Art & Inspiration Hot Wheels Commercials for 1968

It's not the same.....

 

The heck with Hot Wheels! What about the Aurora slot cars? For every birthday and Xmas I asked for more track and cars! Eventually building a track layout that spanned an entire ping pong table in the basement. Raised straightaways, switchbacks, curves and banks, it needed two transformers to power the entire track. Endless hours of model racing, swapping out motors, tires, etc. to make the fastest, best handling cars. My favorite car was a metallic blue Cheetah. Stuck to the track like glue on the curves and fast AF. This is where my love of modding cars began. The heck with GRAVITY on a Hot Wheels track. I just never "got it". I had SPEED that I could control! However...Hot Wheels actually made a limited edition replica of my cousin's open wheel modified racecar. Now, that was cool. To have your racing career immortalized by Hot Wheels!!!
Andy

 

My first one...still have it! It's parked in the garage! Most complete old car I own!

 

My little drag car.....

 

I love Hot Wheels. Have since 1968.
I really like the redline era stuff like unopened track sets, accessories, merchandise.
The Snake/Mongoose boxed set was sealed when I bought it.
I am drawn to the box art - most designed by a gentleman named Otto Kuhni. Just great.

 

Had a lot of hot wheels growing up but what sticks in my mind is when my brother and I got in trouble moms go to tool to swat the backside was the orange track that sucker really stung.

 

Hurts even more with one of those red track joiners.....

 

Recall having some. What kid didn’t back then? A cousin who was a couple of years younger always got better gifts at Christmas/birthday. He had the track and lots of other related stuff and I was jealous of course, but I guess I moved on as I got older. Recall really liking the slot car racing kit I once got. I liked the larger diecast toys that were more realistic like the stuff from Corgi. Was a huge fan of their 18-wheeler trucks and had a bunch of them.

 

I have been collecting Hot Wheels since they came out in ‘68 and never quit until several years ago when I ran out of room. I love the early ones before they went to the enameled ones in ‘73 but I was a kid and had to have them lol. The ‘80’s and early’90’s were kinda boring with all of the wheel changes but I couldn’t help myself and was still buying them especially the street rods which I was really into when I got my first car. I had all of the sets and tons of track, so much that my best friend and I built a track that went from one end of my house to the other with the power chargers placed strategically so they could make the entire trip. Honestly when I say I’m a gearhead I’m not lying , I have been obsessed with hot rods and old cars from the get go.

 

Here's part of what remains of my stuff. I had 13 of the Sweet 16 original cars from '68.
One Christmas I got the basic Super charger loop set. After I had drifted toward real cars by age 14,
I asked my mom where my Hot Wheels cars were? she said " Linda and her kids were here once , I told them they could keep them, they're poor and have so little"
During the 90s I bought a few of cooler ones, I don't like the ones that are down right cartoon-ish. One cat I used to chat with on here had between him & his girl over 2500 cars
A golden marketing strategy that hooked the kids when they were 8 or 9 and kept them buying well into old age.
After she passed, during the clear out of her house, under the basement stairs, I came upon the former suit case that the 'Wheels used to to live in. In it was the Supercharger and several pieces of track and metal buttons as well as both 12 in G.I. Joes & accessories. Thanks Mom.
2 D cells and a little care later, it's alive. The new cars suck. I had 2 McClaren Alvas in pkg, 1 must be sacrificed. In real life & dollars, I did half a million in damage or wrote it off. The first 10 trips through the Supercharger it either catapulted end over end off the track, or shot into the wall of the curve section, only negotiating the curve once in 20 tries. Felt like I was 9 years old, and remembered some cars weren't good candidates, particularly the VW bus. My Roth car was purple.

 

Any Barn Find Hot Wheels ?

.

 

15 of the Sweet 16

A few other cool cars

Tire Cases

Some 55's

And some cool card art

 

Seams like Hot Wheels would be off topic because they came out in 1968?

 

No, for the same reason a Brookville Deuce body made in 2024 is not off topic.

 

If Brookville made HotWheels body's they would be off topic.

 

If it weren’t for Hot Wheels there wouldn’t be so many of us carrying on the torch of the traditional hot rods and customs. They helped my generation to become the gearheads and future Moriarity’s of the HAMB

 

Since a few toy cars non-HW have been brought up, does anyone recall -I think they were-“SST” racers? Same era,

I only had the dragster as I recall. It had a rubber tire in the back and centered.
You slid in a tee handled plastic thing with “gear teeth” on it, then yanked up to get that tire spinning, set it on your mom’s kitchen floor and watch it take off.
Good days, good times.

 

They had a Demo derby set, I think one of the cars was a 55 Chev . It had ramps that would result in mid air head-on collisions, pieces would fly off the cars and you' d put them back together and go again. They had a "good old boy "do the voice over, "Crash! Bang ! Smash em up ! It's Crash car time my friends, Kinner's Craysh car set comes with ever'thin' ya see right cheer!(sic)

 

Yeah, I remember the TV commercial....

 

While we are on the subject of Hot Wheels I really need to get these things out of my attic and spare bedroom so if you guys are looking for a particular model or issue let me know. I sold all of my early stuff and bought my first house but what I have left are late 70’s through the 2010’s. Honestly there are about 30,000+ cars here so if Mattel made it I own several of them

That was my shameless plug for the day but if it’s not in line with the rules then the Mods can delete or move it no hard feelings

 

30,000?

My man, there are support groups available

 

Yeah tell me about it, when I stopped collecting I was like a crack addict and would have the shakes every time I’d pass a Walmart or know about a big collectors event or toy show.

Intervention is a bitch

 

I got that way with my vintage Aurora HO slots cars....

 

Good stuff!

pssst, I’ve a few old ones left, contact me and I’ll give ya a fix!

 

Well, better than a “powder substance” where you’d have no money and nothing of value to show for it.

 

Yo got that right.....

 

Yeah but the only thing is I’m farming these off to take care of another addiction……Building another hot rod

 

Ah yes, the substitution theorem where one addiction displaces another. A concept I am quite familiar with.

 

I had a lot of redlines as a kid, along with some Aurora A/FX slots and The SST demo derby set that was already mentioned. We moved cross country when I was 16 and much of this did not make the trip. I got the redlines itch around 2000, and started buying groups of them on eBay. Since I also built a lot of model cars, this was a natural fit when I stumbled across an online community where guys were doing Hot Wheels RESTORATIONS. These were focused on the 1968-72 cars, because they were so stunning in that era. It was a shiny zinc body, that was polished and shot with candy lacquer, and had the redline tires.

Restorations make no real sense money-wise. Collectors Hate Restorers, because of the fear of counterfits. I made it obvious that any cars I did were manipulated if you look at the chassis. My resto work was really for me and I have probably 250 or so cars on display, restos and some nice (not perfect...) originals. Eventually I figured out how much this was cutting into time spent on my 1:1 project car and broke the addiction. It was a fun 4 years or so, and I actually made money, selling nicer cars I didn't want to collectors and resto candidate cars to other restorers. Prices for redlines were at a peak 20 years ago.

One of my favorite activities was a blind swap event with other restorers. We would get paired up through a draw. You and your partner would send each other a car and neither would know what was being sent. Your job was to do a resto on their car and vise versa, and post the process online. I would always get a duplicate of what was sent to me so I could do the same car to keep as a reminder.