Someone mentioned that Dexter Hoover (the race flag man – not the heli – that’s Ron Hover) was maybe an average effort in design & production execution …

I must say, I disagree. I think the design, and production of Tow & Dexter Hoover proves that while we might quibble about distribution and merchandising execution, the design and quality of production of CARS is without peer and just a nice breath of fresh air … in a world of shortcuts and corner cutting (aka: production & design quality), Mattel has done itself proud in this case.

Here’s Tow & Dexter together …

Again, who bothers with this much detailing for a character that is on screen for less than a few minutes? Only the CARS diecast sculptors and Mattel’s production team.

He looks right, feels great and is a classy example of CARS … but if anything, Dexter Hoover is even cooler.

A lot of other manufacturers would’ve taken the shorthand way – removing the tow light package and the lift arm, adding a flag, calling it a day and calling it Dexter Hoover but not Mattel in this case.

First of all, they even changed his eyes from blue to green – would most people even have accepted a wrong color? Sure – but in this case, Mattel wanted all the details right.

On Dexter, the bed is a correct pickup bed with grooves but you’d expect all the big things to be correct but all the little differences also …

They could’ve easily cheated and given the same front piece & same expression but Dexter has a new “expression” plate …

Mirrors, DIFFERENT.

Again, could’ve cheated and repeated the tiny mirrors on Tow but Dexter has wider mirrors to reflect that he holds a flag in his left one … so at first glance, you think Mattel just “repainted” Tow but other than sharing roof paint, door decals and base & tires, practically everything about Tow & Dexter Hoover are different down to the tinest details.

But this is why the CARS diecast line is a great success. People from all sides caring that we would care and would notice if Dexter’s mirrors are correctly the wide vertical versions while Tow are the horizontal versions.

Nice.