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Hot Wheels are a brand under the American Mattel toy company and were originally introduced in 1968.
Hot Wheels were conceived to be more like "hot rod" cars, as compared to Matchbox cars
which were generally small-scale models of production cars.
There were sixteen castings released on May 18, 1968, known as the “Original Sweet 16”.
The first one produced was a dark blue "Custom Camaro".
11 were designed by Harry Bradley, who was from the car industry and had designed the
body of the Dodge Deora concept car and Custom Fleetside.
Each had tyres with red pinstripes, known as Redline wheels.
In addition to the cars themselves, Mattel produced racing track.
Though it would be updated throughout the years, the original track consisted of a series
of brightly coloured orange road sections, with one or two "super chargers", which would
use spinning wheels to propel the cars along the tracks.
An important feature was Hot Wheel's use of wide, hard-plastic tires that created much
less friction and tracked more smoothly than the narrow metal or plastic wheels used on
contemporary Matchboxes.
Hot Wheels cars were designed to roll easily and at high speeds, which was a great innovation
at the time.
Hot Wheels were a big success.
The series completely disrupted the whole industry for small die-cast car models from
1968 onwards, forcing the competition at Matchbox and elsewhere to completely rethink their
concepts, and to scramble to try to recover lost ground.
Harry Bradley didn’t think the cars would be a success 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 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.
The success was consolidated with the 1969 releases, with which Hot Wheels effectively
established itself as the hottest brand of small toy car models in the USA.
The initial prototypes of the Beach Bomb were faithful to the shape of a real VW Type 2
"bus", and had two surfboards sticking out the back window, in a nod to the VW's perceived
association with the surfing community and the slang term for a person who spends much
time surfing - a 'beach bum'.
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.
1970 brought a new Hot Wheels advertising slogan: "Go With the Winner", and 43 new cars
appeared.
This was also the year that the Sizzlers and Heavyweights lines appeared.
Ira Gilford was joined by Larry Wood in designing new cars.
His first design would be the Tri-Baby.
In 2014 he was still working there, designing cars.
Mattel introduced "the Snake and the Mongoose", a manufactured 'rivalry' between two professional
drag racers calling themselves "the Snake" and "the Mongoose" for the purposes of publicity.
1970 also introduced the first 'Silver Series', which contained three silver-painted models:
the Boss Hoss, the Heavy Chevy, and the King 'Kuda, which were only obtainable through
a mail-in offer that included a membership to the Hot Wheels Club.
These three cars featured "supercharged" engines (featuring large Roots blowers) without hoods,
and open exhaust headers, after the style of drag racing cars of the era.
Popular among children, these 'Silver Cars' were considered faster than the rest of the
Hot Wheels lineup, because they were supposedly heavier than the other gravity models, but
the accuracy of this claim has never been tested under scientific conditions.
On the success of Hot Wheels, Mattel introduced the Sizzlers range in 1970, which included
a small motor and tiny rechargeable NiCad battery that gave up to 5 minutes of use.
They could run on regular orange track, and the line was an immediate hit.
Two lane race sets such as the California/8 race set were developed that allowed Sizzlers
to race side-by side, until Mattel created the black Fat Track which is three lanes wide
with steep banked curves and designed to allow Sizzlers to run free.
However, 1972 and 1973 were slow years.
Only seven new models were made in 1972.
Of the 24 models appearing for 1973, only three were new models.
Also the cars changed from Mattel's in-house Spectraflame colors to mostly drab, solid
enamel colors, which mainstream Hot Wheels cars still use today.
Due to low sales, and the fact that the majority of the castings were not re-used in later
years, the 1972-3 models are known to be very collectible.
In 1974, Hot Wheels introduced its 'Flying Colors' line, and added flashy decals and
"tampo-printed" paint designs which helped revitalize sales.
As with the lower-friction wheels in 1968, this innovation was revolutionary in the industry,
and—although far less effective in terms of sales impact than in 1968—was copied
by the competition, who didn’t want to be outmaneuvered again by Mattel product strategists.
In 1977, the 'Redline Wheel' was phased out, with the red lines no longer being printed
on the wheels.
This cut costs, but also reflected that the "red line tires" popular on high-speed-rated
automotive tires during the era of muscle cars and Polyglas tires were no longer popular.
During this period, there was a trend away from wild hot rods and fantastic cars, and
a move to more realistic cars and trucks, like competitor Matchbox.
Sizzlers II were launched in 1976, and “Night Ridin’ Sizzlers” the following year that
allowed headlights to be turned on or off.
Sizzlers were then phased out completely, being replaced by the pull-back “Scorchers” series.
In the 1990s, Mattel's trademark on the "Sizzlers" name had lapsed and toy company Playing Mantis
released a new Sizzlers line of NASCAR stock car models to capitalize on the booming popularity
of the sport.
In 2011, Sizzlers were re-released as Cars 2 characters.
In 1981, Hot Ones wheels were introduced, which had gold-painted hubs, and claimed to
have thinner axles for greater speed, along with additional suspension compliance that
older production Hot Wheels lacked.
Ultra Hot Wheels were introduced in 1984 and claimed further speed improvements.
