Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: just Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry. You know, that
Speaker 1: just sounded like like that's what happens. Like you're having
Speaker 1: a nightmare and you mean wake you up in the
Speaker 1: middle of night and he just goes, hey, welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast, and then she slaps you across the face.
Speaker 1: Real heart. H it's true. Yea, that is what that sounded.
Speaker 1: It sounded that's pretty accurate. I don't know what got
Speaker 1: into me. You were just super charged about this topic.
Speaker 1: That's terrible. Super charged. I'll get it. It's like a
Speaker 1: super charged engine. And I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1: Oh good, that makes me feel a little better. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: you know Jerry, by the way, before when I told
Speaker 1: her what we were doing, so oh my gosh, that
Speaker 1: was my favorite toy when I was a kid. Nice
Speaker 1: hot wheels are pretty great. Yeah. I had a quite
Speaker 1: a collection, and I don't know where they are today.
Speaker 1: We're missing huh. Yeah. I don't know if they were
Speaker 1: thrown out or if if my brother has them, or
Speaker 1: they're my mom's attic or what. Because I'm kind of
Speaker 1: curious about have any value you need to find them?
Speaker 1: They could be apparently, as far as hot wheels collectors go,
Speaker 1: it could be in mint condition all the way down
Speaker 1: to beater condition. That was how they rank them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mine would be beaters because I played with them like crazy.
Speaker 1: That's good. I mean, that's what they're for, you know.
Speaker 1: And there's value for a beater too, like some people
Speaker 1: apparently harvest them for parts to rebuild, like a you know,
Speaker 1: a new Frankenstein model. Yeah, that's pretty neat. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff you could do with them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we should thank the fifth grader who wrote this article too.
Speaker 1: Sad face. I complained about that, autoued to Holly. I
Speaker 1: was like, this article actually says sad face like as
Speaker 1: a sentence. I know that issues. I'm glad you said something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what if it was a fifth grader? Your feelings are
Speaker 1: all hurt. I think your feelings are hurt either way. Now,
Speaker 1: sad face, So we're talking about hot wheels today. I
Speaker 1: had a couple. Um, my favorite toy was g I Joe,
Speaker 1: but I appreciated hot wheels too, do Gi Joe episode
Speaker 1: Sometimes I had the older ones though, you probably had
Speaker 1: huge ones. Yeah, yeah, now I had the real ones.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't that's fighting words. Man. The ones
Speaker 1: that I had were so awesome. They were like there
Speaker 1: was a huge, fast collection of all of them. There
Speaker 1: was like cobra. Cobra didn't exist when you were collecting
Speaker 1: g I Joe. No, but how could you say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that one that's ten inches tall and has real clothes
Speaker 1: and fuzzy hair and the kung fu grip is inferior
Speaker 1: to this little plastic thing. I think you just said it.
Speaker 1: All the fuzzy hair says it right there. I don't
Speaker 1: really mean that, Chuck. I. I don't have a dog
Speaker 1: in that fight. Like, if you like the big g
Speaker 1: I Joes, that's cool. I got a problem. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a quick side note. I have to tell this story
Speaker 1: when you know how I used to do book reports
Speaker 1: and you would have to have a visual aid. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I might have told this before. If I do, I apologize,
Speaker 1: I don't recognize it. Um I did a report on
Speaker 1: Franco Harris went in a lunchary school because he was
Speaker 1: a football player. Yeah. I don't know why I did
Speaker 1: Branko Harris, but um, I got my mom to make
Speaker 1: me a little Pittsburgh Steelers uniform for my g I
Speaker 1: Joe because he looked like Franco Harris. Nice. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was my visual aid. Do you still have it? No,
Speaker 1: of course not. We have the g I. Joe's, but
Speaker 1: I think the Steelers uniform is gone. Bye bye. That's said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure your mom put a lot of
Speaker 1: work into that. Now would feel guilty. Uh So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I have a question for you. Yes, did you know
Speaker 1: that the number one vehicle manufacturer on the planet is,
Speaker 1: in fact hot wheels? I did it? Kind of It's
Speaker 1: astounding until you stop and think about it. Sure, Like
Speaker 1: apparently since night when hot wheels were first introduced, more
Speaker 1: than four billion hot wheels have been produced. That's more
Speaker 1: than the big four Detroit automakers combined. You're like wow,
Speaker 1: and then you think, oh, yeah, it costs a minute
Speaker 1: fraction of the cost to build a hot wheels and
Speaker 1: it does a normal car. Plus. Also, it's not like
Speaker 1: you're gonna go, I want this uh Bewick cutless supreme
Speaker 1: in every color it comes in, right, you know, with
Speaker 1: the hot wheels you can do that. Yeah, what's the
Speaker 1: lego stat is they're the biggest manufacturer of tires. Yeah there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder though, do these not count as tires because
Speaker 1: they're plastic? The count as wheels? I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: because four billion times four that's sixteen billion tires. That's
Speaker 1: a really great question. I mnna have to challenge Lego
Speaker 1: or maybe just look up how many times they manufacture
Speaker 1: Old Kirk Christiansen is not going to be happy about this.
