4/8/2020 — #Hot Wheels iD, one of the coolest new lines of Hot Wheels to date broke onto the scene last year with line-exclusive, #ID5 Wheels, #Spectraflame Paint and a whole slew of cool castings. With 51 vehicles for 2019, it was announced that in 2020 we would see over 100. Collectors were ecstatic.
One of the best aspects of the #Hot Wheels iD line is that Amazon carries it, making ordering the releases you want extremely easy. Everything — with the exception of the store exclusives — was available via Amazon. I signed up for an Amazon Prime membership and have benefitted from the free 1 to 2-day shipping. This year it hasn’t been the case.
The first wave of #Hot Wheels iD was due out in March. Even the app was updated to include the new 2020 vehicles. Then, in April, we saw wave 2. Meanwhile, no physical cars to buy.
Well, I am fortunate to be in the position to be able to reach out to the iD-team directly to ask them what is up. They got back to me and said that wave 1 and wave 2 will be available via M&J Toys… a wholesaler in Los Angeles. A quick visit to their web site shows that the company is closed for the time being due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fortunately, it appears that some cases are getting out. I’m not sure if it’s through M&J directly, or what, but they are available through eBay. I was able to successfully order wave 1 by the case which amounted to $8.50/car. That may be expensive to some, especially if you don’t want all of the releases, but for those of us that do, it sure beats going out and hunting at this time — hunting what would have ultimately been a ghost at retail until wave 3.
I don’t have the exact reasoning as to why M&J was chosen to carry the first two waves domestically, but for all those of you that have been asking, you now have your answer as to where you can get the 2020 #Hot Wheels iD cars: eBay. Check with any of the other Southern California distributors — think of the ones that carry the “Mijo Exclusives” — and they may be able to get you some. This is your chance to support your small business, diecast distributors during this time. Happy (at home) Hunting! Below is the link where I bought my case from.
PURCHASE FULL CASE (2x each vehicle, 1x Rodger Dodger & 1x Night Burner)
2020 Hot Wheels ID WAVE 1: Tankful, Rodger Dodger, ’69 COPO Camaro, ’71 Lamborghini Miura SV, Night Burner, ’19 Acura NSX, Volkswagen T1-GTR, Twin Mill, and ’17 Nissan GTR (R35)
2020 Hot Wheels iD Wave 1
- Tankful (Speed Rigs)
- Rodger Dodger (Rod Squad)
- ’69 COPO Camaro (Factory Fresh)
- ’71 Lamborghini Miura SV (Factory Fresh)
- Night Burner (Nightburnerz)
- ’19 Acura NSX (HW Turbo)
- Volkswagen T1-GTR (Speed Rigs)
- Twin Mill (HW Metro)
- ’17 Nissan GT-R (R35) (HW Turbo)
To track #Hot Wheels iD for 2020, make sure you visit the OTD HWiD Tracker!
UPDATE 4/9/2020 — It is appearing more and more likely that wave 1 and wave 2 will be HOBBY EXCLUSIVE — meaning, they will be available through your favorite Hobby Dealers, not just M&J. Look for more details from your favorite hobby dealer as these become available to them, starting today.
Categories: News
ORANGE TRACK DIECAST 
If this is going to be my only choice, then it looks like my id collecting days are over. This place is charging $12.99-$18.99ea if you purchase them separately, $8.99ea, if you get them by the case, is even too much for me. I was able to get the complete 1st years line with the exception of the Audi R8, maybe one day I’ll break down and pay some insane price from someone on eBay. I even was able to find the first 3 mainline cars. I was wondering what was going on with the 2020 line up, thanks for the info.
Not your only choice, just right now. Retailers will get 2020 starting with wave 3.
So are these going to available via Amazon at any point?
It is my belief that yes, they will be back on Amazon… starting with wave 3.
This is a joke, right? Did they say it will only be available from M&J toys? Or that is it for now? Will Amazon and Target never get waves one and two of series 2?
If so, I am out as well. The biggest die cast car maker in the world can’t go through normal channels?
We were told the price was going to be dropping to $5 a car this year. So I can either go onto EBay and buy them all individually for 3x retail price, or I can buy a case and get them for $8.50 a car. But then I am getting duplicates of seven of the cars, which I have no need for. So I am actually going to pay $130 for 9 cars that I actually want?
Or I can wait for this M&J toys to come back. But I looked at their website. They are a wholesaler. Their website explicitly says there is a $300 minimum purchase.
Hopefully this is just incomplete information. If they won’t release them through normal channels, I will be done too. I have every car from series one, the first three chases, the smart track, and a separate portal. And I may have the most levels on the app of anyone. Who knows. I have like 100 cars at level 40.
