The official Disney Store Instagram just posted this great photo of a highly detailed version of Cars star, Lightning McQueen. According to the post, this will be a new series (Cars Artist Series Collection) of releases designed under the guidance of Pixar Animation Studio. In fact, this first series was designed by Cars veteran, Pixar artist, and creator of the Motorama car show at Pixar’s studio.
The detail in Lightning’s engine is fantastic and the burnt ends of the exhaust pipes is a great little detail as well – we can’t wait to see more.
Updated: There are two series of the Artist Series Cars now for sale on the Disney Store site.
First, the 1:18 scale Artist Series Lightning McQueen is beautiful with a ton of detail from tip-to-tailpipe. The hood lifts to reveal an intricately painted engine while the bottom of Lightning is just as detailed – every pipe is painted to perfection in die-cast metal. After the image was revealed by Disney, we initially wondered if the headlights would work and if this would be a limited edition release. Well, the headlights do work and the beautiful packaging only mentions that it’s a limited release in French on the bottom in the fine print – so it does not appear to be a limited release (at least in the U.S. it’s not). Lightning McQueen retails for $69.95 USD.
Next, a series of smaller 1:43 scale die cast Artist Series cars were released for Mater, Lightning McQueen, and Ramone. The cars retail for $9.95 each USD and although Lightning McQueen is no longer for sale on the Disney Store’s site.
These ARE in the stores
Although some stores have them on the shelves, some have also begun taking them down since they weren't supposed to have been released yet. If you find them in your local store, call yourself lucky! I added a few pics from an eBay auction above of Ramone and Mater as well.