Hot Wheels-Aston DB5 and Lotus Esprit

Bleuville

In amongst the Hot Wheels toys in ASDA supermarket for £1.25 each they have an Aston Martin DB5 in a card blister pack which says-James Bond 007 Goldfinger and the (much harder to find) white Lotus Esprit on the card packaging says-
James Bond 007 The Spy Who Loved Me.
The DB5s are fairly numerous but I had to search 6 ASDAs to find just two examples of the white Lotus.
In each shop you may only get one example of the Lotus.

So happy hunting! The lotus is like gold dust-rare to find in shops.
Unless you cheat and go on the Internet.
The DB5 is No. 200/250 and the Lotus is No. 219/250.

Bleuville.

superado

I recently bought the HW Work Shop editions of the Esprit and DB5 from eBay, which totalled about $5 including shipping. I dislike having to buy Hot Wheels online because I feel it isn't right when shipping often costs more than the items, but for the price I found, it saves me from future trips to department stores, groceries, etc., and needing to rummage through pegs, so in effect I paid a premium of $3 for convenience!

Earlier, I saw the more expensive Esprit in sub mode in a toy store for around $5, so I grabbed it.

My quick thoughts on these? I think the Johnny Lightning DB5 has a nicer overall look that makes the HW verson look clumsy and the silver paint job on the JL looks a lot finer too vs. the finish on the HW version, which looks like a bunch of silver flecks. However, the HW Esprit is a vast improvement over the JL version, which I think is based on a later model of the Esprit and not the one used in TSWLM. With this, finally, there is a toy of the TSWLM Lotus in "street" mode that you can play with! Based on calculations I made of the Esprit and the Stromberg Jet Ranger helicopter piloted by Naiomi, the HW scale of 1/64 scale is more compatible with the Corgi made helicopter, making for some fun desktop playtime!

Rainier Wolfcastle

I am rather surprised that there are still silver DB5's in stores. They were released in summer and should be long sold out. We in central Europe now have just got the metallic red 2015 version, with the silver one gone for months.

The Lotus belongs to the 2015 lineup, and I am sure it will be more easily available in the next weeks as it is included in the first three cases for 2015. The Esprit on the short Euro card was listed on ebay three or four weeks ago (first appearing in Poland) so I have been looking for the last weeks until they finally showed up in sufficient quantities last week.
But the white Esprit will be replaced with a non-Bond version in the next months. This seems to be Mattel standard practice - new Hot Wheels castings receive a recolouring during their first year. The DB5 was new for 2014 and went from British Racing Green to silver. The Esprit recolour will be red.

There is already a thread about about the Bond Hot Wheels.
Please feel free to add pictures of your cars.
http://www.ajb007.co.uk/topic/44369/hot-wheels/