The Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company (BHTB) specializes in Custom, Private Label and Licensed toys, gifts, and plush for both in-line retail sales and strategic promotions. If you check out their website, you’ll find many product lines that look and sound like the brands you know, but aren’t quite… them. Hence the word ‘questionable’ in the title of this post.

I bought this CARS 2 Finn McMissle ‘figurine’ in a local dollar discount store. It is remarkably cheap in quality. Let’s have a look:

The packaging mirrors authentic Disney branding, but is unusual in that although it correctly has Lightning McQueen prominently displayed, it has no mention of CARS 2. All official Disney branded merchandise would reference the movie the character appears in. Also, none of the more familiar CARS die cast models are listed as ‘figurines’ on the packaging. Lastly, they certainly don’t feature the Disney Castle.

For a look at how the packaging should look, check out my earlier post featuring the character of Tomber, also from CARS 2.

Now let’s get to the car itself:

Not die cast, but made of a soft plastic material, it is molded in one piece and then poorly painted to add a very minor amount of detail.

Note that the wheels are molded with the body and placed in a slightly turned position to add a bit of action to the figure.

In a bit of a commendable effort, the bottom of the molding features a semi-realistic undercarriage with an engine and drivetrain.

More questions are raised by the back of the packaging. In the ‘Collect Them All!’ image gallery, the character of Finn McMissile doesn’t even appear as an option! Lightning McQueen is there instead. All of the other available characters are from other Disney/Pixar properties.

For obvious legal reasons, I stop short of declaring this a knock-off product. But not much short. The final reason for doubt comes from the fact that it’s made in China, a country notorious for not respecting copyrights. If I’m wrong, then I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincerest apologies to the BHTB Company.

If you’d like more of Finn McMissile, why not try him in chocolate form? In 2014, I found some officially licensed yumminess in Toys R Us. Dig in!