Hot Wheels is a brand of toy automobile, introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Johnny Lightning and Matchbox until 1996, when Mattel acquired rights to the Matchbox brand from Tyco.

Most Hot Wheels cars measure about 6 cm in length, and are approximately 1:64 scale. A majority of castings are die cast metal; however, some are cast in plastic. Hot Wheels also makes cars in different scales such as 1:43, 1:24 and 1:18 including replicas of Formula One and NASCAR cars. The Hot Wheels product line has also included various tracks, accessories, and other kinds of vehicles such as rechargeable electric cars, construction equipment, trains (Hot Line), Rumbler motorcyles and Hot Wings airplanes.

Unlike most older brands of toy cars (including Matchbox), Hot Wheels cars rolled well. They were designed to run on orange plastic track, which could be placed to make interesting jumps and loops. Motive power was by means of gravity, with the starting end of the course placed higher than the end by means of an included C clamp. A two-lane starting gate was available, allowing two lengths of track to be set up for racing. Later sets had both the starting gate and a finishing flag which would be tripped by the first car. One of the most famous sets was the 1970 Mongoose & Snake Drag Race Set, which reached values as high as $500 during the 1990s, but has since been produced in modified replica form. It featured yellow Plymouth Barracuda and red Plymouth Duster funny cars, loops, jumps, and even an apparatus that would deploy drag chutes after they crossed the finish line, all in a box showing Don Prudomme and Tom McEwen.

Other sets included a Supercharger that had an electric motor and foam covered wheels that propelled the car around a loop of track as the cars passed through. Accessories included a lap counter and a speedometer. Sizzlers had a built in motor and a tiny rechargeable battery. (The X-V racers of the 90s would be similar.) Fat Track was black (in contrast to the regular track's orange color) and three lanes wide, and was intended for Sizzlers to run free.

Elliot Handler, co-founder of Mattel, decided to produce a line of diecast toy cars for boys. Although his executives thought it was a bad idea, the cars were a big success. There were sixteen castings released in 1968, eleven of them designed by Harry Bentley Bradley. Although Bradley was from the car industry, he hadn't designed the full-functioning versions of the real cars, except the Dodge Deora concept car, which had been built by Mike and Larry Alexander. Another of his notable designs was the Custom Fleetside, which was based on his own heavily-customized '64 El Camino.

• Beatnik Bandit (designed by Ed Roth)
• Custom Barracuda
• Custom Camaro
• Custom Corvette
• Custom Cougar
• Custom Eldorado
• Custom Firebird
• Custom Fleetside
• Custom Mustang
• Custom T-Bird
• Custom Volkswagen (designed by Ira Gilford)
• Deora
• Ford J-Car
• Hot Heap
• Python (designed by Dean Jeffries, based on Bill Cushenberry's "Cheetah" show car)
• Silhouette

All of the cars featured Spectraflame™ paint, delrin bearings, redline wheels, and working suspension. Spectraflame™ paint was a transparent, "candy" color paint that looked like a dazzlingly bright custom paintjob when viewed over polished metal. Because Hot Pink was considered a "girls color", it wasn't used very much on Hot Wheels cars. For most castings, it is the hardest color to find, and today can command prices ten times as high as more common colors.

In order for the cars to go fast on the plastic track, Mattel chose a cheap, durable, low-friction plastic called Delrin to use as a bushing between the axle and wheel. The result was cars that could go up to [scale] 200mph at 1:64 scale. The bushings were phased out in 1970. The early years of Hot Wheels are known as the Redline Era as until 1977 the wheels had a red line etched around the tyre rim.

The "Torsion Bar" suspension was simple, but flawed. Inside the car, the axles followed a "C"-like shape that was connected to the chassis. When pushed down, the axles would bend like a real car. However the axles were hard to install on the chassis while being assembled and would become detatched from the lugs on the baseplate if very hard pressure was applied. The suspension was redesigned in 1970. Packaged along with the cars were metal badges showing an image of the car so fellow collectors could identify each other and compare collections.

As it turned out, the Hot Wheels brand was a staggering success. Harry Bentley Bradley didn't think that would be the case and had quit Mattel to go back to the car industry. When the company asked him back, he recommended a good friend, Ira Gilford. Gilford, who just had just left Chrysler, quickly accepted the job of designing the next Hot Wheels models. Some of Hot Wheels' greatest cars, such as the Twin Mill and Splittin' Image, came from Ira Gilford's drawing board.

