Originally posted on January 16th, 2017.
Ok, hopefully you made it through my previous post (1 of 1 Awesome Finds); I know it was a little long but I wanted to provide some background about my hunting habits. On the same night as finding the Batcave with the black Batman Hot Rod, I made an even more thrilling discovering over at the Brier Creek Target. This is actually a pretty cool place on occasion – I first found the Heroes of the Resistance 5-Pack (notable for including Maz), the Imaginext White Tigerzord, the Pink Ranger’s Pterodactyl Zord, and probably a few other new or rare PlaySkool / Imaginext toys.
The title gives it all away, but there it was, plain as day: the long awaited 2-pack with Jedi Luke and the Rancor!!!!! We found out about these some time ago, back when the new packaging debuted and cars like Jawa and the Death Trooper 2-pack came out; in fact, Luke and Rancor were pictured on the back of the Death Trooper / Stormtrooper 2-pack card. So we waited and hunted and searched and browsed without a trace. (However, it did lead me to the Rancor Rumble trackset which includes the Gamorrean Guard exclusive.) Even now, just over a week after my initial discovery, the set still isn’t appearing on eBay or Amazon.
They had 2 sets so I snatched up both. I wish I was part of some sort of community where I could use this as some prime trade-bait. I had hoped to trade this for the Bossk 2-pack but the seller was uninterested. At any rate, it should fetch some decent cash to soften the blow.
Overall, these cars are pretty damn cool and probably among the best looking of the series.
Luke and Rancor
“There’s a monstrous machine tearing up the streets! It’s going to take the power of a Jedi to stop this beast in its tracks.”
“The sleek, black sports car commands the road with the unwavering control of Jedi Luke Skywalker. Luke’s glowing green Lightsaber extends around the front and through the side rocker panels, igniting the road while propelling the vehicle to lightspeed. But roaring right on its tail with the brute force of a Rancor is the beastly dump truck. Its enormous grille is filled with the creature’s razor-sharp teeth, ready to chomp up its prey and add new bones to the collection overflowing from the truck bed.”
“The Force may be strong with the sports car, but is it powerful enough to defeat the monster when they face off on four wheels?”
I must admit that I grow weary of Luke’s depiction as an X-Wing pilot. So many toys and representations feature Luke in his flight suit, and that’s just not the Luke I think of. My mind typically goes towards his cool and composed look in Return of the Jedi – the all black, the robot hand, the green lightsaber – that is Luke Skywalker to me. To a lesser extent I remember him in his moisture-farmer garb, but I still feel like his ROTJ appearance is the embodiment of the character (at least for now; Episodes VIII and IX could change that).
And because of all that, I bought the Throne Room Raceway trackset without any hesitation due to its inclusion of the exclusive Jedi Luke car. Well wouldn’t you know it, the version is this 2-pack is actually different from the original! The main thing is that the body on the new one is completely black whereas the original sports 1 white area on the hood and 1 on each side. I actually like this new version slightly more than the original, and the original has always been one of my favorite of the Star Wars Character Cars.
Moving on to the Rancor, this is easily one of (if not the) largest of all Star Wars Character Cars, rivaled only by the recent K-2SO. Obviously the creature has been reimagined as a giant dump truck, complete with a hinged dump bed and a removeable “bone-plate.” Normally it lays atop the bed to look like a pile of bones, but it comes out easily, presumably so that you can actually put stuff in the bed if you want. Aside from the functionality, it’s a highly detailed vehicle and one of the most distinct amongst all character cars Hot Wheels has ever made.
So there you have it! Tell me what you think of these new releases!
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