A mess of Mustangs: The brand new Cool Classics, Super TH, mainline, and modified castings of the HW Mustang Boss 302...

The Boss 302 is the coolest Mustang ever, right?

There is no debate whatsoever, correct? Of course not. Everyone has their favorite, and the 302 is mine. Not that it makes me unique. If you asked all Mustang lovers to rank their Top 5 Mustangs ever, the 302 most certainly would be in there.

I have learned to appreciate the geekiness of the Mustang II, the underrated design of the Foxbody Mustang, and I am quite fond of the latest incarnation. (Still can't get behind the fourth generation though. Ewwwww.) And that is a lot, considering growing up I was much more interested in any Japanese, Italian, or German than American.

But we all grow up, and hopefully we start appreciating more. The Mustang is definitely something I appreciate more. In fact, after learning more and more about the Trans Am series of yesteryear, I gained a FULL appreciation for the cars of that era.

So take that Trans Am circle, and cross it with the Mustang circle. What's overlapping? The Ford Mustang Boss 302. Easily our vote for coolest Mustang ever, and one of the coolest looking cars...uh...ever.

And Hot Wheels nailed that casting for the Racing Series

. They released the Jones and Follmer Mustangs together, and after snagging them at the store, the '70 302 instantly became my favorite Hot Wheels Mustang casting.

Then it vanished. It popped up in the Hot Wheels racing series, or so I thought. It was not the '70 302, but the '69, and it was a slightly different casting. (We didn't figure that out until last year.) It seemed it was only a matter of time that the 302, in it's '69 or '70 incarnations would appear in the mainline, and that time has come.

We have obviously known the 302 was coming, and that it would be a Super TH

, but along the way a little surprise happened. The last two batches of Cool Classics, which we thought were cancelled, emerged this last week, with a '69 302.

So that means we are in 302 frenzy. Batch E will be hitting stores, and collectors will be flaunting their Super 302 finds. The Cool Classics may or may not hit stores, but everyone will be looking. It will be fun.

And considering how good looking this casting is, we anticipate seeing it quite a bit in the future.

Considering we got all the 302's from Wheel Collectors late last week, we decided to bring out the Racing versions and give them all a few shots in the studio. And there is where we discovered that there is a third version of this casting.

Let's review:

The casting debuted as a '70 Boss 302:

It then reemerged as a '69 Boss 302 in HW Racing and now Cool Classics (note the headlights):

The headlight and grill change:

And now it remains a '69 302, but with some additional changes:

Obviously the spoiler is the first thing you would notice. Hot Wheels is moving to metal spoilers, so that is not a surprise. We would have noted the change, but not focused on it.

Let's look at things from a different angle:

Another grill change, right? And the chin spoiler is a bit more rounded on the Super.

Let's look at the back:

There you go. Tail lights are totally different, and the Super has the middle emblem. And of course the spoiler is metal.

You might be able to see the differences a little better on the mainline:

That is definitely an updated casting. So we have three 302's.

Yeah, that is nitpicky. The fact is this model is really good-looking, no matter what subtle differences might exist in the castings.

So let's work through these, starting with the Super and mainline, and then through the Cool Classics version. Nothing will beat the two Trans Am Racers in yellow, but there is no denying that Super is pretty cool. Great wheels, great deco.

(Find the Cool Classics 302 along with the rest of Batch K at Wheel Collectors