Hot Wheels started offering models based on 1980s era sports and economy cars, like the
Pontiac Fiero or Dodge Omni 024, in addition to their typical 'hot rod' and muscle car
style offerings.
In 1983, a new style of wheel called Real Riders were introduced, which featured real
rubber tires.
Despite the fact that they were very popular, Real Riders was short-lived, because of high
production costs.
In the late 1980s, the so-called Blue Card blister pack color scheme was introduced,
which would become the basis of Hot Wheels colors still used today.
Two other innovations were introduced briefly in Hot Wheels cars in the 1980s.
The first, Thermal Color Change paint changed the car’s colour on exposure to hot or cold
temperatures.
The second, “Crack-Ups”, were vehicles with a panel that, on contact, would rotate
to reveal a reverse side which appeared to be heavily dented.
In the 1980s, Hot Wheels had got into a controversy with General Motors' Chevrolet Motors Division.
GM delayed the production of their new C4 Corvette, but Mattel got wind of the new car
and produced the toy version before the real version was on the road.
GM was angered and nearly pulled its licensing with Mattel, but cooler heads prevailed.
To test the waters of the new computer games market, Mattel released a computer game edition
of Hot Wheels for various 8-bit platforms starting in 1984.
They’ve since introduced many different games on home computers, then consoles and
smartphones, with Hot Wheels: Race Off for Android and iOS in 2017 being the latest.
In 1995 the lineup was split into Series.
First the Model Series that included all of the year's new castings, and was renamed to
First Editions the following year.
Next was the Treasure Hunt Series, that consisted initially of 12 cars every year with one or
two released per month.
The original production run was 10,000 of each car worldwide; that number has since
risen due to the increasing demand and popularity of Hot Wheels as a collector's item.
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 with another program also introduced that year called the
Bonus Car program, causing stores across the nation to have shortages.
Purchasing the four car sets and sending in the packaging backs plus a handling fee gave
you the opportunity to collect the bonus cars, 1 each released for each quarter of the year
starting in 1996 through at least 2000.
Mattel bought Tyco Toys in 1997.
Along with the purchase came old competitor Matchbox.
Arguably the two most dominant companies in matchbox-sized cars were now under one roof.
In 1998, Mattel celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Hot Wheels brand by replicating various
cars and individual packaging from its 30-year history and packaging these replicated vehicles
in special 30th Anniversary boxes.
And in 2003 Hot Wheels celebrated its 35th anniversary with a full-length computer animated
film called Hot Wheels Highway 35 World Race.
This movie tied into the Highway 35 line of cars that featured 35 classic Hot Wheels cars
with special graphics and co-molded wheels.
Hot Wheels were traditionally only bought by children, but in the late 1990s those 1960s
and 1970s kids had grown up and continued to collect the cars as adults.
Mattel estimates that 41 million children grew up playing with the toys, and children
between the ages of 5 and 15 have an average of 41 cars.
Most believe the collecting craze started with the Treasure Hunt series in 1995, and
Mattel has produced cars that appeal to collectors such as the Hot Wheels Classics line.
Hot Wheels conventions are regularly held around the United States.
Mattel announced there would be a major motion picture centred around the Hot Wheels brand,
but the film went into development hell.
With the success of the first Transformers movie in 2007 and the Fast and the Furious
franchise, there was renewed interest in 2011 but in 2017 it was still in development.
The movie is still being talked about, but whether it ever happens is unknown.
In 2004, Hot Wheels unveiled its "Hot 100" line, comprising 100 new models.
These new models included cartoonish vehicles such as the 'Tooned, Blings, Hardnoze, Crooze,
and Fatbax.
Fatbax models include the Toyota Supra and a Corvette C6.
These vehicles didn’t sell as well as Mattel expected, and many could still be found in
stores throughout 2005.
Mattel also released 2004 First Editions cars with unpainted Zamac bodies, sold through
Toys 'R' Us in limited numbers.
In 2005, Hot Wheels continued with new "extreme" castings for the 2nd year, debuting 40 distorted
cars, in addition to 20 "Realistix" models.
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 supposedly reduce friction dramatically.
In 2007 Hot Wheels released a series called Modifighters, which are similar to Transformers
except for the fact that they were originally cars and were modified into robots.
In 2018, for Hot Wheels' 50th Anniversary, a Hot Wheels "50th anniversary" logo was also
placed beside the set's name on the packaging.
Since then Mattel has continued to sell its Hot Wheels line of cars, testing the waters
with new ideas like a 3D CGI kids TV series.
Mattel hasn’t just produced matchbox-sized cars under Hot Wheels.
The Gran Toros line of 1/43 scale models was released as early as 1970, but many more have
been produced in more recent years.
Elite Hot Wheels are 1:18, 1:43 and 1:50 and highly detailed and the majority of them are
based on Ferraris.
In 2016 Hot Wheels started a new line of Collector's models, in a line called Car Culture.
Car Culture is Hot Wheels' line of Premium 1:64 models with metal bodies and bases, two-piece
wheels with rubber tires, and more detailed decorations.
In some cases, Hot Wheels dies have been sold or acquired by other companies once Mattel
has finished using them.
One example were early dies that made their way to Argentina and were reproduced as Mukys,
though not with spectra-flame paints or the same quality as seen in Mattel's products.
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