Matchbox & Hot Wheels, some of which had even been handed down from my older brothers; Corgis and some others got added later. My Hot Wheels track started out as another hand-me-down but we hit the jackpot at a garage sale; two kids (brothers?), one named “Dane” and one named “Drew”, were selling off their large amount of track pieces and accessories. Their names were written with black Sharpie on the bottom of the lap counters.
My sandbox was an area of the yard where a saucer sled killed the grass. The Matchbox Greyhound bus with its flat nose was great for carving out roads in the dirt. Dad got transferred when I was 10 and we moved shortly after my next birthday; no more playing in the dirt after that. The pool table became my toy car playground. Started setting up my tracks on there, staging hand-powered circuit races complete with time trials to determine starting position. Every car that got knocked completely off the track during a race had to go to the end of the line.
Oh, and there were also a whole bunch of Playskool wooden building blocks. Lay them horizontally and they’re the perfect size for driving Matchbox & Hot Wheels on!
My brother and I had collected and beat up and repainted probably 600 Matchboxes, Hot Wheels & other cars that size. The huge box and 3 carrying cases eventually went to my niece and nephew who lost many but also added new ones before they found there way to my own son. He went through a 3 year period where he lost some and added many and they now sit in my basement. Same with the hot wheel tracks.
The hot wheel tracks proved very handy when he was in the pinewood derbies. We set up twin tracks at about the correct angle to test his entries.
I was born in 1965, so I was just of the age to start to appreciate little toy cars when Hot Wheels came out in 1968. For Christmas in '69, my parents gave me an entire collector’s case full of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. I must have had many dozens of them as a kid (probably 2/3 Hot Wheels, 1/3 Matchbox) – my mom saved the last few that I still had once I got older, though they were very beat up by that point. I still have them, along with that collector’s case.
At the time that Hot Wheels came out, this was definitely the case. Matchbox cars were more about realistic models and real-life-based playsets; as such, they had wheels that, while they would roll, weren’t terribly good, and certainly weren’t made to move the car quickly. Take a look at this vintage Matchbox MG for an example.
When Mattel introduced Hot Wheels, their designers were inspired by California car culture, and they wanted to make cars that kids could use to race. So, they developed cars with wider tires, and low-friction axles. When Hot Wheels became an overnight success, Matchbox was forced to play catch-up, and they soon introduced cars with freer-rolling (i.e., faster) wheels.
For certain! Most of the original 16 Hot Wheels models were either based on actual production autos, or concept cars. In the years that followed those first models, Mattel created more original designs, particularly by Ira Gilford, who created a number of the wilder designs like the Twin Mill and the Splittin’ Image.
Stamped or Molded? I remember Tootsies or something like that where the basically hollow bodied bottomless cars were from molds and the axles snapped in.
Do a search for TootsieToy Cars; I’m pretty sure this is what you mean. Popular 5&10 store sets. You would get 6 or more cars for maybe $1 or $2 in 1969.
Every payday from 72-75 my Dad would bring home a new Matchbox car for me as a treat. I had three cases of them, and loved them dearly but some met untimely ends with bent axles, crashes with rocks and once a fiery end in a puddle of gasoline (with Dad supervising) that resulted in a puddle of pot metal. Quite a few got traded for comics as I got older, and I wish now I had taken better care of some of my more cherished ones. The only ones I have left now are the Blue Shark and the Hairy Hustler, the fastest cars in my collection. I loved the Unimog as well, funny that I haven’t thought of that or the space based ones in years!
(and when I think of something being molded, I think of liquid material being poured into a mold and then somehow solidifying, not an already-solid sheet being smooshed into shape)
Yeah, my brother and I had a ton of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars as kids in the 70s. We actually still have most of them and gave them to our sons to play with. Plus my son has even more because my wife is always buying them by the dozen for a few bucks at yard sales. I never really thought about it, but it seems strange that kids can have fun for hours just creating these sort of “Cars” worlds .
Also, my son’s cars are a lot cooler than mine. He has all these supercars like Lambos and Ferarris, muscle cars, fancy pickups. My cars (or at least the ones I have after my brother cherry picked the best ones) are like Le Cars and Ford Escorts (stupid 70s oil embargo).
I collected Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars as a kid. But what I really coveted was my brother’s Shuco car (that looks just like the one he had). It wound up and sped along on its own power!
But he wouldn’t let me play with it. I should buy one for myself now so that I, a 61-year-old woman, can finally play with my own Shuco car.
That reminds me, when I was a kid there were these ripcord cars that zipped pretty fast across rooms. They were a lot of fun. These are close to what I remember
Yup. All Matchbox/Hot Wheels roads eventually lead to Smashed-with-a-rock-ville. I’m certain there are still little smashed cars buried all around the yard of my family’s old house.
Ah, memories! I had maybe a hundred Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars back when I was a little boy. My friend Nate and I set up a miniature city, mostly cardboard and Legos, in my family’s basement, and played by the hour. Our fire and police departments were especially well-equipped - far more vehicles than we really needed, given the size of the city and the number of civilian vehicles we had. I painted some vehicles myself, but otherwise left most of them intact. I remember my favorite cars were a Corvette in the Indy 500 Pace Car livery, and a silvery Jaguar XJS.
