I'm going broke collecting FREE Cars!
I can't believe there is another Free Car Promo.
Texaco Gas Stations and Texaco/Havoline Racing have teamed up with Electronic Arts, makers of Need for Speed.
WOW! Like I said before, 2001 has been a great year for collecting 1:64 promo cars attached to product.
I won't even mention the Kellogg's Proof of Purchase promo since there are so many cars that you don't have to wait to have.
First, there were the 5 cars peeking through cellophane windows of Wheaties, Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios and Golden Grahams.
The Dodge cars hit shelves before the infamous season opener at Daytona.
Then there were the 2 Excedrin cars shrink wrapped to various 100 count Excedrin products.
When the 5 cars, blister packed with 8 AA RedCell batteries became available, that brought the count to 12 different NASCAR stockers.
Bayer Consumer Care Products released several different paint schemes of the same car.
These were also shrinkwrapped with the product and concurrent with a $4.50 mail-in rebate.
(I'm confused because there are 5 products on the rebate, but I've only found 4 paint schemes, Bayer Aspirin, Aleve, Alka-Seltzer Heartburn, and Regular.)
Now, the reason for this Special Issue.
Texaco has teamed up with EA Need for Speed to offer 5 diecast cars and 5 Porsches to race ala Mille Miglia on computer.
For $2.99 with a $10.00 purchase (doesn't have to be gas?), you get a beautiful boxed Action car with a PC Game CD.
The promotion is supposed to last from 5/28 to 7/30, but I was able to get my hands on a couple of cars early.
There are 2 paint schemes on an Indy car and 3 paint schemes for the Texaco/Havoline Racing #28.
One example of each car is a Need for Speed paint job.
I have the #28 Special Havoline Race Car (left or above) and Custom Texaco Race Car (right) IRL Need for Speed paint scheme.
My IRL car has no number, but it has Texaco, Havoline, and the Star, Need for Speed, and EA Games on the Black and Red with White striped paint.
The bottom has molded in air diverters, and engine skid plate, but is pretty flat otherwise.
The Action logo, CART logo and TM 2001 CLP, and Made in China 1/64 Reynard are also molded into the bottom.
Plastic suspension pieces cover the metal axles, but are not very detailed.
The car has chrome wheels mounted with rubber Firestone Firehawk tires!
The plastic seat has details like the 5-point harness and neck relief, but the steering wheel is a molded in part of the seat and not as detailed.
The front wing is cast with many aerodynamic humps, fins and winglets.
The rear wing seens to be a seperate piece, but it is very stable, and is also cast with some details.
The side pods have air inlets, and outlets at the rear, with venturiis cast into the tops and sides.
Even the roll bar is cast so you can see through it, unlike some toys I've seen.
All in all, this is a very nice car and I'm impressed with it.
The paint is nice, and covers well without obliterating the finer cast details.
The only bad spot was some black showing inside the cockpit.
The graphics are nice and crisp and you can easily read the Havoline on the nose, even though the "H" is only .03 inches tall!
When you look at the graphics with a loupe, you can see some problems, but the naked eye sees a really nice job, so I won't complain at all.
Ricky Rudd's #28 Special Havoline Race car is a nice car too.
The bottom is the usual nicely detailed part you expect from an Action Die Cast.
The front suspension, engine components, rear axle and fuel cell are all there.
It is a plastic part, so the details can be molded with more detail than a die cast piece.
There is the Action logo, Made in China and 2000 Taurus used under license molded in.
These tires and wheels are one-piece plastic parts, but the Goodyear Eagle in yellow, and stock car type wheels look good.
The interior is molded in red plastic, and has all the roll bars and side cage bars you could want.
There is even some extra roll cage detail going through the middle.
Driver side net, fire extinguisher, driver cooling system, steering wheel and seat are all there.
One thing, if that's supposed to be the shifter, it almost looks like one of those "Big Daddy Roth Hurst shifter" cartoons.
I seem to have a partial fingerprint smudge on the rear deck of the interior, talk about picky, but in the right light, it really shows!
The body is classic Taurus, roof rails and flaps, even the fuel entry and overflows are detailed.
Clear glass has ridges for the stiffeners, but they are clear too, and not painted.
It is also thick and distorted enough to make it difficult to view the details in the interior.
The paint job is good, maybe a little heavy on the front, obscuring some of the air inlet details.
The fading in of the silver paint was done well, especially considering the size of the model.
Graphics are very nice, looks like all the little decals in front of and behind the front wheels are there.
Headlight and Ford decals as well as the secondary sponsors like Raybestos and Xpress Lube are there.
The Havoline graphics feature three pistons, seemingly in motion below the bright yellow Havoline and the Texaco Star.
And of course, there's Ricky's autograph over the windows.
Again a very nice car.
I can't wait till I can get ahold of the other three!
Maybe for grins, I'll compare the Texaco #28 and the CART #6 with pictures posted on the Texaco Racing site when I get them.
Well, now there are at least 21 promo cars available this year, and it's still only May!
What a year.
In the next issue, I will get back to my collection.
The Shell series of 3 cars, Interstate Batteries NASCAR, Shell Busch Grand National and Shell Indy car.
So stay tuned, more pictures are available on the website, let me know if there is something else I should include in my site and Newsletter.
Check out my other WebPages at http://members.safepages.com/genesis_art/INDEX.HTM.
You'll see my other loves and hobbies (including my wife and her art, my guitars and digital camera, HO slotcars and trains and my shareware ScaleCalculator program, and other things.)
Well, now you know what this newsletter is all about.
If you like it, let other people know, if you don't like it and you want to get off my mail list, send a response email to me with the subject = "REMOVE"
