Hot Wheels

Hot Wheels is a popular brand of toy automobile, introduced by U.S. toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1996, when Mattel acquired rights to that brand as well.

Cars released in 1968

• Beatnik Bandit (designed by Ed Roth)
• Custom Barracuda
• Custom Camaro
• Custom Corvette
• Custom Cougar
• Custom Eldorado
• Custom Firebird
• Custom Fleetside
• Custom Mustang
• Custom T-Bird
• Custom Volkswagen
• Deora
• Ford J-Car
• Hot Heap
• Python (designed by Dean Jeffries)
• Silhouette

All of the cars featured Spectraflame paint, delrin bearings, redline wheels, and working suspension. The Spectraflame paint was a transparent, "candy" color paint, that when viewed through polished metal, looked like a dazzling, bright custom paintjob.

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In order for the cars to go fast on the plastic track, Mattel picked out a cheap, durable, low-friction plastic called Delrin to be placed inbetween the axle and wheel. The result was cars that could go up to 200mph at 1:64 scale.

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A symbol among collectors, the Redline wheels are what gave this era of Hot Wheels it's name; redlines. Just a simple stamped-on redline around the face of a wheel, the redlines were on Hot Wheels cars until 1977.

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The working suspension for the cars was simple, but flawed. The axles were bent into a weird "C"-like shape that was connected to the chassis. When the child pushed down onto a car, the axles would bend like a real car. However, the axles were hard to install on the chassis while being assembled and would break off the chassis if very hard pressure was applied. The suspension was redesigned in 1970.

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Packaged along with the cars was matching metal buttons, that could be attached onto a belt so a fellow collector wearing the buttons could show off what cars he had.

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