Super Find

When I attended the September 18, 2010 Kmart Hot Wheels Collectors' event, I was naturally hoping to come away with a coveted "Super" Treasure Hunt car. As it turned out, I had to content myself with the standard Treasure Hunt -- a lime green '69 Ford Mustang. Considering that not every box contained a Treasure Hunt car, I was thankful just to get one. The ironic part is that in my pre-event excitement the day before, I had stumbled quite unexpectedly across a Super of a different model -- the Shelby Cobra "Daytona" Coupe. I had visited nearly every store within a 30 mile radius that carried Hot Wheels -- Walmarts, Targets, Kmarts, Toys 'R Us, Dollar Generals, Big Lots, Walgreens, you name it -- but there were still a few places which I hadn't visited or was unaware of. The day before the Collectors' Event, I decided to visit a nearby Kroger grocery that, for whatever reason, I had never found the time to case out. They had a nice selection of cars there, but nothing I needed, so I decided to drive to a nearby Walmart in case they had received any new shipments. That's when I spotted a Scott's grocery store to which I had somehow managed to remain oblivious despite all the times I had driven past it. I was running late but decided that there was no time like the present to check it out. They had a large bin of Hot Wheels too, so I began methodically taking the cars out and stacking them up on the floor. I'm sure the employees of these stores must think I'm nuts, watching me empty their bins and then carefully rearranging the cars I decide not to buy. Hey, I used to work in a store, so I can't help it if like to leave displays neater than when I arrived. As I searched, I came across a car I didn't recognize -- the orange Shelby Cobra. In all my Hot Wheels research, I hadn't even bothered to memorize the Treasure Hunt cars, but I knew all the others, so this one immediately stood out. It was the standard version, but a Treasure Hunt all the same. Before my discovery even had time to sink in, I looked down at the next handful I had grabbed from the bin and discovered the same car, but in what appeared to be copper-colored paint. Except the illustration on the package was exactly the same as for the orange one. "Oh... my... God," I thought, "It's a Super." Super Treasure Hunt cars have spectraflame paint, of course, so this was apparantly as close to orange as they could make it. And they are about as rare as hens' teeth, or so I hear. There I was, on the day before the Collectors' Event, holding a Super. I wound up purchasing both the regular and Super versions just to illustrate the differences between the two. But the best part was knowing that no matter what happened at Kmart the next morning, I had already been as fortunate as any Hot Wheels collector can hope to be.