Review: Mattel Speed Racer Collector Gift Set

Posted by Lindsay


Barbie is trying hard to get on board with geek culture. 

Along with their line of Barbies as various comic book characters, Mattel has been releasing movie tie-in Barbie sets for a few years. 

This set, obviously, is from last summer’s wannabe cult hit, Speed Racer. 

Hence: Barbie as Trixie and Ken as Speed.

Appearance:  Speed: 6/10  Trixie: 6/10

I picked these two up because I think they’re cute, but not amazingly cute.  I started out liking Trixie’s facepaint better than Speed's, I just think she has more character and a halfway animated look.  However, I can’t actually blame them.  

If you check out the promotional posters, you can see where Trixie gets her flirty eyes and why a doll inspired by a somewhat bland looking actor looks... bland.

Both costumes are very nice, and highly detailed, which is characteristic of “Pink Label” Barbies.    FYI: The costumes of a fashion doll I think must be considered under all three major categories.  First for the look on the doll, then for the look of the clothes themselves, and finally for the functionality.


Special Deduction: Trixie lost a point here when I discovered that when you pull off her binoculars, there’s an ugly indent in her right hand, which is unnecessary.

Packaging and Extras: Speed: +1 Trixie: +1

The packaging is nice, cool effect on the translucent checkered flags on the outer shell, you can see the dolls easily and they’re well protected. 

Almost too well protected. 

Extracting collectible Barbies from their plastic prisons is not the simplest task.  All high-end Barbies seem to have their heads literally sewn to the cardboard or plastic with thread or, worse, tiny plastic tabs like the kind price tags are attached to clothes with.  You have to be careful when cutting them out, and trimming the plastic bits off, not to cut their hair.  But no deduction, it’s standard for the style. 

The accessories and costumes are cool.

Speed has his helmet, it fits well, looks good, and the visor has two positions.  His costume consists of jacket, pants, odd shift-thing, boots, scarf and gloves.

The shift appears to be in place of a shirt under his jacket, and bridging the visual gap between jacket and pants.  It’s serviceable, although most of his costume was attached to it by bits of thread for packaging presentation when I started undressing him.

The jacket and pants are really nice, faux leather, real buckles and zipper, nicely tailored to the doll, but don’t restrict movement.

The boots are... odd.  It almost looks like they just repurposed some cowboy boots from another Ken, but they look okay under the pants.  

A word on gloves.  I think it’s cute that they each come with a pair of gloves, but Barbie scale gloves are about the most useless pieces of doll clothing ever.  They are easy to lose when they’re not on, difficult to get on, and ugly once they’re on.  In many of these pictures, I just left them attached to the dolls' hands by rubber bands, how they came in the box.

Mattel has solved this with some of it’s superhero Barbies by just painting the hands the appropriate color.  However, I do sympathize.  There’s just no way to make removable gloves that tiny that look good.

Trixie comes with pink binoculars, they’re sweet, and she holds them well. 

Her costume consists of a tiny barrette, non-removable necklace, pink shift, leggings, shoes and gloves.   


Overall so far: +2 for Speed, +1 for Trixie

They also each come with a stand, but no extra points for them, because that’s standard at this price point, and without a stand these dolls don’t.  Stand.  

I will actually deduct a point for Speed’s though, because while it fits fine, it can't hold him steady while doing anything other than standing upright.  Even the very simple poses in some of these pictures caused the semicircular piece that holds the doll to begin to slide down the pole.  Combined with the fact that his shoes have no traction, the wonky stand is a problem, although not that uncommon for these type of dolls.  

Trixie’s stand is weird for another reason, but I’ll go into that in a bit.

Oh yeah, and they also come with a certificate of authenticity. 

Just in case, I guess, you want to be sure you’re not buying counterfeit Barbies in Chinatown?

Play and Display: Speed: +1  Trixie: -1

Speed has a decent amount of articulation for an 12 inch doll, and it works pretty well.

