This is one of the most frequently-asked questions in Hot Wheels collecting. It's not always a bad one to ask, as there are a lot of things that look like errors that aren't.
The key to errors is that they are unintentional. Most errors are what we call "production line errors", which means that the error was caused by a mistake in the final stages of manufacturing. These are the most interesting and diverse errors. There are also errors in pre-production, which results in an "error" that is produced in large quantities.
But, there are also a lot of things that simply aren't errors that can confuse people.
Variations
Variations have become quite common in Hot Wheels, especially in the years since the Collector # series started. In the late 90s, some collectors created a list of over 2300 variations that existed in the Collector # series up to early 1999. That's an average of well over 2 variations per number, and some have 10 or more. There are all kinds of variations. The most common are the wheel variations, but there are variations in paint, tampos, windshields, bases, and other things. Some cars come in more than one kind of variation, such as this GT Racer, which is shown with two different types of wheels and with and without tampos:
A very interesting set of variations are the "grey plastic" variations of several cars issued in 1997. The 1996 First Edition #5 Rail Rodder was issued with both chromed plastic and grey plastic, as shown below:
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