• Brabham Repco F1
• Chaparral 2G
• Classic '31 Ford Woody
• Classic '32 Ford Vicky
• Classic '36 Ford Coupe
• Classic '57 Bird
• Custom Charger
• Custom AMX
• Custom Continental
• Custom Police Cruiser
• Ford MK IV
• Indy Eagle
• Lola GT70
• Lotus Turbine
• Maserati Mistral
• McLaren M6A
• Mercedes-Benz 280SL
• Rolls-Royce
• Shelby Turbine
• Splittin' Image
• Torero
• Turbofire
• Twin Mill
• Volkswagen Beach Bomb

The Splittin' Image, Torero, Turbofire, and Twin Mill were part of the "Show & Go" series and are the very first original in-house designs by Hot Wheels.

The initial prototypes of the Beach Bomb were faithful to a real VW bus's shape, and had two surfboards sticking out the back window. During the fledgling Hot Wheels era, Mattel wanted to make sure that each of the cars could be used with any of the playsets and stunt track sets. Unfortunately, testing showed that this early version (now known as Rear-Loader Beach Bomb, or RLBB) was too narrow to roll effectively on Hot Wheels track or be powered by the Super Charger, and was too top-heavy to negotiate high-speed corners.

Hot Wheels Designers Howard Rees and Larry Wood modified the casting, extending the side fenders to accommodate the track width, as well as providing a new place on the vehicle to store each of the plastic surfboards. The roof was also cut away and replaced by a full-length sunroof, to lower the center of gravity. Nicknamed "Side-loader" by collectors, this was the production version of the Beach Bomb.

The Rear-Loader Beach Bomb is widely considered the Holy Grail of any Hot Wheels collection. An unknown number were made as test subjects and given to Mattel employees, and today there are only about 25 known to exist. A regular production Beach Bomb may be worth up to $600, depending on condition. Market prices on RLBBs however, have easily reached the five-figure plateau. Within the last decade, one of two existing hot pink RLBBs sold for reportedly above $70,000 to a well-respected and widely-known Hot Wheels collector. The Hot Wheels Collectors Club released a new, updated version of the rear loading Beach Bomb in 2002 as a limited edition.

1970 was another great year for Hot Wheels. Howard Rees, who worked with Ira Gilford, was tired of designing cars. He wanted to work on the Major Matt Mason action figure toy line-up. Rees had a good friend by the name of Larry Wood. They had worked together at Ford designing cars. When Wood found out about Hot Wheels at a party Rees was holding, Rees offered Wood the job of designing Hot Wheels. Wood agreed, and by the end of the week, Larry Wood was working at Mattel. His first design would be the Tri-Baby. After 36 years, Larry still works for Hot Wheels.

Another designer, Paul Tam, joined Larry and Ira. Paul's first design for Hot Wheels was the Whip Creamer. Tam continued to work for Mattel until 1973. Among the many futuristic designs Tam thought up for Hot Wheels, some of the collector's favorites include Evil Weevil (a Volkswagen with two engines), Open Fire (an AMC Gremlin with six wheels), Six Shooter (another six wheeled car), and the rare Double Header (co-designed with Larry Wood).

1972 and 1973 marked a slump for Hot Wheels; few new castings were produced, and in 1973 most cars changed from Mattel's in house "Spectraflame™" colors to less-shiny solid enamel colors, which mainline Hot Wheels cars still use today. Due to low sales, and the fact that many of the castings weren't re-used in later years, the 1972-3 models are known to be very collectible.

In 1974, Hot Wheels began using the slogan "Flying Colors", and added flashy decals and tampos, which helped revitalize sales.

In 1977, the Redline Wheel was phased out, with the red lines being erased from the wheels. This cut costs, but also reflected that the red lines popularized during the era of muscle cars and Polyglas tires were no longer current.

What happened in the 1980s for Hot Wheels sent them in the path of what they are today. In 1981, Hot Ones wheels were introduced, which had gold-painted hubs and thinner axles for speed. Ultra Hots wheels, which looked like the wheels found on a Renault Fuego or a Mazda 626, were introduced in 1984 and had other speed improvements. Hot Wheels started offering models based off of 80's economy cars, like the Pontiac Fiero or Dodge Omni 024. In 1983, A new style of wheel called Real Riders were introduced, which had real rubber tires. Despite the fact that they were very popular, the Real Riders line was short-lived, because of high production costs. In the late 80s, the Blue Card was introduced, which would become the basis of Hot Wheels cars still used today.

