You never know when little tidbits of collector knowledge will pop up. We are well into the 2014 Hot Wheels year, but some news on a very hard-to-find 2013 model has just emerged.
We love our wheel variations here at Lamley, and one of the best of 2013 was the tan Toyota Truck with Off-Road 6-spoke (OR6sp) wheels. As far as we had heard, the rare vari had been found in Puerto Rico, but we hadn't confirmed any other location.
That is until we heard from Lamley friend Shawn Hill from up yonder in Canada. He sent me a photo of a few of the Toyota variations that he found, and our interest was piqued. All in all, Shawn, who is a vari nut himself, found six of the elusive pickup. Thankfully he was feeling generous and we were able to work out a trade to send a couple to Lamley.
They just arrived, and we decided to open one for your pleasure. Enjoy Shawn's retelling of how he found them, check out the pics, and you Canadians get off your duff and go find more of these...
From Shawn:
To live in the nation's capital is to live in a fantastic haven for little car hunting. Boasting 8 WalMarts in the greater Ottawa area (as well as a healthy amount of large grocery stores) and a very small collector community, this city will yield cool finds for the dedicated hunter.
I am a big fan of Treasure Hunt cars as well as muscle cars, service vehicles and JDM/Euro sports rides but my favorite thing to find is the wheel variation! Even if it is not a preferred casting of mine, if the wheels are different than usual, it goes in the cart! My favorite wheel vari I have found is the black wheeled tan 87 Toyota Pickup mainly because when I posted it on some of the larger Facebook groups, no other collectors had seen it. It is rare. It is cool and I found 6 of them.
Oddly enough, I found a couple at Target. This is odd because Target does not restock regularly, if at all. I found 2 on the pegs at once in the company of one regular silver star rimmed model. The other place I found my 87s was Loblaws, a large chain of Canadian grocery stores with a hit or miss selection of Hot Wheels. One Loblaws puts out a case per month or so while the other Loblaws where I found an 87 vari had supposedly discontinued their toy section. As always, when you decide at the last minute to check a spot you are sure will yield nothing, something cool arises. In this Loblaws case, the vari was in the company of 2 regularly wheeled models.
Did the production line run out of silver rims and slap on the black ones at the last minute? Was it a calculated move by Mattel to put out something rare for those of us in the know to hunt? Who knows. As long as little cars keep hitting the pegs, I will be hunting these HTF varies. Please share if you have found the black wheeled 87 Toyotas as well!Hot Wheels '87 Toyota Truck OF6sp variation (2013 Mainline):
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