Pixar Cars Wiki:The Diecast Project

Welcome to the base of operations for the Pixar Cars Wiki's first ever community project! We're kicking off strong with a topic we all know and love: The golden goose of Mattel's Disney Pixar Cars toy brand, the core line of die-cast Character Car vehicles that have been driving into the hearts of kids and collectors alike for almost two decades. These colorful, authentically-detailed rolling masterpieces have long deserved proper coverage on the largest Cars database ever - think it's time we make it happen.

Goals

The long-term purpose of this project is to build an unrivaled library of die-cast information here on the wiki. Besides indexing every vehicle and product ever produced, we also plan to create original written content to cohesively document the line's wider history.

• Firstly, we need to create and/or re-locate the main group of pages we'll be working on, and set up intuitive navigation between them all.
  • Add the {{die-cast infobox}} template to each series page, which identifies some quick, basic overview notes (as of currently, production country and series runtime) as well as a chronological guide from each one to the next.
  • Most articles have them already, but check that all pages listed in {{mattel-cars}} include this navigation template at the very bottom of the page, and add it if necessary.
  • The main Series pages are also largely in place, but we've still yet to accomodate many of the smaller Collections - besides creating the pages (and possibly a separate infobox), we'll have to determine and discuss the category under which each one belongs.
• The bulk of this project involves compiling and editing Series and Collection pages as well as individual character merchandise sub-pages. As of recently, there's now a {{tab}} template that should be set up at the top of every character page, for easy back-and-forth between series info and merchandise info.
  • Compile and add each product's official toy number (or "cast number") to pages.
  • Collect and/or upload Mattel's official promotional images, both "loose" and packaged ones
  • Link to important official resources, like past Mattel website archives. We should also make sure each one has the respective poster/checklist(s) or promotional adverts (such as the Kmart Collector Day flyers).

We'll gradually build toward weaving all this data into well-cited, extensive articles to present a complete, detailed, and thorough historical record of the entire Cars die-cast toy line – for now, it's probably best to focus effort on building the content we'll be working with, partly so we can continue getting a better idea of how to eventually do that.

Research and documentation

Precursor info

If you've been living under a Stone Wheel, the Cars die-casts (or Character Cars Assortment) are 1:55 scale model cars produced and sold by Mattel, based upon characters from the expansive and long-running Cars franchise. They first hit the market in April 2006 to support the original Cars movie launch, and have continued to see yearly releases all the way to present day, with no end in sight.

Going a little deeper:

• Mattel has exclusive license from Pixar to sell and manufacture Cars toys. The two companies have had a close working relationship since collaborating on Toy Story products, so this was never particularly surprising, and certainly when they're also behind the most expansive and best-selling commercial toy car brand ever, Hot Wheels.
• The result is Mattel's Disney Pixar Cars brand. Since inception, its structure has closely mirrored that of Hot Wheels', in that a primary line of die-cast cars encompasses the "core" of the brand. Regardless, they remain one (especially large) piece of a larger puzzle – Mattel also releases products of different material and scales across many different assortment lines (Pullbax or Mini Racers, as examples). Both of these facts are as integral as they are confusing.

All of this is important to keep in mind when considering how to stucture our information about it, and of course organizing this project. There are a lot of key components that have (and in some cases, still do) require thought and discussion.

Name

For what are essentially the backbone of the second biggest film-based toy franchise, you'd think it would be easier to figure out what exactly they're called. This question alone has been (and still somewhat is) an absolute nightmare to deal with.

From a formal standpoint, a descriptive noun for a trademarked brand/division is rarely desirable over its own "official" title. Most of us are just fine calling them "die-casts" and have never really thought or cared about what they're truly called – Don't worry... Mattel hasn't either.

