The Mario Karts Don’t…Stop…Comin’…

I know I know it takes me a couple of minutes to get these boys photographed and written about, but I swear, as soon as I deal with a mew wave (or piece of a wave) of these guys there’s another 1, 2, 4, boxset, something that pops up. Anyway, we have a cool pair to take a look at: as chance would have it, Mario & Luigi!

First up is Luigi looking particularly green in his Pipe Frame. Regretfully this is only available as an exclusive in a boxset, so for those of you diligent enough to keep up with these things get prepared to pay for 4 when you only need the 1…oh well.

Big bro also sports a new kart, with Mario appearing in the Circuit Special. Yeah it’s just another kart but Mario looks good in it, and if they do want to be all exhaustive with karts Mario’s not a bad choice as default driver – certainly above the likes of Light Blue Shy Guy and Orange Yoshi.

As far as I know that’s it for now, but by now there might be others – in fact there may be a Bowser Jr. sans glider but I ain’t seen it IRL. I’m also still waiting on King Boo…

4 More Racers Join Mario Kart!

Whenever I start to wonder why Hot Wheels’ dedication to Character Cars has waned, I need only to remind myself of this here series. They are constantly adding new rider/kart combinations to the Mario Kart roster. In the past month or so we’ve gotten 4 new combos, 2 with and 2 sans glider. The best part is that we get 2 entirely new characters our of the bunch!

In all, we welcome:

• Toad – Mach 8
• Baby Luigi – Sneeker
• Bowser Jr. – Sports Coupe + Bowser Kite
• Rosalina – P-Wing + Cloud Glider

If you haven’t been keeping up, this marks the debut of both Bowser J. and Baby Luigi. I mean I guess we could argue that Baby L isn’t a “new” character, but within the Mario Cosmos I think we’re safe. Does Bowser Jr. bring us one step closer to the Koopalings…?

Toad – Mach 8

Bowser Jr. – Sports Coupe + Bowser Kite

Baby Luigi – Sneeker

Rosalina – P-wing + Cloud Glider

If you’re still on the hunt, don’t forget about King Boo! So far I’ve only seen him in the $100ish Rainbow Road set but so far all trackset exclusive vehicles have been released singly at some point. Let’s keep our collective fingers crossed on this one because both the karts and the sets are being scalped like hell over on eBay.

So who’s left? Who else needs to grace the track? I’m ok with pretty much whoever making the cut as long as we don’t get too bogged down in color swaps.

New Racers for Mario Kart

Yes sir, a couple a’ new Karts have worked their way down! Let’s take a look:

• Mario – Wild Wing
• Light Blue Shy Guy – Standard Kart

Alright, so we get another Mario…not much of surprise here, but the kart is new and pretty classy as far as I’m concerned.

But seriously, what is with light blue!? We get the log that is Light Blue Shy Guy (what a mouthful) thrown onto the fire and he’s in a regular ol’ Standard Kart.

I’m having a total flashback to the Mario Character Cars from yesterday…so many choices out there…why are they pretending to scrape the bottom of the barrel for palette swaps of cannon fodder baddies!? (Yeah I know a lot of these recolors actually exist in Mario Kart but that ain’t the point!) I kind of understood the Yoshi gimmick with the eggs and such – though I do feel bad for all the kids who just wanted a White Yoshi and blew $50 only to end up with a bunch of Yellow’s and Orange’s.

I really wish someone would pump out all 7 Koopalings in some kind of collectible form. As it is there’s 2 or 3 in one format, 2 or 3 in another. Ideally the amiibo would’ve been the format to go with but I think that ship has since sailed. These guys fashioned into Mario Karts wouldn’t be a bad second choice though!

NOTE: Found another new one in one of those money-grubbing 4-packs! Will get into it shortly.

New MARIO KART – 3 / 4

So shortly after Christmas 2020 when that big Hot Wheels Mario Kart boxset came out the gliders in individual packaging were released. (Yes, these were released before the cars I just went over in Part 2…well most of them…we’ll get to it.) This initial wave of singles consisted of 4 cars + gliders, only one of which was in the big boxset (Bowser).

• Mario – Standard Kart + Super Glider
• Yoshi – Sports Coupe + Parafoil
• Toad – P-Wing + Plane Glider
• Bowser – Standard Kart + Bowser’s Kite

So yeah, in total that’s 3 new ones if you’re keeping up thus far (Mario, Yoshi, & Toad).

Fast-forward to about the time the guys from Part 2 were released, or maybe shortly thereafter, and some more gliders were released…maybe. Ok, well one was released for sure: Luigi – P-Wing + Cloud Glider. On the back, it features all of the previous releases minus Toad and adds a Peach – B-Dasher + Peach Parasol. So what’s the deal? Well, either I just totally missed out on Peach and will have to wait for a restock of these super-new ones or only Luigi was trickled down and they showed us new Peach to keep us nuts on our toes.

I would say “gotta be the latter” because Hot Wheels does enjoy “pretending” like all of a wave is out when it in fact isn’t, and I don’t tend to miss much, though I will concede I could’ve possibly glossed over a new Peach car or someone could’ve swooped in ahead of me. I did spot that Luigi though, and immediately knew that I didn’t have anything with a cloud on it, so yeah, I feel like I would’ve had a similar reaction to Peach if I’d actually spotted her.

I don’t know, but I only saw Luigi once so these 2 are bound to proliferate in the future. I hope. I dunno, let me know if you have any experience with either of these new ones and your take on their availability.

Again, I’m not exactly bursting at the seams with stuff to say about these guys. More cars more gliders…I do kinda wish there was more emphasis on characters. We still haven’t seen Daisy, Toadette, or any of the other colored Toads. Even some extended Kongs would be acceptable: Dixie, Cranky, Candy, and I daresay Donkey Kong Jr.! What I really want to say is a set featuring all 7 Koopalings! The Koopalings are great and far too underutilized in my opinion, especially when it comes to toys. You might see 2 to 4 in some format or another, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen a collection of all 7 in the same format…maybe back in the days of SMB 3 there was something but certainly not since their resurgence in New SMB.

Alright, barring any further newcomers, we got one installment left and we’ll be all caught up with Mario Kart. Stay tuned!