The Die is Cast 8: A Delivery from Die-Cast Santa

Every year in December, Lionel Racing runs a 12 Days of Christmas promotion on their Facebook page. You have to enter on each day and answer the question posed in the photo above. I've entered every day for the last couple of years, and this year my entry was chosen as the Day 7 winner of a delivery from Die-Cast Santa. I didn't ask for a specific car; my only request was Danica Die-Cast! Let's see what he sent me.

Lionel switched to new boxes this year. These ones have a corner of the box and foam cut out to form a display window. This is my first one in the new style. It looks like it could be prone to damage in shipping, but I guess it's a good way to display your cars without unboxing them?

Here's the end of the box, with the sticker announcing this as the #10 GoDaddy TaxAct 2015 SS from an edition of 775 cars. But that doesn't tell the whole story of the car. Let's get it out of the box.

Here it is in the foam. I didn't have a screwdriver handy to separate the car from the foam, so I made do with what I had. It's a pretty nice color scheme. I like the angular black section on the front and green and orange are some of my favorite colors, so this is a cool car for me. The hood, roof flaps, and truck all open, and the driver's window screen can be lowered.

Inside the back window is usually where the DIN (Die-cast Identification Number) is located, but this one doesn't have a DIN. That's because it's a production sample, which as I understand it is a car from the final test run before the actual production run is made. They are identical to the retail cars outside of the missing DIN, and are considered collectible in their own right. I was pretty excited to win the contest and receive a nice Danica Patrick die-cast prize. GoDaddy is no longer sponsoring her car next year, so this is the last year for these green cars. Thanks, Lionel and Die-Cast Santa!