• No packaging iteration has ever displayed much text apart from the overall brand logo (Cars) and individual character name. The 2007-12 series displayed their own individual titles, with 2013-onwards including the series "year" on the back - that's about it, no formal "line" name (note in comparison to Rip Stick Racers or Mini Racers)
• Both Collector Guides (2009 and 2010) contain minimal text, and only refer to their respective photo contents as "Cars vehicles."
• Posters have come the closest, but their offerings are inconsistent. The Cars 2 posters (2011 and 2012) dub the mainline "Character Cars," while 2021 onwards has used "Singles." All others have organized some combination of the mainline/deluxe/2-packs based on individual segment themes. Again, none has indicated a larger series name parenting all of the separate "assortments"
• The American websites (as well as Germany's) from 2013-2019 called each year's series a "Diecast Collection" - again, always part of an individual series name.
• Notably, "Character Cars" was marketed originally though fairly obscure, appearing on the backs of Supercharged and World of Cars boxes.

While never exactly front-and-center, the "Character Cars" name is the best we've got, and was actually quite consistent between all stages of production: From Mattel's internal names, to their shipment labels, all the way to store shelves.

I was all for "Character Cars" until realizing the last few years screwed everything up: Beginning in 2017 with the Cars 3 series, both the mainline and 2-pack cases now read "Disney Pixar Cars 3 Die-Cast (Singles/2-Packs) Assortment." To my current knowledge it stayed this way through the 2018-19 until switching *again*, back to simply "Cars Character," which it has stayed from 2020 to present. Notably, the checklist posters from these years now call the mainline just "singles." And of course, there is harmony no more as every possible source seems to be differ. The price tags at my local Target simply say "Cars Diecast Car" now.

More consideration still needed... For now I think "Character Cars" should be prioritized due to its frequency and even (need to grab photos still, but the 2024 Easter case still says "Cars Character Car," as do the 2-packs, apparently...

Glossary

Most of my personal research has focused on the 2006-11 era of cars as that's most personal to me – still, most of these notes are still relevant or remained so up until relatively recently.

Note: From especially 2008 onwards, Cars borrows a lot of design concepts and terminology from Hot Wheels: Both lines had many common designers and marketers.

• Mainline: The basic, fundamental carded singles assortment. This has never been used in an official context but has been used internally since at least 2008.
• Series/Collection: A group of releases, under a shared theme or name; This is fairly complicated so full write-up coming soon.
• Collector number: Introduced in 2008 to promote "collectability," according to the Petersen museum exhibit.
• Segment series: While technically around since 2007, the classifying of models into different common "themes" were originally relegated to posters and inserts. They were fully incorporated in 2009 with the Race O Rama "ticket" packaging design, which displayed one of six segment colors and segment symbols.
• Chase: A rarer-than-usual model, for which production is limited to no more than 20,000 units. Distributed in exactly one assortment case and never again; this was dubbed "Lizzie's Law" by John Lasseter. The term refers to collectors having to "chase" after an item. In the original Cars line, all Chase cars were slight variants of regular characters, based on brief moments from the film.

Page design

Drew greatly from the Hot Wheels Wiki for inspiration. I will plan on writing out full documentation soon, but for now, here's some basic examples of what I've designed. Last month I put a lot of effort into the Supercharged page as a bit of proof-of-concept - with the "history" section I hoped to model the general level of detail I'd like to work on getting each and every Series page up to, eventually.

Series pages

Writing and researching obviously takes a lot of time, so I think it's wise to start small and work on cataloguing the bare essentials - Focusing on the core page content (i.e. the data) is probably ideal for the time being. Still, it wouldn't hurt to write quick intros for each to summarize some of the bare minimum:

• Series name and "meaning" or relevance (if there is one...)
• Design motif, what it shows and if possible, Mattel "behind-the-scenes" quotes on why choices were made
• Mention and link to other Collections introduced that same year
• Describe changes brought to the overall line (e.g. the Race O Rama Series replacing the traditional mainline designs with the "lenticular" eyes singles)

