One of my biggest segments of my Hot Wheels collection are the store exclusives. I always make a point to find them as they come out and I’ve been working on backfilling the holes in my set. What are store exclusives? Here’s a breakdown.
Toys R Us, Kmart, Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Kroger, and now GameStop have all had or still get store exclusives.
Store exclusives are special recolors, or otherwise limited edition Hot wheels that come out from once to six times a year. They are more collectible than other releases due to their limited nature. They are released along with the regular mainline cars and are up to the collector to find in the mix. From here, I’ll break a few examples down by store.
Walmart: Wally gets a lot of exclusive Hot wheels but the most notable are Zamac edition cars. Since 2013, there have been 18 Zamac cars released through the year each year. They mirror a regular release, but are bare metal with a clear coat. Example:
Before Zamacs, Walmart offered regular recolors with no common feature, a series with tire brands on the wheels, banners on the windshield, and Red line wheels. The red line wheels would be on vehicles that would otherwise be the same in the main line. Example below:
The red lines were available at Walmart and the other were available everywhere else at the same time. I remember finding a batch of 6 redlines then hurrying to target to find the matches. Collecting life.
Walmart also gets a lot of sub-series, which I will go into detail in a separate post. Examples of these are holiday series, flag sets, fast and the furious, Ferrari, mustang, camaro, Chevy truck, and many others.
More to come on store exclusives…
