Happy Birthday to me! Today, we celebrate together as I bring you a Speed Machines Ferrari 599XX 4-Pack! Throughout the day, the articles will post so make sure you keep checking back for the other parts of this 4-part series.

Right now, I present the first release of the Ferrari 599XX. The 2010 Speed Machines line brought us the first overall release of this casting and its based off of a real race car at that! The real car had a base price of $1.5 Million while the nicely-detailed Hot Wheels Speed Machines version retailed for around $3 at various retailers. These seemed plentiful back in 2010, as was the case for most of the first waves of the Speed Machines line. It was a mere 5 years ago and collectors were not fancied by the line so they sat on the pegs hooks not allowing for future waves to be stocked. This ultimately led to the line’s discontinuation in the USA in 2011. That meant that future waves would still be released internationally and at non-big-box stores domestically making them increasingly harder to find.

Since the red Ferrari shown below was plentiful, the price to obtain this car in the secondary market was rather cheap in the $7-10 (carded) range. That all changed in 2015 as it was rumored that Mattel lost the license with Ferrari to produce its vehicles. The precedent had already been set a couple years earlier when Mattel had lost the license with Bugatti to produce its 2003 version of the Bugatti Veyron. These instantly became very collectible as collectors for these cars seemed to come out of the woodwork. As was the case with the Bugatti, collectors began salivating at the next “hot-thing” and that was the Ferraris–more specifically the ones that weren’t released in higher quantities. This red Ferrari went from the $7-10 carded range to the $27-$45 range almost instantly. This had me thinking. If the demand/price of the red Ferrari that was relatively easy to find jumped that drastically, what about proceeding releases…

RELEASE DETAILS: Red Enamel Body with Gloss Black Roof (metal). Clear Windows. Black Interior. Red-Rimmed, Black Co-Mold 6-Spoke (CM6) Wheels. Black Base (plastic). Made in Malaysia. Toy# R8477. Released in 2010 as part of the Speed Machines line.