Speaker 1: Who was that the founder of Lego? Remember that's right,
Speaker 1: I thought you were saying old ye so um, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the history of this stuff. Huh. So hot wheels,
Speaker 1: like I said, have been around since n And anybody
Speaker 1: who's heard the Barbie Trademark podcast will recognize the name
Speaker 1: Elliott Handler. That's Ruth Handler, the inventor of Barbie trade marks.
Speaker 1: Husband sure um and Elliott apparently saw a real chance
Speaker 1: to muscle in on an already extent market by a
Speaker 1: company called Tycho that had a line of miniature metal
Speaker 1: cars die cast cars is what they're called, called Matchbox cars.
Speaker 1: By the time hot Whales came around, Matchbox was already
Speaker 1: there and had established a market, and Mattel said, let's
Speaker 1: get in on it. Yeah, and The rumor is that
Speaker 1: he saw his grandchildren playing with them and said, uh,
Speaker 1: they kind of snake. I can make these better cooler,
Speaker 1: and he had a um. As the story goes at
Speaker 1: a designer which we'll talk about in a second called
Speaker 1: Harry Bradley, and he had a hot rod and Elliott
Speaker 1: was in the parking lot one day. It said, man,
Speaker 1: those are some hot wheels. You got there? And and
Speaker 1: apparently if you go look look at the old original
Speaker 1: commercials for hot wheels, did they say that that's how well,
Speaker 1: that's how they pronounce it hot wheels to the hot wheels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: emphasis is on the hot It sounds awkward. They're like,
Speaker 1: race your hot wheels. You can make you can race them.
Speaker 1: Just go buy some hot wheels, that's what they That's
Speaker 1: how they say it, collect all your hot wheels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that makes more sense in the context of a sentence,
Speaker 1: it does, you know, having been raised right, you know
Speaker 1: post the in fact wheels hot wheel wheels. Now I'm
Speaker 1: trying to picture the guy in the parking lot saying,
Speaker 1: those are some hot wheels you got on your there,
Speaker 1: you'd say hot wheels you got there? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh boy, we can sure waste some time, we sure can.
Speaker 1: But the first in is like you said, when the
Speaker 1: first line came out of sixteen Hot Wheels they were
Speaker 1: sold initially for fifty nine cent apiece. Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: you said, the guy whose car originally inspired the name
Speaker 1: Hot Wheels UM was Harry Bradley and he was the
Speaker 1: designer of that first sixteen cars. They were also called UM.
