CB's Die Cast Review: June 2, 1999
the first six cars of the
1999 Final Run Series
These cars represent the best decorative work Mattel has ever done on the basic car line.
Ever. Not just from the past few years, but from day one. Mattel has produced a
reported quantity of 50,000 pieces of each of the castings for this series, and destroyed all
tooling. While the cars are nicely packaged in 30th Anniversary style boxes, it
is the workmanship on the cars themselves that grabs your attention. All of the cars are
intricately detailed, and many of them have two-color paint schemes, with crisp paint line
separations. All have multi-colored tampos, with at least one of the print colors of a
metallic nature. With the exception of the Street Roader, all of the cars ride on
either Real Riders or Pro Circuit wheels. The cars do not have collector numbers, but each
is a specific model in a series of twelve.
This set is exceptionally done. One could question why these cars in particular where chosen.
The debut dates for the cars are as follows: Mercedes 380 SEL, 1982; Street Beast, 1991;
Street Roader, 1989; Stutz Blackhawk, 1980; Pontiac Salsa, 1993; Mercedes 540K,
1982. Only three of these are older than ten years, and there are many castings in the line that
are at least as old and frequently used. Some that come to mind are: Large Charge/Silver
Bullet and P-911, 1975; Corvette Stingray and Neat Streeter, 1976; `31
Doozie and `57 Chevy, 1977; `57 T-Bird, 1978; 3-Window 34 and 40s Woodie,
1980; `67 Camaro, 1983. All of these popular castings are older than most of the chosen F/R
cars, but I doubt you'll see any of these retired in the near future.
This set of cars is the best in regard to the basic line since the 1995 and 1996 Treasure
Hunt series, and a case could be made that they exceed that quality level as well. The second
set of cars (Range Rover, Kenworth T600A, `93 Camaro, Custom Corvette, Tank Truck and Alien)
are supposed to be out near the end of the summer and, if this is any indication, those cars will be great.
When Mattel announced that
it was going to officially retire castings, and issue a closing production run under a new
series banner named "Final Run," I'm sure more than a few people felt that this was another
gimmick to help sell basic castings. Well, whoever thought up the idea of a Final
Run series was brilliant enough to plan for highly detailed decorative schemes and the
utilization of two-piece wheels. The first six of twelve Final Run series cars
have started to appear on the market, and they truly are a sight to behold.
The Mercedes 380 SEL (Stock# 21340) is Car #2 and carries the darkest scheme in the group.
The body is painted in the dark metallic purple over black that first appeared on last year's `65
Impala Lowrider and this year's `99 Mustang. The metal chassis is painted in gloss
black enamel. The interior is black plastic, and the glass has a deep smoke tint, so it's very
difficult to see the doggie in the window! The headlight/grill piece is in chrome. The car
rides on Pro Circuit tires with six-spoke wheels molded in a dark purple that matches the paint.
A basic paint scheme, but is the additional effort that catches your eye. The turn signals,
taillights and backup lights were masked and painted amber, red and white respectively. The
headlight windshield wipers and their mounting plates are masked and painted black. Silver
stripe tampos run down the sides from the nose to the rear doors. An F/R logo is tamped on the
back window in silver. The coolest tampo on the car is the rear vanity license plate in silver,
white and black, which has "99" in the upper left corner, "21340" in the upper right corner, and
"AVTZAYN" across the face. I assume this is a phonetic abbreviation for "Auf Wiedersehen,"
a typical German goodbye. This has always been one of my favorite castings, and while I wish
the car were lighter in color and scheme, it is well done nonetheless.
Car #4 is the Street Beast (Stock# 21342), which never has been a favorite of mine.
But, this baby is something to see! The upper metal body sports a two-tone paint job - white with
a hint of silver on top of the hood, trunk and around the seats, and metallic copper elsewhere.
The torpedo taillights are painted red with silver trim. The interior and lower sides are gold
plastic, the same color as in the `65 Impala FE. The windshield is clear plastic.
The chassis is bright zinc-plated metal, and rides on chrome wheel Real Riders with thin white walls.
The F/R logo is tamped on the hood in gold, while the name of the car is tamped in an ornate lettering
in black over a gold-tamped convertible roof cover. As I stated earlier, the paint separation lines
are so crisp that it makes you wonder what happened to the blue and white Aurora GTS from this
year's First Editions. This is by far the best scheme ever on this casting, and puts the 1998
Treasure Hunt version to shame. Is this the first version of this car to utilize Real Riders?
Too bad if it is, as the car looks good riding on these wheels. Mattel notes on the back of the
package that this casting also was released under the names `50's Dream Car and Swingfire.
