Well Friends, each one of you is conjuring up cool ideas.
And some of these (below) have already been mentioned.
(I'm focusing on Hot Wheels ... not Playing Mantis / Johnny
Lightning releases, since I'm not as familiar with that brand.)
;D
Anyway, here's a brief history about Hot Wheels 'show-rods'
& 'dream-rods' as they were released throught the years ...
1968 ... first year of the line-up, they were all pre-existing
very well-known highly admired designs. All, new to 1:64 ...
DEORA
SILHOUETTE
PYTHON
(later TIGER SHARK version of Car Craft Dream Car)
BEATNIK BANDIT
HOT HEAP
(Tognotti’s ‘T’)
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1969 ... Mattel designer Ira Gilford created concepts for
the first 4 in-house original ‘dream-rod’ Hot Wheels ... plus
a few more pre-existing designs (most by Tom Daniel) were
added into the line-ups for ‘69, ‘70, ‘71, and ‘72. A number
of recognizable model-kit designs were included in these ...
RED BARON
SAND CRAB
ICE ‘T’
S’COOL BUS
BEACH BOMB
PADDY WAGON
DEMON
(modified LIL’ COFFIN)
FUNNY MONEY
(and maybe others I didn’t know about)
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Onward through these ‘golden years’, a number of additional
original in-house castings were created, by various designers.
Later on, Mattel got more serious about the adult collecters,
and for a few years they released the more expensive, more
exclusive, limited-run, multi-piece 100% HOT WHEELS line.
Some cars were placed in multi-car theme-sets ... some were
placed within individual one-car boxes. A few cars were very
accurate / authentic in detail to their 1:1 creations ...
[/b](as 100% Hot Wheels ‘Collector’ releases …)
BEATNIK BANDIT
RED BARON
INVADER
LIL’ COFFIN
PADDY WAGON
MYSTERION
ALA KART
LITTLE DUECE COUPE
MUNSTER COACH
DRAGULA
CADZILLA
CHEZOOM
DEORA
GO-MAD
ORANGE CRATE
SMOOTHSTER
VERN LUCE COUPE
MANTA RAY
(the Dean Jeffreys version)
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There are others too ... plus the original Mattlel designs of wild, futuristic
‘dream-rods’ ... as in
SPLITTIN’ IMAGE, TWIN MILL, SWINGIN’ WING,
SUGAR CADDY. As far as I know, those never appeared as larger
scale model kits (although TWIN MILL has been re-created as a full-
function 1:1 show-rod. It’s become quite famous. It was also cast in
1:24 scale as 2 limited-run releases in the Hot Wheels LEGENDS series.)
Presently, Mattel continues to re-release various castings within the
exceptional-quality Hot Wheels Club / Red Line Club yearly line-ups.
This year for example, fully chrome-plated (as is usual with these
particular castings) highly-detailed versions of
BEATNIK BANDIT(in Spectrflame Hot Pink), and
TOGNOTTI’S ‘T’ (in its orginal show-
color of Kandy Ice Purple) have been offered to collectors.
Over the past 10 years or so ... within this HWC / RLC series, a few
of the more popular castings mentioned above have been offered.
Seems as if ‘show-rods’ / ‘dream-rods’ in 1:64 still remain popular.
As for my tiny collection ... every one of my castings has been (or
is still in progress of being) customized. I’ve posted threads for a
few here within this section of the forum. These 2 (below) are still in
progress ... I’m currently trying to improve my painting skills for them.
The best way I’ve found for acquiring FULL listings (by series or year)
of all the Hot Wheels castings is to do a search for for the WIKI site
on HW pieces ... very helpful detailed info is offered there.
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So which ten do I choose as my favorites, from (or as) model kits ??
SILHOUETTE
BEATNIK BANDIT
PYTHON (TIGER SHARK)
MANTA RAY
LIL’ COFFIN
SMOOTHSTER
CHEZOOM
CADZILLA
INVADER
DEORA
… CHEERZ …
Jeffrey
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