Speaker 1: California Customs Miniatures. Was that first original sixteen group of
Speaker 1: Hot Wheels UM that were released in nineteen so, and
Speaker 1: Harry Bradley designed them all including apparently he got his
Speaker 1: hands on UM. The first one, by the way, that
Speaker 1: came out was a Chevy Camaro. Of course, the second
Speaker 1: one that came out was the Chevy Corvette. And apparently
Speaker 1: the Chevy Corvette came out before the actual Corvette came out, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the sixty nine Corvette. That is so. Harry Bradley was
Speaker 1: an old hand, and not just miniature car design, but
Speaker 1: car design in general. He was an old GM designer
Speaker 1: and I guess he had connections still at GM and
Speaker 1: probably under the table in a possibly illegal way, got
Speaker 1: his hands on the blueprints for the Corvette that hadn't
Speaker 1: been released yet, and Hot wheels beat GM to the
Speaker 1: punch and releasing the corvette. Yeah sixty nine, Um, thank you,
Speaker 1: that's all right. Thee as the lower goes. He supposedly
Speaker 1: knew that the cafeteria door was unlocked, so he snuck
Speaker 1: in through the cafeteria door. But that's called industrial espionage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a story like just lore. Okay, but
Speaker 1: maybe so maybe he committed industrial espionage. Um. So, like
Speaker 1: you said, the those were the two of the first
Speaker 1: sixteen and that original lineup, that original collection, which if
Speaker 1: you have any of those, okay, yeah, you got some
Speaker 1: money because I mean like they went all out on those,
Speaker 1: that original line Like there were bushings to the suspension
Speaker 1: and the I mean the chassis. Um it had suspension
Speaker 1: like shocks, like you could press them down and it
Speaker 1: would bounce back. I had some of those. I don't
Speaker 1: think they were from sixty eight. But when did they
Speaker 1: quit making those to set up until seventies seven was
Speaker 1: when they stopped making the Um oh no, seventy is
Speaker 1: when the suspension got an overhaul. Okay, So for the
Speaker 1: first couple of years, like they were really putting a
Speaker 1: lot into these things. Um, the tires were red line
Speaker 1: racing slicks, um, and the things. The whole reason they
Speaker 1: went to so much trouble is because they really wanted
Speaker 1: to destroy their competitor, matchbox and one of the ways
Speaker 1: they did that was by making these things was far
Speaker 1: more functional, um than the match boxes were. The matchbox
Speaker 1: cars were, so they really could race. And if you
Speaker 1: put a matchbox car up against the comparable hot wheels,
Speaker 1: say the same model car, um, the hot wheels will
Speaker 1: destroy it every time, and the head to head race,
Speaker 1: as we saw on the internet a guy did that
Speaker 1: of course. Uh. He took a two volkswagons and two
Speaker 1: Outi eights I think in one match box and one
Speaker 1: hot wheel and he said they won by at least
Speaker 1: a car link every time he tried. And this was
Speaker 1: no loop de loop rain things is just the straight race. Um.
Speaker 1: They painted them originally in Spectra Flame, which was very
Speaker 1: shiny and sparkly and expensive. Um. And I don't think
Speaker 1: we said that all hot wheels are built at one scale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a big point, but not necessarily all matchbot cars.
Speaker 1: They kind of vary here and there. Um. But like
Speaker 1: you said, that Spectra Flame and the red line tires
Speaker 1: didn't only last until seventy seven, and the suspension only
Speaker 1: lasted until nineteen seventy and they sadly a lot of
Speaker 1: that had to do with the fact that they moved
Speaker 1: them from Hawthorne, California to Hong Kong. Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: any product, you're like, hey, you can make it for
Speaker 1: half as much if you make it in China, so
Speaker 1: let's move, let's ship the operations overseas well. Not only that,
Speaker 1: it's the spectro flame pain is pretty expensive. It's awesome,
Speaker 1: it looks great, but it's pretty expensive. So um with
Speaker 1: with any collector's item. As they started to downgrade the
Speaker 1: components and the parts and the manufacturing and ultimately the
Speaker 1: final product, all that did was make the original stuff
Speaker 1: all the more valuable today because much fewer and fewer
Speaker 1: of them as the years go on, proportionately speaking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had actual axles, like you know, it was like
Speaker 1: a real They were designed by car designers. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they were made apparently to reach two hundred scale miles
Speaker 1: per hour. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's way cool. Yeah. Remember,
Speaker 1: like in the cockroach episode, we talked about how they're
Speaker 1: the fastest animal on the planet relatively speaking. Pretty neat stuff.
