The Story of Hot Wheels: Casting a Legend

At 63 years young (and not any type of collector) I must say this is a fantastic documentary of the Hot Wheels brand it brought back many memories for me because I drove past the Mattel building off the 405 freeway many times!

This video makes me want to be a kid again. It also makes me sad to think of all these cars that I destroyed when I was a kid. The red line Hot Wheels bring back a lot of memories.

I was sad when Ferrari dropped the license with mattel. The reason for that is because masito and other die cast car brands would pay more money than mattel. So when Ferrari found out. They would either call up mattel or write a letter saying... Your not paying us enough money so we're dropping our rights of you making our cars

This is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive HW documentary I have ever watched. To cover 50+ years is impressive. Hopefully you will continue with this content.

I was fortunate to have known Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (12:25) when I was a kid and would hang out at his house to check out his current projects. I was always impressed that his Beatnik Bandit was among the first batch of Hot Wheels. They even had his name on the bottom of the car. As a Cub Scout in 1971 I toured Mattel in Hawthorne and was given a free Hot Wheel as a gift. Growing up in Southern California had its perks!

I was born in 1960 and was an avid Matchbox fan when Hot Wheels arrived on the scene. They were astounding. It's hard to convey just what a big deal the introduction of Hot Wheels was.

Well done and I greatly appreciate the restraint on using a headbanging soundtrack to distract from the documentary. I was 7 years old and living in Detroit when Hot Wheels were released and it most certainly was a thermonuclear bomb that was detonated amidst our childhood. I learned so much from this documentary and I respect how much research and time it took you to complete it. You definitely earned a sub from me.

Your work on both your main channel and this one is just astonishing. I really hope you get more recognition in the upcoming future.

As a 6 year old in the early 70s, I am very happy to this day that I owned a Sizzlers Laguna Oval Set, with a Sizzlers car, the Juice Machine & the distinctive orange track sections! Then in 1975, I won a Mongoose & Snake Drag race set, a a local hardware store opening. I'm happy that I owned this set, also, as it was featured in the movie "Snake and Mongoose" from a few years ago. These were a couple of my favorite toys I owned way back when. Another one was the Mattel Talking Football game, which featured a mini record player with several small records with real football plays. Another thing about when I won the Mongoose & Snake Drag race set, was when I got home and my older sister helped me get it set up, the Apollo/Soyuz space mission was on TV that afternoon!

I was born in 53, I remember the first HW commercial from TV airing on a Saturday morning and how badly I wanted one. We lived in a small town and HW weren't sold anywhere there, and about a month or two later on one of our rare family shopping trips to the big city some 50 miles away I got to see my first HW up close. My brother and I could not be torn away from the HW display and though toys were not on the shopping list, we were fortunate enough to return home with a car each. Try as I might, I can not recall which models we picked out but I think the colors were the main factor in our decisions. The main thing is we came home with toys and it wasn't even Xmas. Come to think of it, I believe we acquired our GI Joes in a like situation.

I loved my hot wheels cars as a kid. My son became completely obsessed with collecting them as well and he probably had over 1500 cars by the time he outgrew playing with them. He had all the big garage sets as well as miles of tracks and remember how much fun him and me had playing with them. Truth be told,I probably had more fun as it was an excuse to play with hot wheels again. Lol.My favorite part about it all was us going to stores and looking for certain cars we didn’t have or a color we didn’t have, and how it made the bond between my son and me stronger by all the time we spent hunting cars together . It was just so much fun and hope to see fathers and their children playing with them for years to come.

This is genuinely the best documentary ive seen on anything for ages. Absolutely fascinating and amazingly well put together.

Matchbox were basically to model, display, and show, and I knew and loved Matchbox through my whole youth, - Hot Wheels were primarily for racing and competition. And slot-cars I must have had a thousand. Back in 1968, - I was a youth living in a boarding school in Germany. My grandmother was always sending me all kinds of such fun toys. Two I remember well. One was something I think many of you will probably remember, - it was a toy of sorts, - something you could draw and make wonderful designs with; I wonder if those are even around anymore, - it was called Spirograph. The other was probably one-of - if-not the first of Hot- Wheels creation. I remember all of Hot Wheels so well, everything. Those ~ 3 foot sections of orange plastic track, each joined together with those kinda red-purplish tongues, two ~ 10 ft. lengths would terminate with that yellow plastic gate that would drop a checkered flag for the winner, the top you'd secure at some height with that plastic screwed-clamp which was the very same color as the tongues that joined the pieces of track together. And those cars ! The biggest difference I guess, between the Matchbox car and the Hot Wheel, were the tires on each. Hot Wheel cars had semi-stiff wire-like axels, and this gave each wheel the best and fastest rotation, - and it also gave the little cars some pretty decent suspension. The wheels were not of a rubber-plastic kind, - they were a harder plastic, solid, and had painted rims and hub-caps. And the wired-axels would fit through into a small white plastic nub, that itself would rotate within the wheel itself. Of course, I had, played with, and cherished all three, - but I probably spent more time with those little Hot Wheel jewels than the other two by far. Owing to the fact that slot cars ran on controlled electricity rather than gravity, you could build up just about whatever you wanted. I remember that I would get 3 or 4 sets of the same scale, - and WOW, - the fabulous creations that I'd come up with ! My bedroom would look like an absolute city. But no doubt, - Hot Wheels would have to get the Trophy and Blue Ribbon. Anyone out-there remember these little demons, - that would swallow up all of mom's living room floor as soon as you'd get home from school ?

Watching this video made me want to collect scale models and I don't know why. Honestly, you're probably one of my favourite "video essay" channels out there, especially with Top Gear

This is the best and most comprehensive documentary on Hot Wheels I've ever seen. Excellent work.

This was fantastic. I really had no idea about any of this and I genuinely enjoyed every minute of this film. You did an exceptional job and should be proud of what you accomplished. Thank you so very much for your work.

58:26 May 25, 1998 “Apple: Is its comeback for real?”

Excellent comprehensive video. I used to produce television content. No one will ever know the time and effort it takes to make this level of production. Thank you.

I was 11 years old when Hot Wheels debuted in 1968. We had no idea they would ever be more than play toys and would play with those things out in the yard and just demolish them.

As a kid who was crazy about matchbox and hot wheels in the 80s and 90s this really hits home. Thank you for this!!