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What makes that 2026 Hot Wheels purple Buick GNX Treasure Hunt car so special?
I mean sure, it’s a “Regular Treasure Hunt” (RTH vs STH) type diecast, which usually means it’s hard to find, although in this case, you can find these cars for sale everywhere online (and ALL of these GNX’s are Treasure Hunts, no “regular” cars for this vehicle).
But something we haven’t seen before, is that the amount of test cars, or factory prototype diecasts, is A LOT. Well, the quantity of sample cars for sale at any rate.
[ see the factory test colors cars ]
[ see the regular prototype diecasts ]
[ see more test run cars ]
We noticed that there’s yet another seller of these test run cars on ebay.
First there was only one (for years), then a few months back a couple more joined the foray, within the last week, now there’s another vendor for these type of rare 1:64 scale diecast cars.
(4 different vendors now who always sell these rare prototype diecasts on ebay)
Has Hot Wheels begun releasing more of these rare prototype diecasts this year?
And how do so many different sellers acquire them?
(all of the sellers are in Malaysia, where the Mattel plant is at)
We thought initially maybe 1 seller was sneaking them out of the plant somehow.
Or they were in cohoots with HW somehow to offer these type of promos, as some sort of grassroots effort of promotion for Hot Wheels vehicles.
(or maybe as a way for HW to collect additional income?)
Usually these factory test pieces get destroyed once the final design is approved, but for some reason, especially with this new for 2026 Hot Wheels purple Buick GNX, there has been an unusual amount of prototypes that were created.
Or at least the ones we know about and released to the public.
It’s unclear how many test run cars are actually created for each new diecast that is to be produced for the Hot Wheels mainline collection.
We always assumed “some” (like maybe less than 10), but for this particular purple car, including the ones shown below, we have already seen 13 “test color cars” (different color than final design), 4 “test run” versions (correct color paint but no graphics yet), and 17 “prototypes” (paint/graphics done, but wheel choice still needed).
That’s 34 samples, that we know about.
Why?
Is it because this was a Treasure Hunt car, making it kind of special (compared to a normal mainline car)?
Or is there some other reason that so many different test cars were made?
Perhaps Hot Wheels DOES make this many prototypes for each new car?
I guess we’ll never know.
We found it unusual, and I’m sure for the rare type diecast car collectors, it makes it exciting to try and hunt down a new example for their Buick diecast car collections.
But the next question to ponder, with so many cars available, are they really “rare” now?
Still mostly yes, considering it’s still a low amount versus production numbers, but that doesn’t really translate to expensive.
Most of these prototype diecasts are only selling for about $20-25 each (shipped).
Here’s a look at the newest versions of these prototypes we’ve seen.
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NO TAMPO, TEST COLOR CARS:
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PAINT / GRAPHICS DONE VERSIONS, WITH WHEEL OPTIONS REMAINING TO BE CHOSEN:
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