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Regarding the Bait 'n' Switch Barracuda
AKA the Kontroversial Kuda

During the second RLC™ sELECTIONs™ poll of 2008, voters were shown a photo of, and allowed to vote for, a car that hadn't been made since 1970. (HWC.com declined to allow the BRRC® to show that image.)

It was forty years ago, and among the first 16 Hot Wheels® releases were "California custom" renditions of some of the hottest cars on the road at the time! We're offering a choice of four of those beloved original castings...
--HWC Staff

The questioning began, even as the votes were cast.

Since the original Custom Barracuda casting is the one that has been pictured two weeks running... are you going to retool the original Custom Barracuda casting if it wins the sELECTIONs bracket?
--RLC member

I'm glad you raised this issue... count me as another member who'd be VERY unhappy if they tried to pass off the current King Kuda casting as a Custom Barracuda.
--RLC member

To widespread disbelief, there seemed to be confirmation from On High:

After this week, only one of these two will be admitted to the sELECTIONs® series: the Custom Barracuda (a '68 casting based on the 1967 Barracuda) or the '70 Ford Torino, released in the 2008 inaugural Modern Classics line.
--HWC Staff

The Barracuda won. Only then came the official announcement:

When the four cars were selected for the '68 bracket, I consulted with the team to see what we had in our tool bank. It was unanimous that the "Custom Barracuda" had already been retooled.

Once it was put in the polls and all the queries started coming in, it was obvious that unanimously, everyone was wrong. It was at that point we started exploring options to make this right should the Barracuda win.

I can tell you this will most likely not be a "from the ground up" re-tool. However, we're looking at making some tool modifications to the existing Custom Plymouth Barracuda tool, (currently in Ultra Hots) that will get us closer to the original look of the Custom Barracuda.

A perfect solution? Nope. But hopefully an acceptable one.

If nothing else, it will be a version of the Custom Cuda which hasn't existed before.
--HWC Staff

Members expressed everything from outrage to amusement; and another uproar began.

Its too bad everyone voted for the Barracuda... I'm voting blue with Real Riders to make this casting a complete joke.
--RLC member

When the voting brackets for color came up, Aqua was the closest color to blue offered. The membersheep actually moved slightly to the left, and Green became the color voted in by the majority.

But the "redline purists" were dismayed by the "wheel rounds". The historic RSW/TBS (Red Striped Wheel with Torsion Bar Suspension) was competing against what was declared the ugliest Real Riders wheel Mattel could find. (That's the wheel shown on the BRR®mobile). Even so, the cheapie rubber wheels won yet again.

In a final postscript, the staff added insult to injury:

As you know, after the confusion with the photos and tool availability for the Custom Barracuda in sELECTIONS #2, we were going to attempt to modify the current tool in some way to get it closer to the original 1968 version. Unfortunately, after several weeks of work, it appears the tool can't be modified to bring us the results we were hoping for.

We'll be moving forward with the Custom Barracuda currently in our tool bank...
--HWC Staff