Speaker 1: Um so chuck right out of the gate. Mattel had
Speaker 1: a hit on his hands. Um. They released them in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. By nineteen seventy, Hot Wheels was a
Speaker 1: Saturday Morning cartoon in the vein of like Dune Buggy
Speaker 1: and Scooby Doo and all those guys. Hannah, Barbara, you're
Speaker 1: speed Buggy, Speed Buggy. Yeah, remember speed Buggy. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: was like a dune buggy that could talk, and it
Speaker 1: was basically wonder bug No, it's speed Buggy. Um, because
Speaker 1: there was like if you took Shaggy and put some
Speaker 1: like gracing goggles on him and then turned Scooby Doo
Speaker 1: into a speed a dune buggy, that's speed Buggy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He went around solving mysteries and stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wonderbug was I think that was live action. Oh, this
Speaker 1: was a cartoon, said Marty Cross. This is actually like
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo by the people who did Scooby Doo, using
Speaker 1: the same people who did the voices for Scooby Doo.
Speaker 1: It's just vaguely changed the characters. Hot Wheels was virtually
Speaker 1: the same thing, except it was about racing clubs. They
Speaker 1: were the bad guys and good guys. And do you
Speaker 1: know this cruise? What is the nineteen seventies of the
Speaker 1: doom Buggie was a very popular thing, remember seeing those
Speaker 1: on the road, Like I used to see him all
Speaker 1: the time. Not all the time, but in the seventies
Speaker 1: it was a common thing. Yeah, you don't see him anymore,
Speaker 1: very rarely. No, no gremlins, no hugos, no, no wonder bugs.
Speaker 1: You know I like gremlins, do you uh? They're okay
Speaker 1: for me. The kouded Gras of car design is the
Speaker 1: AMC Pacer. Yeah, it's like the for Mica Kitchen of cars.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful in all the weirdest ways. So much window.
Speaker 1: That would be my sodd after hot wheels if I
Speaker 1: had a hot wheels that, if I just could have
Speaker 1: one hot wheel, it would I don't know if that
Speaker 1: would be it. I'd be happy with that one. Now
Speaker 1: do they have that? That's a hot wheel? Oh? Yeah, okay?
Speaker 1: Because and if you look up a mc gremlin hot wheels,
Speaker 1: they went to town on those. They had some with
Speaker 1: like the the intakes like sticking out of the hood
Speaker 1: and um just all sorts of just awesome different variations
Speaker 1: like indiecr Gremlins and stuff. Like that, because and that
Speaker 1: raises a pretty good point. Hot wheels has always been
Speaker 1: about the racing design, like they've designed them to look
Speaker 1: like racing cars, because they've also manufactured them to actually
Speaker 1: be able to win a race, like we talked about
Speaker 1: with Matchbox. Yeah. And one of the differences, uh, that
Speaker 1: is one of the main differences between the matchbox and
Speaker 1: the hot wheel is they were just much more interested
Speaker 1: in being sportier, like you could get you could get
Speaker 1: a matchbox like a delivery truck, right, you know, they
Speaker 1: had they had, and but the match boxes looked more
Speaker 1: real They all were about looking realistic and not necessarily performance. Um.
Speaker 1: And hey, if you want a bread truck, you can
Speaker 1: get a bread truck, right exactly, but you can't get
Speaker 1: a bread truck hot wheel. You know. Uh, we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about all of this jam right after this. You
Speaker 1: want to go ahead and talk about some of the
Speaker 1: other differences between Matchbox and hot Wheel. Um, Matchbox or
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, hot Wheel is the one that is more
Speaker 1: likely to have branded versions, oh man. And do they
Speaker 1: ever like the Ghostbusters ectomobile right? Um? Or even more
Speaker 1: than that, like they have a deal with eminem Mars
Speaker 1: for two thousand fifteen. So they have like a TwixT
Speaker 1: trucks and a Skittles van and like all this stuff.
