Hot Wheels
Little cars, big speed, since 1968. In 1968 Mattel launched 16 tiny die-cast cars with fast, low-friction wheels. Here is how Hot Wheels raced from toy aisles into collector legend.
A Hot Wheels Chevy Camaro from 2013: BenedictLiang, CC0
A toy line built for speed
Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler wanted a toy line that could do for boys what Barbie had done for girls. Small die-cast cars already existed, but Handler's team gave theirs something new: wide, hard plastic wheels that created far less friction. Put a Hot Wheels car on a slope and it flew.
The line launched in 1968 with 16 cars that collectors now call the Original Sweet 16. Car designer Harry Bentley Bradley worked on the first models, and the very first car produced was a dark blue Custom Camaro.
The redline years
Early Hot Wheels had a thin red stripe around each tire, and that detail gave the first decade its name: the redline era, from 1968 to 1977. The cars wore bright metallic paint and California custom styling, with big engines and wild proportions that looked fast even standing still.
Orange plastic track sets made the speed part of the game. Kids clamped loops and jumps to tables and stairs and raced cars across living room floors, and Mattel kept feeding the craze: in 1970 alone it released 43 new cars and rolled out the advertising slogan Go With the Winner. Every new casting meant another trip to the store and another argument over which car was fastest down the track.
Rivals and collectors
For decades Hot Wheels and Matchbox fought for space in the toy aisle and in the pocket of every kid with allowance money. That rivalry ended in 1997, when Mattel bought Tyco Toys, the owner of Matchbox, and the two lines became siblings under one roof.
Meanwhile the kids who grew up racing redlines became serious collectors. Rare early castings change hands for big money, and the legendary Rear-Loader Beach Bomb is one of the most prized pieces of all, with one example reported to have sold for close to 70,000 dollars. For the 40th anniversary in 2008, Mattel even made a diamond-studded model valued at 140,000 dollars.
Still rolling
Hot Wheels never stopped. New castings arrive every year alongside replicas of real cars, from classic muscle to modern supercars, and the Hot Wheels Legends Tour, launched in 2018, invites real-life custom car builders to compete for the chance to have their creation turned into an official toy.
The best part is that the original magic is unchanged. Hand a kid, or an OG, a little metal car and a strip of orange track, and they will figure out the rest.
