Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,147: Bespin (Silhouette II)

BESPIN (Silhouette II)
Star Wars Classics Walmart Exclusive
Item No.: Asst. DJK03 No. DJL05
Manufacturer: Mattel
Number: 6/8
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: About $1
Availability: 2016
Appearances: n/a   

Bio: This series of intergalactic Hot Wheels celebrates the many diverse worlds of the STAR WARS universe. Race from the icy reaches of Hoth, to the fiery lava flows of Mustafar. Zoom from the parched desert world of Tatooine, to the lush forest moon of Endor. Collect all eight and speed to a galaxy far, far away! (Stolen 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: And Wheels Week is over! I got Bespin (Silhouette II) way back when it came out, and it's a perfect $1 collectible car. The axles aren't as janky as the Han Solo Twinduction, but they're not as smooth as many other cars either - that means when it flies out of a launcher on the tracks, it doesn't go terribly far. But sometimes you buy a car because it's gorgeous, and this is. The Silhouette II is an updated version of one of the first year of Hot Wheels cars, and it's been in and out of circulation since the 1960s. The II model has some tweaks and different engines - if you had your druthers, you'd probably want the original, but those aren't as cheap. I saw this one at Bookman's for $2 over Memorial Day weekend,so you can get it without spending real money if you have time to look around.

The futurism of the 1960s, retooled in the 1990s, and painted orange seems like a perfect fit for the Twin-Pod Cloud Car. Obviously, this is only one pod - but it looks sort of close to the concept sketches, what with the dome and the long nose. The chrome engine looks great, there's a nicely detailed interior, and the shiny orange finish looks superb. The cart art is no slouch either - and if you dare open it, you'll be treated to a Star Wars logo over where the trunk isn't. The vehicle has a metal top and a plastic bottom, which means it's not going to win any races.

The reason to get excited about this car - indeed, this entire set - is the great artwork on each car. It's Burger King glass-style simple, with clouds, Cloud City, the Millennium Falcon, and presumably as a gag silhouettes of a Cloud Car to go on a Cloud Car-colored Silhouette. Clever. It's really nicely designed and they didn't mirror-flip the Falcon to make the art fit either.

Walmart did multiple series of these $1 cars since Mattel got the license - themes included Movies/TV Series, in-universe factions, planets, masters & apprentices, and finally, characters. As far as I know they haven't done any more cheap cars nor planned to do them, which is probably smart, because I completely ignored their $4+ products and focused solely on the $1 ones. This may well be the best of them. If you see any version of the Silhouette or Silhouette II on the cheap it's worth a gander, but this Bespin version is a no-brainer. Get it if the price is right.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from Walmart. If you need another car to chase down, let me recommend the Tusken Raider-themed Tatooine deco on The Vanster. It's also worth noting that there are 51 state cars (plus DC) from around 2009 if you like this sort of "destination car." I don't believe I actually ever saw those - so if you're sitting on any, especially an Arizona-themed Hotbird, fax one my way. I hope Mattel does more of those for real-world destinations, because they'd be wonderful pick-ups in touristy gift shops at Presidential Museum and Libraries, or shops near national parks.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,147: June 21, 2024

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

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,144: Princess Leia (RacerVerse Blockade Runner Tantive IV)

PRINCESS LEIA on Blockade Runner / Tantive IV Go-Kart
Hot Wheels Racerverse Basic Car
Item No.: Asst. HKB86 No. G0102
Manufacturer: Mattel
Number: n/a
Includes: Fake paper orange track
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: $5.99
Availability: 2023
Appearances: Star Wars   

Bio: Leia Skywalker Organa Solo was a Force-sensitive human Alderaanian female politician, Jedi, and military leader who served in the Alliance to Restore the Republic during the Imperial Era and the New Republic and Resistance in the subsequent New Republic Era. (Stolen from Wookieepedia.)

Image: Adam's photo lab.

Availability: Click here to buy it at Entertainment Earth now!

Click here to buy it at Amazon now!

Click here to buy it at eBay now!

