September 12 Weekly Open Thread - Little Boys and Their Toys
Today I want to take you back in the way-back machine we keep in the corner of the garage. For some of you it might have to be the way-way-back machine!
As the father to a 2 year old son, I have had the opportunity to renew my love for Matchbox and Hot Wheel cars. You remember these right? I bet some of you have a sock drawer with a few gems in reserve. Little die-cast cars that bring an amount of joy that far exceeds their size!
My son is a car nut, especially when it comes to these little things. He can spend hours (literally!) parking and reorganizing his cars. He even has a garage and race track for his rides. He even sleeps with a couple of his cars most nights - the most likely bed buddies are Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater.
So each evening when I get home I get to return back to my childhood and surround myself with cars and play with vehicles I could never afford and imagine what life might just be like with car lust and an unlimited budget.
Do you have an all time favorite Matchbox or Hot Wheels car? Any great memories like me of waking up Christmas morning and finding dozens of new cars awaiting under the tree?
As always, this is also the thread for any other more random talk that seems to be found in every garage I've ever been in.
(Photo taken from Amazon.com)
Chris Mallow on September 12, 2011 at 06:54 AM
I've got two words for "car lust and an unlimited budget": JAY LENO. :-)
My boys love Hot Wheels, and I have quite the stable myself: Ford GT40, 1969 Mustang Boss 302, Land Rover Defender 110, 1977 Dodge Ramcharger, AMC Javelin. It is nice to sit and stare and pretend.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on September 12, 2011 at 07:08 AM
My favorite was the Jackrabbit Special, a two seat, rear engined, open top roadster with "car of the future" styling:
http://www.grantoros.com/grantoros/images/redlines/jrrabbt.gif
Anthony Cagle on September 12, 2011 at 08:35 AM
Oddly, I never really got into it, although a couple of years ago I cleaned out the attic at mom & dad's house and found our little plastic MatchBox carrying cases, but each had only a couple of cars in it. I would, however, now maim, if not kill, for a Mustang II one.
In other news, an estate sale nearby listed a 1963/4 Corvair as part of the sale for $2,000 OBO. ! ! ! ! ! I went over later Sunday just to have a look, but I guess someone had snapped it up already. Couple of years ago a really mint unrestored 1965 Mustang was also part of the sale at $6500. It was a base model so not much interest, but estate sales seem to be a place to find great little gems.
That Car Guy on September 12, 2011 at 11:09 AM
I have two Matchbook cars I'm especially fond of. One is a racing version TR6 in British Racing Green, of course, and the other is a blue Vega.
tigerstrypes on September 12, 2011 at 02:13 PM
Ever since the Hot Wheels fever came back in the late 90s to my elementary school, I haven't been able to completely shake my love for 'em and their rivals. Even when everyone else moved on, I proudly bought and kept all of mine.
Now my little cousin LOVES cars and I'm starting to give some of 'em to her (finally someone else in the family with a love for cars!)
IMHO Mattel really upped the ante in the last couple of years. Seriously, did you guys ever expect to find the famous Tyrrell P34 Six-Wheeler racecar, a BLACK DeLorean DMC-12 WITH the optional BLACK accent stripe, V8 Chevy Vegas, Chevelle WAGON SS, Datsun Bluebird 510s, Australian Ford Falcons, and not one but TWO Ford Mustang concept cars!!
Let's not forget the chance to buy TV/movie cars at the same price as regular models (Batmobiles, BTTF DeLorean Time Machine, ECTO-1). Not so long ago, you had to pay a pretty penny to acquire some of these on the same scale, at least the BTTF Time Machine.
Cookie the Dog's Owner, this one's for you:
http://www.hotwheels.com/cars/1963-studebaker-avanti
Chris Hafner on September 12, 2011 at 03:28 PM
I was a huge Matchbox car fan as a kid, and I still have all of them - the ones I loved (and abused) most are in a display case, and the rest are in a box in the attic.
I really preferred Matchbox cars to Hot Wheels - the old Lesney Matchbox cars were really well made, had good wheels on them, and were models of real, stock cars. The Hot Wheels cars were overstyled, didn't have the same level of detail, and were less mature - they had flamey paint jobs and were more likely to be fake cars.
Now that the Lesney Matchbox cars are no more, I'm glad to hear that Hot Wheels is stepping up a bit. Hopefully the carmakers are participating, since I think they're fantastic vehicles for marketing and promotion to the next generation of car fans. My Car Lust really began with my Matchbox cars, and my current automotive tastes are heavily influenced by what I had. As I look through my most treasured Matchbox cars, I'm seeing a 1971 Dodge Challenger, a Citroen CX, and a massive 1970s Ford station wagon. Yup, yup, and yup.
Chris Meirose on September 12, 2011 at 10:01 PM
I have a large clear plastic tote that houses my baseball cards from my childhood (really it is baseball/basketball/football/hockey & Garbage Pail Kids...). In that same box are two small boxes of some of my favorite Hot Wheels cars from my childhood. I haven't broken them out & given them to my son. Maybe a few years from now...maybe never. I'm a bit possessive of those few I've saved I guess.
--Big Chris
Eric Bowman on September 12, 2011 at 11:30 PM
My girls have inherited most of my Hot Wheels...with the exception of a forklift and a couple of newer cars that I'm not ready to throw in the toybox yet.
When I was a very young lad, my father would sometimes take me out for lunch on a saturday, "just the guys" and afterward we would go to Fred Meyer and he would let me pick out a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car. I still have some of those cars. But my all-time favorite Hot Wheels car is the "Fire Eater" Fire Truck. And I really don't know why - I don't know if it's the near-universal attraction that fire trucks hold for young boys, or if it was just because my dad let me pick it out.
MattC on September 18, 2011 at 02:36 AM
As a child, I had a huge collection of both Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. My best friend growing up (2 houses away from me) used to set up large HotWheels racing events and he had the perfect bowl shaped back yard for the long first steep drop of the track. I remember arranging me cars in an old suitcase and wrapping them individually in tissue paper (yes I was OCD even then). My favorite was a Matchbox Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and ironically the Hot Wheels early 1980's Chevy Citation. I gave the set to my younger brother when I was "too cool" to play with them anymore.
The other week I picked up a Hot Wheels Datsun 510 (I learned to drive a stick on that car) and I was impressed that even 25+ years later, the cost of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars is still low.
...m... on September 21, 2011 at 06:37 PM
...i picked up a few hot wheels and matchbox cars a couple of years ago, and was disappointed in how far quality has diminished from the older cars of the eighties and before...as noted above, matchbox were historically better-detailed and more-realistic, but both lines are essentially identical now, made in the same factories and distributed by the same parent company...
...since that initial foray back into 1/64 scale cars, i've stepped up to 1/18 scale diecast cars instead: admittedly much more expensive, but even the cheap ($5-$20) 1/18 cars offer satifyingly superior detailing to modern 1/64 matchbox/hot wheels...