The Street Roader (Stock# 21343) checks in as Car #5, and is the only one of the six not to sport
two-piece wheels, the reason being Mattel has no extra-large two-piece wheel. This does not detract
from the overall appearance of the model. The body is painted in red metallic and carries extensive
flame scallop graphics tamped in orange and white on the hood and sides. The metal chassis is
painted gloss black and carries a white plastic interior. The windshield is clear plastic.
The headlights on the body are painted out in black. On the hood is tamped the name of the casting
and this vehicle in particular - Michael's Lil Firecracker - in orange and white on a black field.
Also tamped on the hood is the F/R logo in gold. The name of the vehicle also is tamped on the door
and rollbar sides. On the tailgate is another gold-tamped F/R logo over a black field.
The extra-large construction tires are of the sawblade hub variety, with the hubs painted in white.
On each tire wall around the circumference of the hub is twice tamped "FINAL RUN" along with two F/R round
heralds. Although this car rides on "basic" wheels, it carries the most tampo colors, with four.
The Stutz Blackhawk (Stock# 21344) has to be seen in person to be truly appreciated. The body
of Car #6 is painted in some form of white metallic - more as if a transparent white had some silver
mixed in. This paint looks outstanding - better than the normal pearl white - and almost gives
the appearance of white marble! But, it's not just the paint that makes the car. An intricate
pattern of diamonds is tamped on the hood, trunk and sides. These diamond fields are outlined in
a gold pinstripe. A small F/R logo is tamped in black on the nose of the hood. The name
of the casting is tamped in gold script lettering on the bottom of both doors. The side upper-front
marker lights are tamped in amber with gold trim, while the rear side markers are tamped in red with gold
trim. The interior is white plastic, and the glass has a smoked tint. The metal chassis is
painted gold, with the headlights and radiator grill painted silver, and the turn signals painted amber.
The car rides on gold chrome hubbed Real Riders with thin white walls.
The nice thing about white interiors is that you can see all the detail - there are details in this interior
I never noticed before! This car is the best of the first six, and you don't realize many of the
features unless you take it out of the package. The pictures posted here, and elsewhere online,
do not do this car justice. What looks like white enamel paint in the pics is anything but.
This is another car wearing its finest scheme.
Car #7 is the Pontiac Salsa (Stock# 21345), the first casting of the Demolition Man series to be retired,
and ironically one of the least-used. This version is painted in deep yellow enamel, and rides on
a black plastic interior/chassis piece. The rollbar, windshield, rear engine cover and headlights
are beautifully masked in gloss black enamel. The front compartment is outlined in a black pinstripe
tampo, and has an F/R logo tamped in white, black and gold. The "SALSA" name is tamped in white at
the top of the windshield. The taillights are perfectly masked in a red-orange semi-gloss color.
A "LASTSALSA99" banner tamped in black, white and gold adorns the back between the taillights.
The car rides on Pro Circuit wheels with six-spoke yellow plastic hubs. I wish that the color of
the wheels had more of an orange tint, but this is a minor detail. This car never looked this
good. Interestingly, this is the first time I noticed the name of the casting molded into the base.
The classic Mercedes 540K (Stock# 21347) is Car #9 in the series, and carries an exquisite white
enamel and maroon metallic two-tone paint scheme, with the fender areas carrying the maroon color.
The plastic interior is the common tan, and the windshield is clear plastic. The roof is molded
in a metallic maroon plastic, which is just a shade lighter than the fenders. The grill and
headlight section is gold chrome, with the headlight faces painted silver. The metal chassis
is painted gold. The body carries gold pinstripe tampos on the hood, trunk, fenders and sides.
An F/R logo is tamped in black and gold on each door. The door handles, and the turn signals atop
each front fender, are painted gold. Vanity plate "540FINLRN" is tamped in black and white on the
edge of the rear bumper. The car rides on Pro Circuit wheels with gold chrome six-spoke hubs.
Tastefully done, and much more worthy of limited edition status than the Treasure Hunt version from earlier
in the year. There have been some excellent renditions of this casting, such as the 1994 FAO Schwarz
and 60th European Anniversary versions. This one ranks up there with them.
As stated earlier, the cars are packaged in the same style of box used for the 30th Anniversary
series. The interior silver sleeve is nicely designed to hold the card snugly. The bottom
of the blister card is still taped to the sleeve, and you have to remove the tape carefully in order not
to damage the card. The back of the box features pictures of some past paint schemes of the
featured car, as well as a small picture roster of the series. The back of the blister card
contains a similar design. On the box flaps are those now ubiquitous "Not returnable if opened"
stickers. The standard blister card front has a black series stripe with "1999 FINAL RUN" in
silver and the "#X of 12" in red. In the red stripe underneath, it says "Retiring Model" instead
of "Limited Edition." The box has the standard "made in China, Malaysia or Thailand as marked," but
all of the first six were maunfactured in Malaysia.
