its funny, but that's actually a big part of why I bought in. I figured, its not likely to hit the number necessary, so why not buy in just to try to help?

And there you go. No one wants a $215 noise making ecto 1. Hopefully that was not the only option. Hopefully they gave us the "what we want you to pay for it" option and now we'll get the "what we actually have to charge for it" option.

I think I would definitely have pre-ordered if it had been less than $100. I don't care about all the lights and sounds, though, but I'd imagine removing all of that stuff would bring the price down considerably.

I really don't think removing the lights and sounds would've helped all that much, you can buy all sorts of light and/or sound toys for $5 or less that will do more than the Ecto-1 would've. The only concession is getting rid of the song would've probably brought down the cost a bit due to music licensing (but then again maybe not that much, consider how many Halloween CDs have that song on it - the original version, too - and those tend to be $5-$10 for 10 songs). The car would've been a lot of plastic which makes for a huge mold, all the doo-dads and junk on the roof would add up, too, with sculpt, tooling, paint and assembly (can't be just a chunk of semi-detailed plastic like a 1:64 Hot Wheels). Then there's the engineering on the five doors and the sliding proton pack rack and the car would have to have a far larger detailed interior than the Barris Batmobile. I can't say that $215 would be a rock-bottom number but I can't imagine the thing ever going for under $100.

Hush Jim... no logic allowed when we are Mattel Bashing.. Especially about actual manufacturing costs..