Commentary: The collectible paradigm is, mildly, stale. If you're old-school, it took a while to get things like LEGO sets and statues and busts, 6-inch figures and other collectibles weren't even on our radar. Hot Wheels cars seemed like a stretch, but it happened, and after the success of Mario Kart figures-with-vehicles Mattel expanded the lineup to Racerverse with licenses like Marvel, DC, Trolls, soon to include Star Trek and Gremlins and DuckTales. But we're here for Star Wars Princess Leia, which gives you a little kid-size cart thing that recalls Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's Rat Fink as much as it does Mario Kart and a bevy of McDonald's Happy Meal toys. As far as I know there's no video game coming for this, but it sure as heck looks like something you should be able to steer around on Rainbow Road or Cheep Cheep Beach.

Toys have gotten a lot more expensive - if you want to get something for under ten bucks for Star Wars it's downright difficult, so a $6 Leia in a Blockade Runner has some appeal in an era where action figures are creeping up to $20 and even Funko's cheap Pop! Vinyl Figures are around $12. And sure, a typical Hot Wheels or Matchbox car is $1.25 in 2024, so $5.99 isn't nothing - but there are some more complicated cuts and more parts needed to make a tiny figure to go in your tiny vehicle. These cost about the same as the Character Cars, and they make a heck of a lot more sense. $5 for a car with a shape vaguely recalling Leia's character seems high when you can spend $6 on a ship with a tiny Leia figure instead. And perhaps both are expensive when you can just buy any old car for a buck and a quarter on those famous blue cardbacks.

The toy itself is more or less typical Hot Wheels-sized, as you can put it on tracks or a car launcher with no problems. The super-deformed proportions of the vehicle look good and they don't skimp on the greeblies - you can see the many engines, hatches, escape pods, and other odds and ends plus the window up front (without the visible centerfold) to boot. They added red stripes as well as more than one flavor of gray to enhance the ship details, and if some company out of Japan were selling just the squat vehicle with wheels for ten bucks I'd probably happily buy it.

Leia's head as a Spock-esque raised eyebrow and a determined expression on her face, like she's ready to ram someone in the walls. The figure isn't exceedingly detailed, but she does have an oversized noodle not unlike a Funko Pop!, bobble head, or more likely, Rat Fink-adjacent Hot Rod cartoon character of some sort. Her small hands are on a steering wheel, and the figure isn't removable.

As luck would have it I dropped six bucks at the Dollar Tree before getting this on some orange track, to see which of some of my cars really book it. Some cleared the full 22 feet of track, but most petered out after 8-10, and Leia was one of those. It's by no means poor performance, but it's not as impressive as a Sharkcruiser, a Millennium Falcon Carships, or - oddly - Transformers: Robots in Disguise R.E.V.

 While doing some research I was surprised that there aren't many collections being sold of these guys on eBay in 2024, and even more surprised that most of the little karts go for a premium on Amazon or eBay right now. You can find some in stores, but most remain elusive as what you're likely to find are unsold Disney girl characters and Super Mario Shy Guys. You might also find Darth Vader in his TIE Advanced, which is a shame, because it would be way cooler to have him in a Star Destroyer to chase down Leia and the stolen Death Star plans. But hey, this is a neat toy, if expensive, and a welcome diversion from the increasingly dull world of figures with minimal (or no) vehicles or playsets. Given that they're making Uncle Scrooge, Gizmo, and Captain Kirk, I would advise you all to give this line a look - you may not buy any, but at least you can go "Oh I remember Adam talking about that" when today's kids are overpaying on the secondary market for these 20-30 years down the road. These might actually turn into something really good, and this is a worthwhile pick-up if you have a few bucks to burn.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from Target. She's shipping in current assortments along with other characters like Ahsoka, Darth Vader, and Chewbacca.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,144: June 18, 2024

Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 3,143: Han Solo (Twinduction)

HAN SOLO (Twinduction)
Star Wars Classics Walmart Exclusive
Item No.: Asst. FKD57 No. FKD58
Manufacturer: Mattel
Number: 1/8
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: About $1
Availability: 2018
Appearances: n/a

Bio: Han Solo rose from an impoverished childhood to become captain of the Millennium Falcon, a leader in the Alliance to Restore the Republic and an instrumental figure in the Galactic Civil War during the reign of the Galactic Empire.. (Stolen 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: It's Wheels Week! Here and at 16bit.com, I'm looking at some Hot Wheels and 1:64-compatible scale toys - they're cheap, why not. Stay tuned for collectible cars and RacerVerse here, while 16bit.com will look at Transformers Spy Changers, cars you can find at the grocery store with LEGO and MEGA-compatible studs, and other goodies. I'm still writing these, so you'll have to come back for more.