Speaker 1: They have licensing with d C and Marvel this year
Speaker 1: Fast and the Furious that they had a line. So
Speaker 1: they're they're really big time into branded and a lot
Speaker 1: of times they'll have like a store will just have exclusives,
Speaker 1: access to an exclusive line of Skittles cars or something
Speaker 1: like that that you can only get at KB Toys. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they have a NASCAR deal too, If I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, I would not be surprised. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: hot wheels usually have a little bit um wider, longer
Speaker 1: axle and wider wheels um, because it's just cooler if
Speaker 1: that wheel sticks up from the body a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know. Well, plus also supposedly, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: this a little more, when you shrink a car down
Speaker 1: to scale, it looks a little weird. Yeah, you might
Speaker 1: as well go ahead and bring that up. Okay, it
Speaker 1: looks weird. You can't just shrink it and have it's
Speaker 1: in the same proportion and have it look normal, right like,
Speaker 1: it will be as far as like shrinking a car
Speaker 1: down by scale, it will be in the exact same proportion,
Speaker 1: but it's just awful a little bit. Like, So what
Speaker 1: they do to make a Hot Wheels paceable is they
Speaker 1: expand the wheel well a little more. Yeah, they break
Speaker 1: it out a little bit, which is why the wheel
Speaker 1: stick out some on on a Hot Wheels but not
Speaker 1: on a match box. That's right, because match boxes are
Speaker 1: all about realism. To heck with how it looks, as
Speaker 1: long as it's real. Uh. The um one of the
Speaker 1: my favorite ones, and I had one of these that
Speaker 1: they mentioned this article was the red baron. The person
Speaker 1: who wrote this that it was an inexplicable and inexplicably
Speaker 1: cool helmet over the cockpit. Um. I don't know, but inexplicable.
Speaker 1: It was just the roof of the car was a helmet. Um.
Speaker 1: But I looked it up again today and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had that thing, but it was it wasn't a
Speaker 1: Nazi helmet per se, but it was that shape of
Speaker 1: the helmet. Uh, Like the U. S soldiers have that
Speaker 1: shape now, you know, where it's cut lower around the
Speaker 1: ears instead of just a straight you know, like the
Speaker 1: World War two helmet. But the Nazis used those first,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's a better design for war and
Speaker 1: it also had a black iron cross on the side
Speaker 1: of it, well, hence the red baron, right, yeah, but
Speaker 1: it was It's easy now as an adulta look and
Speaker 1: say that looks like a little Nazi hot rod. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the red baron was World War One. He was
Speaker 1: pre Nazi Germany. Yeah. And it was also I think
Speaker 1: at the time just like looked like the biker gang
Speaker 1: would wear like those helmet with the iron cross. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And all of it was Southern California hot rod culture
Speaker 1: because what gave rise to Hot Wheels, So it makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think there was any like yeah. Um, so,
Speaker 1: like I said, right out of the gate, Hot Wheels
Speaker 1: was a hit. They had a cartoon within a year
Speaker 1: or so of the first sixteen being released or um,
Speaker 1: the second release, they had I think twenty two new
Speaker 1: cars thirty three total, and then um, the third year
Speaker 1: they they had another. They released thirty three after that,
Speaker 1: right oh no, yeah, I'm sorry, thirty three by nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: so they did sixteen, twenty four and then thirty three
Speaker 1: in all of them came in like different colors, right, So,
Speaker 1: like I said, if you had one that didn't mean
Speaker 1: you had them all. You wanted to collect them all.
Speaker 1: So kids were going crazy for it. And another way
Speaker 1: that Mattel very wisely targeted children was to get in
Speaker 1: with fast food. Uh. In nineteen seventy the first hot
Speaker 1: whales came out as a toy at Jack in the Boxes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The big one, though, the one that like put them
Speaker 1: over the top, was in nineteen eighty three when kids
Speaker 1: who were lucky enough to be taken to McDonald's for
Speaker 1: dinner and to get at which is what they called
Speaker 1: them at the time, uh or could get one of
Speaker 1: fourteen hot wheels in three and they had some cool once.
Speaker 1: They had a Chevy Citation. Yeah, they had one that
Speaker 1: was one of my favorite. Actually it was a Toyota
Speaker 1: Mini Trek, which is a like a station wagon camper
Speaker 1: and it even said painted on the side, good time
Speaker 1: camper that you could get and you're happy meal. Which
Speaker 1: if I could have one hot wheel, it would probably
Speaker 1: be that. You know what they were doing now that
Speaker 1: I look back through my adult eyes, like snorting pot. No,
Speaker 1: they were giving you a bunch of crappy ones because
Speaker 1: you wanted to keep coming back to get the cool one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Probably you're like, I got a citation, Like, can I
Speaker 1: go back because I want to get the hot rod?
