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@harry
Usually I would say to buy whatever is available now because if you wait - something may get sold out, never to return. But right now - I would hold off a few weeks because we are slowly defining our "Fall Catalog" and deciding on (and posting) a few more parts up every week. i am thinking we will have all the newest offerings up within the next 4 weeks. Sep 1 was my goal and we'll see how close we get to that. :)

I wanted to augment my earlier response. I know we're all a bunch of penny-pinchers these days. Half of us aren't working etc. BUT for years (and I mean like 20 years) this car in modeling form has been way out of reach and expensive to acquire in any really good quality version:

• The best resin 1/25 kits were $100+ for years (I know, I was a T&T and a Caped Custom dealer for years)
  
• Built-up resin 1/25 cars were $500+ (I know, I made and sold dozens of them for years)
  
• The GADM 1:43 was $250 (I was a dealer for these too)
  
• The GADM 1:25 was $450 (I was a dealer for these too)
  
• The Joemobile 1/6 piece of crap was $150
• An original Aurora 1/32 Batmobile model was $350+
  

The list goes on and on. I still have one of the finest Batmobiles (in any scale) handmade by uber-modeler Jim Apitz and it is a 1/25 thing of beauty. I paid over $900 for it (eagerly) in 1996 or so, and I wouldn't sell it for twice that today. It is a thing of wonder to behold in person. It KILLS the Gadm, and any other 1/25 model I've ever built or seen. IMO

What I am trying to say is that lately we've adopted a bit of a "flea market mentality" here and I think to some degree - that's good. It brings more people to the hobby than before. I also think it's necessary (see above comment about economy and employment) BUT - let's take a reality check here for a second - we should be thanking our lucky stars. If you'd have told me or any other Batmobile modeler 5 years ago that we'd have a laser scanned excellently built 1:18 diecast Batmobile for $29.99 sitting on the shelves at Toys R Us, I'd have laughed and told you to keep dreaming the beautiful dream.

And it IS a beautiful dream we're living in. The work that's being done right now by Doug and Alexander and Kevin and Leonard and Mit etc. is phenomenal. And it is leaps and bounds beyond the stuff we were doing for 1/25 scale models 10 years ago. I know the supporters of Autoart and Burago etc. will fight this but there is NO WAY that Hot Wheels could afford to do the type, quantity and/or quality of the upgrades that we are doing to this car. Not with what they paid for the license and put into the initial scanning and tooling up. No way. So we now have no end of $29 models to BURN through and make some mistakes on, saving the Elite models for our "good" work later. I'm not advocating waste, but seriously, I can buy 4 standards for what one 1990 crappy resin batmobile model used to go for.

This is a loooong way around to the point that - Yes, the elite is the nicest one to finish up BUT - buy at least one standard to hack apart and see how things go together, how the paint is applied, how the screws go etc. You'll be glad you did. Nobody gets this stuff right on the first go. (well, maybe Doug but he's a machine) :)

-S