Toy Review: Holly Shiftwell / Cars (Mattel)

I got somewhat carried away with where the "Cars" characters fit into the movies and all of that.  I read online that Todd actually has cameos in both of the "Cars" films and you just have to kind of really hunt to find him.   But Holly Shiftwell is a character that I was familiar with when we bought this toy but I am even more familiar with her now because as I sit here typing this we watched "Cars 2" again last night.  

When Mater goes with Lightning McQueen to the World Grand Prix- which is the plot of the second film- he finds himself in some spy trouble and the two spies he begins working with are Finn McMissile and Holly Shiftwell.  For a while there, Mater thinks he's on a date with Holly and it's pretty funny, though by the end she does admit to being Mater's girlfriend, which is perhaps even stranger.

This car is simple in and of itself and while there is probably some sort of deluxe version out there with wings that pop out so she can fly and all of that, I'm happy with this one because for my son it is enough for him to simply pretend and have her fly around regardless of whether or not the toy actually has the wings.    Holly Shiftwell is just someone who should go with Finn McMissile and, yes, Finn was one of my favorite parts of "Cars 2" and we bought his toy right when we found it a while back so this just seems to compliment that so well that I'm not sure how you can do without it either.

Is it odd though that I'm finding the characters of "Cars 2" now to make better toys than those from the first "Cars"?   Was the merchandising tie-in more thought out for the second film?  It is Disney though, so you have to imagine that the toys were thought out for the first film and it didn't just happen by accident.    I saw someone on eBay selling their collection of Cars toys and they had something like 500 different characters.   So I guess my reason for liking this series of toys on the whole is that we can collect what we like but never have to feel like getting them *all* because that would just be ridiculous.