Hot wheels – Cool cars raced along on a specially designed track which could be manipulated into various shapes making some very exciting tracks. The favourite section no doubt being the loop the loop. Of course, boys will be boys and the track would inevitably be dismantled straight after the loop so the car would do the greatest stunt jump in the world over the fish tank and into the bread bin.
Now this was the boys toys die cast cars from the 1970s. Every TV commercial break showed us another in the extensive range of products, which was a must have item for the 70s boy.
The Hot Wheels range started way back in 1968, and hit the seventies running. These small die cast cars were made by Mattel, and they seemed to go to considerable trouble to make them as accurate as possible.
Although Mattel made for us cars that you would see on the street( mostly American streets) they started the 1970s with more cars that did not really exist. These fuelled our imaginations, as once you have seen this on the TV or in your LOOK IN magazine, you just wanted to be the first amongst your school mates to have it.
With 1971 bringing Evil Weevel, Stripteaser, Snake Rail Dragster and 1972 brought us the Snake Rear Engine Dragster and the Red Baron in 1973. Not that us kids knew about it, but at this point the cars were going down in quality because of inflation, oil prices and lower sales. But those commercials just kept on coming.
So in 1974, they added new cars with more flashy colours, and this of course reflected the 1970s flash era, so sales started to rise again and the cars like the Top Eliminator were back on the garden path crashing into the Dog and annoying mum, as she was trying to put the washing out.
It was not just cars that Hot Wheels produced, it was fire trucks, Ambulances, Motor Bikes and break down vehicles. I honestly do not remember Hot Wheels having any accessories, I maybe wrong, but if they did I must have broke them very quickly.
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