Mystery Mystery

Immediately after the Kmart Hot Wheels Collectors' Event on September 18, 2010, I drove to a nearby Meijer store to pick up a few sale items. And yes, I checked their Hot Wheels display. Again. Granted, it was hard to work up the enthusiasm to do so after coming off the high of going through freshly shipped boxes with all kinds of new and exclusive cars in them, but there are still a few 2010 cars I'm looking for, and you never know what you'll find. As it turned out, I got incredibly lucky. They hadn't received any new shipments, but I just happened to spot a Ford Mustang Fastback that had escaped previous detection. It was hanging in the wrong aisle all by itself, which is just one more reason to glance around the rest of the toy department when you've finished going through the main display. I also bought a "Mystery" car which turned out to be a mystery in itself. I had seen the car in question on the rack during my last visit to the store but had decided not to get it. I didn't recognize it from the peephole view but knew it wasn't any of the models I was missing. Upon seeing it this time, I thought, "What the heck," and bought it anyway. It turned out to be a "Sooo Fast" as pictured above. The thing is that this model has never been a Mystery car, not to mention that the purple/pale purple version was a 2008 release. So how did it get in a 2010 Mystery car package? The way I figure it, there are only two possibilities. Someone at the factory deliberately put this car in with the others to be packaged or (more likely) someone bought a 2010 Mystery Car, took it out of the box, inserted an older car from their collection, re-glued the package, and returned it. In retrospect, the package did tear open a little too easily. Of course, the latter explaination would make more sense if the car were dusty, scratched or showed signs of wear. But it doesn't. It's clean, rolls well, and any flaws in the paint aren't serious enough to make me think they definitely aren't factory. And then, of course, I have to wonder what the person's motivation was for returning a perfectly good car. To get their dollar back? Sure, in this economy hanging on to every dollar is important, but why suddenly decide to part with a car that was willingly purchased two years before and has nothing wrong with it? It doesn't make a lot of sense, but there it is. However I came by it, I've welcomed the car to my collection -- the only true mystery in my Mystery fleet.