Geez. I am overreacting. Hopefully this all gets cleared up and we can all get these cars normally. I don’t mind waiting if that’s what I have to do. The whole world is going through this craziness. I can wait. But I am not going to hemorrhage money to keep going on these things.
It doesn’t sound like Amazon/Target will get wave 1 & 2 — unless those retailers buy wholesale from M&J. Could we see the line at smaller “non-big-box” stores? Its possible. Keep in mind that other brand’s sell “Mijo Exclusives”, and Hot Wheels has done “Hobby Only” cases before. Is it weird that its the first two waves of the year? Yes. Considering where the world is at… weird is the new normal.
Pricing won’t be reduced until later this year.
So, not sure if it pays to wait. Ultimately, it’s up to you as it’s your money and your collection. If these end up being hobby only — on the more limited side — it is worth it. If these wind up everywhere else, then it’s not. Ultimately, I hope these are available on a broader scale. Clearly, I love being able to find these on Amazon for retail price. These will suffice for now.
“… they will be available through your favorite Hobby Dealers…”
“ If these end up being hobby only — on the more limited side — it is worth it.”
As someone who is recently returned to the world of die cast collecting, after being away for about 40 years, can I ask you to expand on this a little? I don’t have a “favorite hobby dealer” and I’m not even really sure what qualifies as one. My sources are the national chains, and a few indie toy stores that tell me Mattel barely acknowledges their existence and is painful to work with. Is there some other tier, perhaps stores that specialize in scale vehicles and move enough product to keep Mattel interested, that I should be looking for? Does anyone reading this have any favorite stores in southern New England?
Hobby Dealers include (but aren’t limited to): Jcar Diecast, 1StopDiecast, A&J Toys. I heard at least one of these might be getting these in. You’ll have to inquire with them on pricing.
Brad, you call a&j a wholesaler. I’ve never bought anything at wholesale that wasn’t less expensive than retail. I call them an eBay reseller with a website. I obviously don’t know you, but I am surprised you help support this. If this sells well through a&j ,hot wheels/Mattel will think this was a good idea and do it again. Therefore screwing collectors once again. Support your local businesses, not resellers
Let me clarify a couple things.
First, its M&J which is a wholesaler… A&J is a Hobby Dealer. You can’t buy direct from a wholesaler so you’ll need to find a Hobby Dealer with pricing that works for you. I don’t have one locally so in buying from one I always have to account for shipping. Some collectors are lucky to have them locally and can go to the shop to pick up their items. They sell the cases they offer at retail (or sometimes less), but the can’t allow collectors to cherry-pick all the good stuff at retail prices as they don’t have the casual consumer coming in to clear out anything that is left by the collectors. So… that’s why you generally see them offering individual items at what they deem as market-price.
The links I posted were for the people that wanted links to buy now. There are a lot of people that just want the product and will pay a couple bucks more to get it now, not having to go out and hunt given the current climate. I will also post links when any product is available at retail.
What happened with buying them at Target, like we used to?
Target, Amazon, Walmart will all carry the line this year… no idea what waves and when.
I got the feeling they didn’t sell that well. I don’t know of anyone who bought the track set. MJ might be a “last-trench“ sales outlet for HWid. I hope I’m wrong. I bought a bunch of HWid when Target sold them for $3.99 last Holiday season. I’m not willing to pay $8.00 or more for them, as much as I like them.
I don’t get that its a “last-trench sales outlet” scenario. I get the impression that these were just meant to be “hobby exclusive” waves.
Brad,
Is M&J for business users only? Just tried registering and it’s asking for company/tax details etc…
Do you know?
I’ve got my 51 cars from 2019, happy with that! Hang in there boys and girls trough this difficult time! Stay healthy all!
I would be perfectly fine with doing away with the silly boxes – maybe it could bring the price down a tad? I actually really love the carded ID cars that are coming in the regular cases but I understand those are “chases” and Mattel won’t sell all ID cars like that. Maybe some sort of in-between “premium” packaging?
That’s disappointing news for sure. Amazon made it soooo nice to be able to order most of the cars. My closest Target is 45 miles away and I don’t get there very often. Even less now. I will choose to play the waiting game on these to see how it shakes out. Thank you Brad for the update on the ID cars.
I might be tempted to get these as whole cases, but I’m also still waiting for the Audi R8 LMS to show up at any of the Targets near me.
Unrelated: They’re releasing a second Mystery Machine?
i’m disappointed. hobby only means we most likely won’t see these for less than $9. i stand to be corrected, but that’s my gut feeling unless these end up on Amazon and big box stores. the fact that Walmart will be carrying them in the future is good news, but i digress. my son and i were looking forward to a lot of the newer cars from wave 1 & 2, but if prices are $9-$20 as those ebay listing suggest, looks like i’m passing on them.
