Treasure Hunt vs Super Treasure Hunt: how to tell them apart

The short version

• Treasure Hunt (TH): a regular-looking mainline car with normal paint and plastic wheels, marked with a small flame logo. Collector guides describe the regular TH flame as silver or grey.
• Super Treasure Hunt (STH): Spectraflame paint, Real Riders rubber tires, a “TH” marking on the car, and a gold flame logo on the card behind the car.

Both are packed at random into ordinary retail cases and cost the same as any mainline car at the shelf. That's why finding an STH at retail is a big deal.

Check the car

• Paint: Spectraflame is a translucent, candy-like finish over polished metal, with a deep, glossy colour. Ordinary enamel looks flat next to it.
• Wheels: Real Riders have separate rubber tires. Standard mainline wheels are one-piece plastic.
• Deco: STHs carry a “TH” marking in the deco.

Check the card

Behind the car, on the card, is a circular flame logo. According to the Hot Wheels Wiki, Super Treasure Hunts have carried a Treasure Hunt flame logo on the card since 2013, and it changed from black to gold in 2016. Early STHs from 2007 were labelled “TREA$URE HUNT$” on the card.

What's documented and what's lore

Plenty of numbers circulate on YouTube and in forums. Some of them may well be right, but we haven't found Mattel confirming them, so we label them:

• “15 Treasure Hunts a year”: corroborated. HWtreasure lists 15 in the 2026 set. The matching “15 Super Treasure Hunts” is still a creator claim.
• Case letters: corroborated. Mixes run A to Q, skipping I and O (15 a year, per the Hot Wheels Wiki and HWtreasure). “72 cars per case” is still a creator claim.
• “About one STH per 7–10 cases”: creator estimate, unverified. Mattel doesn't publish odds.
• The number in the card's corner (e.g. 171/250) is the car's number in that year's mainline, not its production quantity. This one is widely agreed.

2027: confirmed so far (as of Sep 22, 2026)

• Super Treasure Hunt: '64 Lincoln Continental (JPD26), per the Hot Wheels Wiki; also shown in hand by Peak Time Racing.
• Super Treasure Hunt: BMW M4 GT3 (JPD27), per the Hot Wheels Wiki; also shown by Peak Time Racing.
• Super Treasure Hunt: Dodge D100, shown by Peak Time Racing but not yet on the wiki list. Unconfirmed.
• Treasure Hunt: El Segundo Coupe (JPD10), per the Hot Wheels Wiki.

The 2027 list is early. Only 25 mainline cars were on the wiki when we checked. We'll add to this as releases are confirmed.