The 1990s was the peak for Hot Wheels. 1995 brought a major change to the Hot Wheels line, where the cars were split up into series. One was the 1995 Model Series, which included all of that year's new castings. In 1996, the Model Series was renamed to First Editions. 1995 also saw the introduction of the Treasure Hunt Series (see below). The rest of the series included four cars with paint schemes that followed a theme. For example, the Pearl Driver cars all had pearlescent paint. Sales for the series models soared, causing stores across the nation to have shortages. Many new wheels were also introduced.

Main article: Treasure Hunt Series.

The Treasure Hunt series was introduced in 1995 with 12 cars that were specially detailed and produced in limited numbers. The initial run consisted of 10,000 units worldwide. The Treasure Hunt Series was an instant hit, and as a result, production increased to 25,000 units per car in 1996 and 1997. Starting in 1998, Mattel stopped releasing production numbers of Treasure Hunts.

Treasure Hunt Vehicles are found by the denotion on the package. Usually it will say "Treasure Hunt" or "T-Hunt" in a green bar with a picture of a treasure chest. The cars are decorated with flashy designs and usually have special "rubber" wheels. The value of a Treasure Hunt does not usually hold very well. They have a high price tag when they are first released, and slowly but surely decrease as the production run goes along. Only in rare cases will a Treasure Hunt hold value, such as if the car is a muscle car or hot rod, like a Camaro, or an oldies Ford Coupe.

Paul Tam's son Alec Tam joined Hot Wheels' design team in 2000 and still works for Mattel today. Alec has also designed Whip Creamer II, the updated version of his dad's first Hot Wheels design, the Whip Creamer. In 1999 Hot Wheels Racing signed up with five Formula 1 teams to manufacture scale model Formula 1 cars of those teams ^[1].

In 2004, Hot Wheels unveiled their "Hot 100" line, comprised of 100 new models. These new models included cartoonish vehicles such as the 'Tooned, Blings (square bodies and big wheels), Hardnoze (enlarged fronts), Crooze (stretched out bodies), and Fatbax (super-wide back tires). These vehicles didn't sell as well as Mattel expected, and many can still be found in stores. List of 2004 Hot Wheels

In 2005, Hot Wheels continued with new "extreme" castings for the 2nd year, debuting 40 distorted cars, in addition to 20 "Realistix" models. In addition to the 60 new First Editions, Hot Wheels also had the standard 12 Treasure Hunts, 10 Track Aces, 50 Segment Series Cars, 50 Open Stock Models, and 4 Mail-in Volkswagen Promo Cars, plus the special 13th Treasure Hunt, the VW Drag Bus. In 2005, Hot Wheels also unveiled its new "Faster than Ever" line of cars, which had special nickel-plated axles, along with bronze-colored Open-Hole 5 Spoke wheels. These adjustments reduce friction dramatically, resulting in cars that are "Faster than Ever." The first run of these cars were available for a limited time only, from the beginning of October, towards the end of November 2005.

List of 2005 Hot Wheels

The 2006 releases consisted of 38 First Editions (all realistically proportioned), 12 Treasure Hunts, 12 Track Aces, 60 Segment Series, 96 Open Stock Models and 5 Mystery Cars. Some limited editions produced in 2006 include a Honda Civic Si sporting a Dropstars logo that was only available at the 2005 SEMA convention and the CUL8R with Faster Than Ever (FTE) wheels which was only available by mail.

List of 2006 Hot Wheels

Through the years, Hot Wheels cars have been collected mostly by children, but in the last ten years there has been an increase in the number of adult collectors. Mattel estimates that 41 million children grew up playing with the toys, the average collector has over 1,550 cars, and children between the ages of 5 and 15 have an average of 41 cars. Most believe the collecting craze started with the Treasure Hunts in 1995. Mike Strauss has been widely hailed as the father of Hot Wheels collecting; he has organized two collectors' events each year in some form since 1986. The first event was the Annual Hot Wheels Collectors Convention, normally held each year in the fall. The convention occurred in various locations around the country until 2001, when the first Annual Hot Wheels Collectors Nationals was put together. Since then, the Conventions are held each year in southern California. The Hot Wheels Collectors Nationals rotate among cities outside of California during the spring. Mike has also published the quarterly Hot Wheels Newsletter since 1986 and was one of the first to unite collectors all over the world. Mike also writes the Tomart's Guide To Hot Wheels, a book listing history, car descriptions and values. It is used by almost every collector to learn more about the hobby and their collection.

