9/12/2019 — Phoenix brought the heat — literally — as temperatures last Saturday, September 7th at the Hot Wheels Legends Tour Event exceeded 110˚F. Despite the heat, that didn’t discourage a crowd of thousands of Hot Wheels enthusiasts from coming out. Since I live in the Phoenix metroplex, I headed out to this year’s Walmart location in Tempe. This year I had a surprise for the attendees as I passed out two different collector trading cards, complete with variant checklists on the back — both of which were limited to 500.
OTD / Hot Wheels TRADING CARDS at the Phoenix Legends Tour Event at Walmart in Tempe, AZ on September 7, 2019
The cards were of the green Legends Tour ’71 Datsun Bluebird 510 Wagon and the Captain America Character Car. The Datsun was an obvious choice for the event, and the Captain America car was chosen because Hot Wheels Designer, Bryan Benedict was one of the judges for the event — and this is his design.
Speaking of the judges, in addition to Bryan, Mattel also sent out Hot Wheels Graphic Designer, Mario Godoy who currently works on the Monster Trucks and MarioKart lines — and is formerly a Phoenix resident. Former NBA player, and current Phoenix Suns Assistant Coach Steve Blake was there, along side a nationally-syndicated talk show host, automotive blogger, and two Walmart associates.
Hot Wheels and Walmart loaded the event with tons of Hot Wheels product which included a whole “action alley” of the store with Hot Wheels merchandise. Fresh cases — despite already being cut open and raided by a local collector — were brought out starting at 7:30AM, and the Vending Machine line was over 100 people long. Hot Wheels also brought four 1:1 scale cars with them including the Deora II, ’67 Camaro, Bone Shaker and the Gas Monkey Garage ’68 “Midas Monkey” Corvette.
When it was all said and done, Ronald How earned himself a trip to SEMA in Las Vegas with his “Two Cool” ’71 Volkswagen Squareback as he was the winner of the custom car show. Him and his son, custom built the drive train when the placed dual air-cooled engines in the front of this VW. The car definitely embodied everything the event is about, and personally was one of my top 5 as well. Ronald’s prize package that included a Legends Bone Shaker “Winner’s Award” which is also shown below.
There are so many custom cars that show up to these events and the cool thing is that there is something for everyone. The diverse selection of wild vehicles is what makes this car show so cool. If you have a Hot Wheels Legends Event coming to a town near you, you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already. With that said, I will leave you with some of my personal favorites from the event. Enjoy!
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Fresh cases that were opened and raided by a collector. Na that is a selfish scalper. This is supposed to be a community even. No respect for others.
Walmart should have never let that happen. Shame on you Walmart !
😎 article BRAD. Those are 2 really nice trading cards you showed. I bought 2 of the RLC Captain America’s. My youngest daughter talked me out of 1 of them. I also have a few retail level issues from retail stores like WALMART. My favorite is the RLC one. Especially with all the cardart on the box. I was very surprised it stayed in the shop so long. Maybe you can get MATTEL to start a trading card series. The cards have to be sealed in plastic to keep collectors from opening them and cherry picking. Similar to mystery cars. You cannot tell what you got till you open the pack(s).Cannot wait to hear how far this goes. Start with the Gassers. Also all the custom cars are 😎 to. Thanks for sharing BRAD.