This is just plain stupid. Target is selling the current cars for 5 bucks. And selling well. We’ve been conditioned to buy them but we have to go to ebay? Screw that. Retail.
Sorry, when this is the way for Mattel and Hot Wheels, what is with the EU customers? I pay 8 Euro at amazon, so why should I pay overpriced ebay scalper prices, shipping to the EU and customs?! No way I will pay that for cars like this?
Yeah I’m pretty salty about this and I don’t normally get worked up about eBay resellers but $15 for a Tankful ID is just stupid. I’m refusing to buy like a lot of others I see. 3 sellers right now and they’re all within a penny of each other on price after shipping. I’d expect more communication from Mattel if these were intended to be hobby shop exclusives. Seems more like an afterthought than the original strategy. I guess Amazon wouldn’t take the stock since they’re prioritizing home goods right now.
I started collecting Hot Wheels because of HWid and intended to continue, but this is BS and Mattel just lost a customer. I’m not rewarding this behavior and I hope someone from Mattel reads your blog and sees that I’m not the only one.
What part is BS? Can you elaborate?
Not offering Wave 1 and 2 through already-established retail outlets is BS, especially in the midst of this outbreak when people are increasingly reliant upon major online retailers. Maybe this is something Mattel does periodically and I’m just too new to the hobby to understand, but I’m not playing this game. Kudos to the people who have the time and money to do so, but I can’t help but wonder how many potential customers Mattel alienates by doing stuff like this.
I was ticked off by the hard,to get exclusives, but there were three clear outlets, now suddenly these are Hobby only after teasing the price point was going down, nope its going up and they have these two waves all over my phone, it’s b.s.,I’m tired of this hobby exclusive crap making it hard,for collectors. Don’t get me started on the Wal-Mart car available at the 2020 events, that’s right they sell a bone shaker at the events. None in my state, a little state, Illinois. It’s time to be mad about this.
Now we have to go through two middlemen which drives up the price. On top of that, most of us don’t have hobby dealers we can go to in person so now there’s shipping involved. Mattel knows how to lose customers. Why not just stick with the normal distribution channels?!?
1stopdiecast has “P” & “Q” assortments available for preorder. Kind of expensive to buy by the case but still less than 8 bucks a car shipped. I dont really collect many of them but thought I would pass it along.
While I’m a big fan of Mattel diecast vehicle products of all kinds, the company does have a habit of shooting itself in the foot in terms of HW availability strategy. This HWid fiasco is just the latest example. Another one is the recent availability of the Door Slammers premium line in UK retail shops (just before the covid lockdown). There are loads of premium mini-series, and Door Slammers in the UK was clear evidence that the collecting base will snap these up pronto in UK retail shops. So why supply only the Door Slammers to the hungry UK collecting hordes? Why not also JH3, Boulevard, and Retro Entertainment, for example? Is Mattel in business to make money, or isn’t it? Glad I’m not a shareholder…
I really don’t know what Mattel is thinking. ID is a fledgling line that from all appearances is struggling (tons of cars from season 1 still at Target, unsold track sets and portals). The cars that have sold are probably 90% purchased by collectors as opposed to kids because they are too expensive. But we all know that collectors alone CAN carry a line so what does Mattel do? Alienates the collector base by releasing the second season as a hobby shop exclusive! I guess if Mattel tried really hard to make a worse decision they could have come up with something but I don’t know what it would be. As a complete-ist I don’t mind going to ebay or TTP for a few “store exclusives”. But the whole first and second waves? I’m really not feeling it.
Typical of Mattel, they seem to be catering more and more to eBay sellers and scalpers. I have pretty much stopped buying any HWs except a couple castings that I collect. Unfortunately, Rodger Dodger is one of two castings that I still collect. I was looking forward to getting the new gold one, but I will not pay $30, including shipping, that eBay sellers are asking. I guess it is a good time to stop collecting. Maybe if enough stop buying Mattel will change, but I doubt it.
Looks like I will stop collecting the ID cars if I have to purchase them from hobby dealers at inflated prices !
There are a couple of these that look really nice to me. The higher price and shipping fee don’t seem like a good idea that this time. Hope these eventually show up on Amazon or at Target.
Gotta love the eBayers who start out at double+ the price. They sell a bunch really quick, then relist it, raising the price higher, as they know the original listing went fast.
Hotwheels/ Mattel forget collectors outside the USA. They tempted us with wave 1 of 2019 id release through Apple stores , but after that Australian collectors can’t get these unless we pay through the nose for shipping from amazon, and certainly no store exclusives unless we pay pay pay some reseller. Although beautiful Have given up on them as I can’t justify the cost.