Mattel
Number: n/a
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $4.99
Availability: 2016-2018
Appearances: Star Wars?   

Bio: Earning a legendary status under their ownership, the Millennium Falcon was most famously used by the smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca before, during, and following the Galactic Civil War. (Adapted from Wookieepedia.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: A few years ago I picked up a lot of cheap die-cast metal Hot Wheels at various dollar stores - I wasn't keen on dropping $5 for a car, but $1 I can do. I kind of wish I got more - the Millennium Falcon sat carded in a box with other cars until a few weeks ago. It's kind of a silly design, but it's an interesting design challenge. We've seen The H-Wing (sadly not yet immortalized as a toy), but that's a real car with space ship flair. This is a space ship scaled down, distorted, given a racing stripe, and slapped on a plastic sled with wheels. And yet, it works.

At the time I couldn't wrap my head around these for $4.99, and I still can't, but at today's market rates of $3 or under it's quite excellent. If you can get them for less than that, I'd recommend it - it's a classic trilogy collectible that works as a toy, it's not pretentious, and nothing about it is "adult." You put it on some orange track and it rolls nicely. It's a real toy that delivers on the promise of car-shaped fun.

Not only did it work, fellow eye-rollers, but Mattel's weird little gambit paid off. Some of its Carships were on the market for two whole years, which is something you just don't see in the action figure world. Some of its Character Cars are still in production ten years later, albeit with some action features or other tweaks added. That's some old-school toymaking, unlike Hasbro's current strategy of "retire things immediately." It would seem successful, as Hot Wheels has thrived on repaints and selling to kids (and scalpers and collectors and fans and adults) for years with a low-cost low-entry line. In the case of the Falcon, there's even a battle-damaged version from a playset. This was just the base carded version I picked up because I figured, why not?

The toy is a simplified and elongated version of Han's ship with added racing stripes on the top and on the side. A Rebel Alliance logo and the red and blue stripes were no doubt added to give it a little more color - it's a pretty blah ship in terms of "pop" - in addition to the six circles on the back and a shiny black canopy. You can see the cannons on top too, giving this toy a look similar to Kenner's 1978 die-cast metal toy. Except this has wheels, and more color - heck the wheels even have a nice blue ring around them. Most collectors didn't seem to be too excited, but it seems like a ton of kids bought these and they came back in new assortments and new packaging - and of course some of the first year's run got blown out, because everybody manufactured entirely too much Star Wars in 2015 and 2016.

I have no fancy tracks, but I picked up a launcher a few years ago and connected it to some $1.25 straight Dollar Tree track - about 20 feet worth. I started goofing around launching cars across my house, and as it was not one of the super-snappy-cause-internal-bleeding launchers that they sell today, not many cars made it beyond the tracks. This one and a handful of others, though, finished the tracks - it was an impressive showing, which makes this a better-than-average car. I don't know how it races, but it certainly is an efficient traveler on minimal launch power.

If your kid has one, ask him to let you see it. The entire series is quite charming and I kind of wish I bought a few more of them back when they were in stores. I find the RacerVerse Go-Karts to provide a better product for the price - especially considering inflation - but this is a solid performer and frankly I'm amazed that Mattel managed to squeeze much more juice out of its toy molds than Hasbro over the past decade. Give their stuff a look if you're feeling some figure ennui right now, it's a cheap thrill and I don't think that you'll be sorry.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from the now-defunct 99 Cents Only chain of stores for 99 cents. You will most likely not see any of these outside of the secondary market.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,145: June 19, 2024