June 2010 Issue - New England Fiero Association

Shop diorama. These Fieros came
in blue and yellow, like the Fresh
Cherries, but have the American
Graffiti logo on the left rear
fender. That makes 6 variations
from MotorMax.
This year we have another new
release from Mattel. It’s a new
version of the “Sting Rod”, which
is an armored personnel carrier
with rockets and machine guns.
But to the Fiero aficionado, we
can see our Fiero GT fastback
under all that guise. Personally, I
think this is the car made for
Boston driving.
This year I “discovered” this new
variation in an email from Eric
Schneck, who was telling me of
his finds at a flea market. He was
casually going through the models
and mentioned a Sting Rod in
green and yellow. I jumped all
over that, and Eric sent me a
photo. Cool, a new model. Of
course I went directly to eBay and
sure enough, they were there. But,
(I said to myself) why bother with
eBay when I can probably find it
at Wal-Mart. My first Wal-Mart,
and sure enough, I found one. In
my real estate business, I drive all
over the place, so I started searching
for WalMart stores close to
my routes. After 10 Wal-Marts, 2
KMarts and 2 Toys-R-Us, I had
found a total of 3 Sting Rods.
Pretty expensive toys going this
route.
I then started studying the Sting
Rods being offered on eBay. For
the true Fiero toy collector, we
have some interesting variations.
A major variation is with the
wheels. The first release came
with off road tires on gold, 5-wide
spoke wheels (Designation:
OR5SPg). More recently a
variation with large gold wheels
with 5 very narrow spokes and
very thin profile tires
(Designation: OH5SPg). For the
more intense toy collector, the
main body comes in light and
dark green… light green is rare.
To me, it looks like the dark green
models have a clear coat, which
darkens the model. If you only
have one model, you won’t know
if it’s dark or light. But once
you’ve seen the light, you will
know. But if you are a casual
collector, don’t bother with this
variation; it is subtle.
There is also a variation in the
card the models are mounted on.
The American release is part of
the “Race World – Battle ’10”
series. The international release is
part of the “Race World - Earth
‘10” series. This international
card has text in several languages.
The Difference Between Men and
Boys is the Price of their Toys