Target Halloween 2012 Hot Wheels

I was going to hold off on this post and make it part of my October Countdown to Halloween but I don't think it's worthy enough for that honor. I'm usually very excited to get these Target exclusive sets every year but this year it seems as though someone at Mattel dozed off when it came time to approve this set. Most, if not all, of the cars are available on individual cards and hardly any of them are fit for my Halloween garage. Let's have a look.

Just looking at it, it lacks Halloweeness. A distinct lack of Halloween colors. What's that on the bottom left corner? Why it's AEIOU Why favorite Fangula, a car that's been given a Halloween deco on occasion. Is it in the pack? Nope! So what are you getting?

 
Shell Shock
Ol Shelly has been in a couple of Halloween packs over the years and done up appropriately. This is a prehistoric/dino paint app. Halloweeness: 1

Bone Shaker
Another favorite when it's painted right because it has a large skull on the front. Hit the link to see how cool it could be. Here...meh. Halloweeness: 2

Growler
I imagine if Panthro from the Thundercats had a hot rod, this would be it. The design itself isn't very Halloween-y but the right paint app could make it killer. Halloweeness: 1

Skull Crusher
And then...BAM! They hit one right out of the park. Black, orange and red. Bones, skull and flames. SC was included in my post about non-Halloween branded Hot Wheels last year with a sweet metallic gold finish. Halloweeness: 10

Vampyra
Might be hard to tell in the pic due to shininess, but this one's modeled after a bat. It's had past releases in black but why would you not make a black bat for a Halloween pack? Halloweeness: 3

I think Skull Crusher will be the only one with a space in my Halloween Garage. Just today, I noticed two variations to this pack although the line-up above seems to be the most common. Cars 1, 4, 5 are always the same with one pack having a different 2 and the other a different 2 and 3. The same red car was substituted for car 2 in both packs. Neither of the variant cars have more Halloweeness than the ones they replace.

I have some of the Kroger's/Fry's exclusive Hot Wheels coming my way and they blow this set out of the water. Oh yes, there will be a post...

41 Days Remain...