The focal point of Series pages should be a complete catalogue of each and every product, ideally organized by each individual "assortment" (identifiable using the five-digit "Asst." code on either the bottom or back of the package). Because of how many different elements need to be accounted for, we've been using a dedicated table design - At bare minimum, there's at least 4 data types that should be included:

• Toy #: Five-digit product code assigned by Mattel. These are found somewhere on the packaging (not to be confused with the Asst. code as mentioned above)
• Name: The name used for that model (as displayed on the packaging) for that particular release.
• Model photo: A "loose" (open) image of the model. As a general rule, please use the official ones provided by Mattel - photos from World of Cars BDD are free use and can also be used when the prototype image differs from the final product, or if the official one is simply not available.
• Packaging photo: Same as above but a carded photo of the car.

Cars Character Cars Assortment (L0545)

Toy #	Name	Model photo	Package photo
K4585	Radiator Springs McQueen

Some might get more complicated: Whenever relevant, note any series-specific features such as collector number or segment series.

Character Cars Assortment (M1054)

Toy #	Col. #	Name	Segment	Notes	Model photo	Package photo
L5251	01	Lightning McQueen	Piston Cup Racers	While first releases of this model were the same as in previous releases, later versions added the accurate ¨Rust-Eze¨ logo on the spoiler, discontinuing the previous model.

Series that have collector numbers (or "themes" collection numbers) should use that sorting by default, with all others being by the toy numbers - exempting the 2021 series onwards, which should be organized by the official checklist order (which itself is sorted based on segment series, i.e. which film/division they appear in)

Character pages

It’s also in best interest to track every model released for a particular character. Designing this table set was particularly grueling due to how many different things need to be accounted for - Not only do models have different names or artwork variations across different packaging series, often times the same model itself goes through many (sometimes major) production variants, which of course deserve to be properly documented.

Toy #	Col. #	Name	Series	Notes/variations	Model image	Packaging image
TBD	–	Leakless	Desert Art Original (2006)	Yellow paint scheme
		Leak Less	Supercharged (2006-07)
	49		World of Cars (2007-08)	Green-tinted paint scheme
		Leak Less No. 52	Race O Rama (2008-09)
				Lenticular eyes (first expression set)
			Drifting (2009-10)	Lenticular eyes (second expression set)
	4/14	Claude Scruggs	2016 (Piston Cup Collection)	Same as WOC/ROR version	File:LeakLess2015.jpg
	–		2020	Thailand variant; different mold and no eyelids

(Source: Claude Scruggs/Merchandise)

Participants

• RodRedlineM1 (talk)

Resources

Primary Mattel resources:

• From Silver Screen to Die-cast: Disney Pixar Cars Imagined by Mattel - A comprehensive 2011 museum exhibit held in partnership with the Petersen Automotive Museum. While a temporary event without much known video footage, luckily there's a decent amount of photo documentation to work with.
• 2009 and 2010 Collector Guide PDF scans courtesy of World of Cars BDD
• Cars: Ultimate Sticker Collection by DK. Features very rare promotional shots and, if it's possible to obtain a digital scan, could be an absolute goldmine.

Official website archives from 2013-2019:

• 2013
• 2014
• 2015
• 2016
• Spring 2017
• 2018-2019 (thanks @Carslikesninjago)
• Note: There used to be a German site back around 2009, that is sadly inaccessible due to Flash discontinuation – if it's somehow possible to recover content from this site, please let us know. Apart from World of Cars Online this was one of the only sources for official .PNG artwork renders, in addition to their own promo photos.

For product codes/descriptions:

• Mattel Customer Service - A semi-complete product database, straight from the source. Individual assortment items aren't always listed but most standalone items are.
• Pricecat.be - Open catalogue for currently sold products, stores data sheets uploaded by Mattel themselves
• Amazon has the best-quality promo images than I know of. Smythstoys also seems quite good.

Long-running fansites and forums:

• World of Cars BDD
• TakeFiveADay.com
• Carsthetoys on Tapatalk
• PixarCarsDiecast.com