Ball (or partial ball) joints at shoulders, elbows and hips, cut neck, hinged knees and  an odd joint in his lower abdomen which allows him to hold a slight lean forward. 

This is par for a “Ken” style doll at this price point, and better than most of the cheaper Kens. 

It’s not action figure level articulation, but it’s really pretty good.

By contrast, Trixie is very disappointing.  She has a Barbie hip style I’ve never seen before, but her body’s marked copyright 2003, so they didn’t invent it for this doll.  It’s kind of cute, but I hate what it does to her articulation.  More on that in a moment.

She has ball joints at shoulders and neck, and cut joints at the hips.
I won’t complain that she has no elbow or wrist articulation, that’s a relatively new thing for Barbies, but I will complain that she has no knees! 

Most modern Barbies consist of two types of plastic, a hard plastic for the torso and arms, and soft flexible plastic for the head and legs.  The legs then have a “bone” of hard plastic inside, and a clicking joint which allows you to position the knee in one of three positions. 

These positions are only slightly different, but Trixie doesn’t even have the chance to mitigate her ugly hips with an adjustment at the knee, because her legs are made out of hard plastic!  (Incidentally, this also makes her shoes hard to get on and off.)

Her stand accommodates her odd posture, (and keeps her in that one position) which is why it looks different than a normal barbie stand.

Trixie’s hips are cut joints, instead of partial ball, and they’re offset oddly. 
This means that she can’t sit flat on the ground, can’t do a split, can’t put her feet together.

See below for comparison with a 2008 Fashion Fever Barbie  
(Let’s recall: original price for 2 doll Speed Racer gift set: $40.  Original price for Fashion Fever Barbie: $12) 

So Speed gets a point for being articulate, and Trixie loses one, for being annoying.

(UPDATE May09: I guess this is the "Model Muse" body, and it's popular for collector Barbies.  I personally still disapprove, even for a doll that's 'just for display', because being unable to sit or cross her legs limits her display options considerably.)

Both costumes are not too difficult to get back on, they take a bit of fiddling, but not an unreasonable amount.

Special Section: Discussion of Custom Potential

I often buy toys, especially dolls, for their potential as customs. 

I’m just going to give you a few extra thoughts here which don’t fit anywhere else.

I like the articulation of the high-end Ken dolls, but I wasn’t sold on Speed’s face.  However, look at him next to another Ken, this time Ken as Superman.

Check out Speed’s more attractive neck joint, and his overall cuteness by comparison.  I still haven’t met a Ken I really liked, but Ken is almost 13 inches tall and thus necessary.

Most 1/6 male dolls look like very short men next to 11.5" or 12” Barbie.  GI Joe’s are often 11.5 or 11, and the height just doesn’t work well on the shelf.  So I’ll continue to pick up interesting Kens.  However, the more I pose and adjust him, the more I like Speed as Speed.  So he won’t go into the parts bin yet.  (Superman, on the other hand, is being banished back to the bin as we speak.)

As for Trixie; I’m very disappointed in her articulation, but I still think her head is very 20’s cute, and I might find a use for her, but I don’t have anything in mind yet.

Price Tag and Final Analysis: Speed: 8/10  Trixie: 6/10

These are “Pink Label” dolls, which means that Mattel considers them to be collectible, but not so collectible that they won’t stock them at Toys’R’Us or Target. 

Original price point here was around 40-45 dollars.  I see them marked down to 20-25 often, which is more reasonable. 

Of course, I picked them up on a clearance sale, for 16. 

That makes the price good enough for me.  These guys are cute enough that if you’re a fan of the movie, they’re probably at least worth a look.  Just don’t expect much out of Trixie except that one pose.

In the end I prefer Speed, which surprised me, but looking at him again compared to Supes, and discovering Trixie’s truly weird articulation problems has convinced me that he deserves his win.

Want to see my custom work?  Drop by the Workshop.  Want to read why we enjoyed Speed Racer?  Drop by The Middle Room.