“John H.” sends along a nice unofficial Kmart CARS Day Silver Metallic Francesco that was never officially released.

The official one is on the right. He does look nicer with the red helmet to break up the contrast of just silver.

Though the final releases corrects the base plate which should be black.

There’s no no cost savings on the helmet red or silver as it’s just a piece of plastic dipped in paint but you could argue they only needed one batch of silver paint instead of silver & red. Along with the final back spoiler in white might save them a few dollars overall – I can’t imagine it’s much but that seems like the most likely reason … or laziness.

If the CARS magazine look of the silver CARS can now be considered the only source that makes it canon – then his all silver look is now officially correct (see link for cover of Francesco).

So, whether Disney decided way back when that the all-silver look was more correct or whether it was a cost savings on Mattel’s part or whether it laziness on the part of the plant and no one really cared after the fact that he was now silver helmeted along with a white spoiler – by designing the cover with him all silver makes it canon and official that the Silver series Francesco doffs a silver helmet. Whether it was the plan all along or a series of lazy decisions, thy decision is done.

So thanks for the nice photos, “John H.” – the unofficial variant does look nice.

The link also shows the very first prototype photo of Silver Metallic Francesco (with hthe red helmet and silver spoiler).