Bitchin' tiny die-cast Hot Wheels save the world

Hot Wheels Save The World
Because bitchin' tiny die-cast hot rods can trump any video game swill like, ever
Mark Morford

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2003/11/11/financial0348EST0006.DTL&nl=fix

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (AP) -- Inspired by the sleek, customized muscle cars and hotrods that emerged in Southern California in the 1960s, toy designers launched the Hot Wheels line of die-cast metal cars with one purpose: Out-cool and outrun every other toy on wheels.

Thirty-five years later, the appeal remains strong among boys who still like to watch the small cars that sell for about a dollar race down elaborate orange tracks, hugging curves and defying gravity.

The toys have also become hot collector items, inspiring a bevy of online fan sites and sometimes fetching thousands of dollars at online auctions.

A recent scan of eBay turned up nearly 400 Hot Wheels items for sale. A metallic blue custom Cougar went for more than $340. In 2000, a collector paid about $72,000 for a 1969 1/64th scale Volkswagen Beach Bomb, one of only 22 known to exist.

For toy maker Mattel Inc., the brand represents an iconic property on a par with its Barbie doll line and a key revenue source in an industry that has grown much more competitive since the first Hot Wheels car was rolled out in 1968.

"It's still one of the top-selling brands of toys in the United States, based on volume alone," said Chris Byrne, a New York-based consultant who tracks toy trends. "The thing about it is, it's an awful lot of fun for a buck."

Over the years, Mattel has expanded the Hot Wheels brand, building car models in a variety of sizes, with working parts and rich detail. The company now makes Hot Wheels computer games, clothing for adults and children, and even automotive parts for life-size cars.

With domestic sales lagging this year, Mattel has seized on the 35th anniversary of the brand to launch new car lines and other Hot Wheels products, an animated TV series and a permanent exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

Mattel would not give specific sales figures for Hot Wheels nor disclose what percentage of its total sales are generated by the brand. But the cars remain the flagship product line for young boys.

The company has produced more than 3 billion Hot Wheels cars since 1968. More than 800 models in 11,000 variations have been rolled out.

Amy Boylan, senior vice president of Mattel's Boys-Entertainment New Media Division, says today's Hot Wheels fans tend to be younger than the children drawn to the toys in the 1970s. Many fans ultimately grow up to be collectors, who make up 35 percent of the business.

"In our last convention we had 2,500 adults and 1,500 kids. They raced cars down the track for prizes," Boylan said. "How many things can you say that are 35 years old that are still fun to do?"

As a child in the 1960s, David Hester of Canton, Ohio, used to bury his Hot Wheels in the back yard so no one would find them. Now he spends several hours a week combing through Internet trading sites, toy store bins and flea markets for rare models.

He has spent about $4,000 buying Hot Wheels since he began collecting them about four years ago, and estimates he now owns about 1,500.

"They've made so many cars, so many different colors, you just get hooked," said Hester, 44, who works in fast food sales. "I like the variations and the really hard to find ones."

Collector Dave Kunz, 41, of Los Angeles, was 6 when Hot Wheels came out and he was immediately hooked. They ruined a lot of them playing in the dirt," he remembered. "My brother and I had Hot Wheels all over the
house. My mother would get the track caught in her vacuum cleaner." Today he keeps his prized Hot Wheels on a shelf, but said, "I need more."

From the start, the look and speed of Hot Wheels set them apart from other die-cast cars, Byrne said. Other brands, like Matchbox, which Mattel now owns, sold cars that simply emulated garden-variety automobiles, ambulances, police cars and other service vehicles.

"Hot Wheels was the first of these to really focus on speed, and it was all about the speed," Byrne said.

The Redlines series is an example. Made between 1968 and 1972, during what many collectors regard as the brand's "classic" period, the cars had wheels with red stripes, low-friction suspension bearings and thin axles -- all to make them go faster.

Even the paint suggested speed. To achieve the gleam of California hot rods, designers developed a technique called Spectraflame that gave the cars a vivid, metallic sheen.

"We were after the candy colors then," said Larry Wood, a former design engineer at Ford Motor Co. who went to work at Mattel in 1972 and has designed most of the Hot Wheels cars since then.

In the 1970s, designers began using more complex graphics, like flame decals, and more intricate racing stripes. That enabled Mattel to put out the same car with different looks. By the 1980s, designers were using different wheel designs and thinner axles to improve speed.

Some cars, like the Sizzlers, even had battery-operated motors. The basic cars, which at first had bearings in the wheels and axles that tended to warp over time, have actually gotten simpler.

"They were real fast and suspension worked and everything else," Wood said. "But we found out that kids just liked to let them go fast, so we ended up with straight axles, which were easier."

Meanwhile, the tracks got bigger, with crazier loops, higher ramps and even glow-in-the-dark features.

About 30 designers now work on Hot Wheels cars. They draw their ideas from a number of places, including the streets of Southern California. These days, everything from Hummers and NASCAR racers to sporty Hondas like those seen in the street-racing movie "The Fast and The Furious," are made by Hot Wheels.

"We do so many cars now, I don't think there's anything we've missed,"
Wood said.