In 2001, Mattel saw how much collecting was affecting their sales and put together www.hotwheelscollectors.com as an online way to unite collectors by offering limited edition cars, information about upcoming releases and events, as well as chat and trade boards. Each year, they sell memberships to the Redline Club, which gives members the opportunity to order additional limited edition cars, as well as access to areas of the site with information such as sneak previews of new cars.

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of web pages dedicated to Hot Wheels collecting. People are collecting everything from only new castings to only Redlines and everything in between. Most collectors have a love for cars, and since none of us can afford all of the old cars (and even if we could, we wouldn’t have enough space to store them), Hot Wheels fill that void. For the most part it is a relatively inexpensive hobby, when compared with coin collecting, stamp collecting or Barbie collecting, with mainline cars costing about $1 (USD). The price hasn't changed much in almost 40 years.

The Hot Wheels Classics line was an immediate hit with enthusiasts everywhere, particularly collectors who had observed the decline in standards that accompanied forty years of keeping the cars at one dollar. Series 1 from 2005 consisted of 25 models, each with all-metal body and chassis, decked out with Spectraflame™ Paint, in packages similar to those used for the first five years, for a retail price of three dollars. Each of the 25 cars were released with 7 or 8 different colors. There were also Track Sets in similarly-retro packaging, and 1:18 scale Hot Wheels Classics. The Classics version of the Purple Passion was released with Real Rider tires at the San Diego Comic Con. There was also a 2005 Toy Fair Classics Olds 442 with Spectraflame™ Blue paint. In 2006, Series 2 consists of 30 models including the '67 Convertible Camaro and Mustang Mach 1.

VW Drag Bus

The VW Drag Bus was first offered as a 1996 First Edition, and is the heaviest Hot Wheels model made to date. It has a flip up body, big engine, and is extremely popular with collectors. Speculation was that because of its higher cost and huge popularity, Mattel moved the VW Drag Bus from regular production to a limited edition only product.

Go Kart

The lightest Hot Wheels casting to date. Its only plastic parts are the wheels and seat. It was introduced in 1998.

Rear-loading Volkswagen Beach Bomb

The rear-loading Volkswagen Beach Bomb had 2 surfboards sticking out of the back window. The casting proved to be too thin to run through the Supercharger and was subsequently redesigned with the surf boards moved to the side. An unknown number of the cars were made as test subjects and given to Mattel employees. Currently, there are only about 25 known to exist and is widely considered to be the holy grail of Hot Wheels collecting.

Screamin' Wheels

Screamin' Wheels had treads on them, making them screech as they rolled down the track. They were only offered on 3 models sold with the starter set and the 2 models included in the "Serpent Cyclone" track. They were sold in very small numbers, making collectors snatch these up for high prices.

Lime Hub Wheels

The Lime Hub were wheels were offered with black plastic tires and a lime wheel. There were only a couple of models, and were sold in small numbers, making them very collectible.

Real Rider Wheels

These were plastic wheels with real rubber tires. While sales were strong, Hot Wheels cut the line after only three years, because they were too expensive to make. They have appeared only on limited edition cars and special series since then.

Faster Than Ever

See the section on 2005 Hot Wheels.

• Maisto
• Tomica
• Matchbox (toy company)
• Corgi Classics Limited
• Majorette

• Hot Wheels, A collectors guide — Bob Parker, 2001
• Mike and Diane Strauss — "The Hot Wheels Newsletter" — Feb. 2006

Leffingwell, Randy (2003). Hot Wheels: 35 Years of Speed, Power, Performance, and Attitude. Motorbooks International. ISBN 0-7603-1573-6. Strauss, Michael (2002). Tomart's Price Guide to Hot Wheels, Updated 5th Edition. Tomart Publications. ISBN 0-914293-52-4.

• Hot Wheels Official Site
• Hot Wheels Collectors Official Site
• Hot Wheels Collectors Nationals
• The On-line Redline Guide (vintage Hot Wheels, 1968-1977
• Redlinespoilers.com, dedicated to vintage redline Hot Wheels Spoilers hot rod cars from 1970-1971
• Parts for the vintage Redline Hot Wheels
• Hallsguide for Hot Wheels Collectors
• Hot Wheels Newsletter
• Hot Wheels Guides by Michael Zarnock
• Online Hot Wheels Guide w/Pictures and Descriptions
• East Coast Hot Wheels Museum
• First Coast Hot Wheels Collectors
• The Virtual Toychest's Shogun Racers page
• DiecastLive Hotwheels Collectors Forum
• Joe's Diecast Shack