This Han Solo Twinduction was something I skipped in 2018 - I picked up all the "cheap" $1 Walmart exclusive cars, but for some reason this series, I didn't get at the time. I just got the series on eBay for about $3 percar shipped, which is arguably cheaper than gas & tax & driving around. A lot of people collect and flip these things, and some cars are pricey - but most of them aren't, and you can find a lot for $1-$4 (plus or minus shipping) at online and brick and mortar shops. The mark-up is probably more of the service of their holding on to it for a few years or the gas to the post office - this is not a piece that's in demand. If you are considering buying it, let me just say to buy it in a lot or small collection because the shipping is going to kill you on eight individual tiny cars. Don't blame the seller, blame math.

I started this week because I wanted an excuse to write about the RacerVerse go-kart toys (come back tomorrow!) and wound up diving lot of unopened toys, and remembered to look into this set. Was it worth my waiting six years to track down and open this car? ...no. I had a few cars as a kid (mostly from the 1983 McDonald's collection, all but one sadly sold at a garage sale) and I have picked up a few odds and ends as an adult. There's a pattern - it's usually when Star Wars collecting is particularly dire (so 2013 and 2024 were upswings) and when Mattel announces an interesting licensed car from TV or a movie that I want to track down. I'm also fascinated with people wo race these things as a sport. There are amazing features and fun things to do with these toys - usually. This one is top-tier "nothing special." I'd go as far as to say it's pretty bad, and you're buying it for the card art.

Mattel has gorgeous card art that is similar to - but not the same pose as - the art on the car itself. It reminds me a lot of collectible fast food glassware, in that it's flat and almost looks like it could have been traced. This one has a dull blue finish, it feels light and has some silver vac metal around the engine. A Star Wars logo sits on the roof of the car, and Han's last name "Solo" is written on Aurebesh on the sides. It's very blah - I don't necessarily expect Spectraflame paint, or metalflake paint, but a little shine goes a long way on these things. This is a car that sold for about $1 and looks like it should have sold for about $1.

As something you leave on the card, it's great. I love the big portrait, and the car art is actually quite nice. The tampos are incredibly crisp, with some nice striping and a Rebel Alliance logo. I am a little surprised that, in 2018, Mattel gave us an old-school Harrison Ford portrait and not something stylized or based specifically on Solo: A Star Wars Story. Maybe they were short on assets given the prequel's production, or the licensees were all given some "pivot to classic" directive because it was easier - and arguably safer - to do. The car itself more or less matches Han's Corellian jeans, complete with bloodstripes on the spokes of the wheels. It's a nice touch. It rolls a little rough, unlike a lot of other cars you can hear a hint of a rattle or a scrape while it moves on your mousepad. It glides along just fine, but there's a difference in the sound - compared to other Hot Wheels, it's not quite as clean of a gliding sound. But you're probably not buying this toy for track, this is a collectible, a souvenir, a way to spend $1 to tell the world "this is a thing I like." (See also: Hot Wheels cars based on states and various highways, and a Matchbox based on the 1986 arrival of Halley's Comet.)

I am not a car guy despite being descended from a Chrysler engineer, but I know what I like when it comes to toys. Functionally this particular Twinduction is a little disappointing but I really do appreciate that they made something that looks sort of like a goofy 1970s retro collectible. You can probably find this one at a second-hand shop of some sort on the cheap, and if you can't, there are a bunch of other licensed cars and go-karts in a store near you right now. Having said that, it is unlikely that a Han Solo may be among them at mass retail.

Collector's Notes: I got mine from eBay. I should also note that this series has a wild Jabba the Hutt-themed Deora II car, where the card art is based on Return of the Jedi while the car art is based on an unflattering angle of the Special Edition digital Jabba. I have no idea why they didn't just go double duty on the card art there - but take a look, it's worth it for the laughs.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 3,143: June 17, 2024