Speaker 1: That's exactly what they were doing. Sure, man, I feel
Speaker 1: so like manipulated. What did you think they were doing
Speaker 1: with happy meals? Well, I mean, I know it's all
Speaker 1: manipulation to get you to try and own all of them,
Speaker 1: but they should have been all cool ones. But you
Speaker 1: can't do that because the regular kid might be like, no,
Speaker 1: I got I got the cool one. I'm fine, But
Speaker 1: if you get this the citation, you feel dripped off
Speaker 1: and you really want to go back and get one
Speaker 1: of the hot rods. It's my eyes are wide open,
Speaker 1: my friends. Well, that's why our friends down under in
Speaker 1: Australia have like outlawed marketing directly to children, which I
Speaker 1: think is a fantastic move. Really, yeah, that's so unfair
Speaker 1: to market directly to children. It's just almost literally is
Speaker 1: like taking candy from a baby. Like kids aren't sophisticated
Speaker 1: enough to psychologically defend themselves from being like bombarded with
Speaker 1: by adults to say, go tell your parents to buy
Speaker 1: you this. You can't function correctly without this, trapper keeper,
Speaker 1: so go get it. Trafic keep. Yeah, what do they
Speaker 1: make a law. Yeah, really, Yeah, it's a big, very
Speaker 1: progressive law country should have adopt. Um. Well, in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three, I agree wholeheartedly. By the way, in is
Speaker 1: when that Happy Meal thing happened. And also the same
Speaker 1: year they moved from Hong Kong to Malaysia. Um and
Speaker 1: and it said that's when they added their economy cars,
Speaker 1: So that must have coincided with the citation. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: citation man one of the most disappointed Happy Meal toys
Speaker 1: you can possibly get. Yeah, because it reminded you of
Speaker 1: your dad who drove a citation right, who was always mad.
Speaker 1: Oh dear so chuckers. After not a lot happened, how
Speaker 1: Wills just kept going on, expanding more and more and more. Um.
Speaker 1: I think they had another Happy Meals joint in ninety
Speaker 1: one or something like that. Um and Uh, they said,
Speaker 1: we need to we need to do something big, and
Speaker 1: they did. They released something called Treasure Hunt series, which
Speaker 1: was a purposefully limited release car series of cars. Um.
Speaker 1: I think they did uh twelve models at ten thousand
Speaker 1: each originally and and hence the name Treasure Hunt. They
Speaker 1: were hard to find. Yeah. And one of the cooler
Speaker 1: ones for me, uh was the Oldsmobile for two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the thing is neat do At my church had a
Speaker 1: four or forty two and it was just awesome. Man.
Speaker 1: He was he had like the only muscle car in
Speaker 1: the youth group. And years, like two years ago, my
Speaker 1: brother I was talking about this dude, Jason Singleton. I
Speaker 1: was like, whatever happened to him? He's like, oh, he
Speaker 1: still lives in the so and so and he went
Speaker 1: and you know what, dude, I went, no, went, he
Speaker 1: still got it. Oh yeah, why would you get rid
Speaker 1: of it? He still he still has the car. Went
Speaker 1: to his Facebook page and it is like the center
Speaker 1: of his life. It's his baby. I mean, he's had
Speaker 1: that thing since like nine six and just it's juiced
Speaker 1: up and he's just scared the daylights out of me
Speaker 1: and that thing. But it was also exhilarating, you know,
Speaker 1: to be riding with him and he you know, like
Speaker 1: two hundred feet of drag. He would lay like power
Speaker 1: breaking and he would get like four sets to tires
Speaker 1: a year. He'd be in the passenger seat going safe,
Speaker 1: be jeezy. Yeah. I was very scared because I was
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't flirt with the wild side back then.
Speaker 1: The Oldsmobile for two as close as you got and
Speaker 1: then so that was treasure hunt thing kind of went. Um,
Speaker 1: it didn't go exactly as planning. Mattel was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we could make even more money if we put these
Speaker 1: into wider release. So the original ten thousand releases were
Speaker 1: redoing again and again and again. So treasure hunt kind
Speaker 1: of became commonplace. But it was a good idea and
Speaker 1: it tapped into this whole idea of collecting. Like Mattel
Speaker 1: was like, we know you're out there and we're going
Speaker 1: to design these just for you, and we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about collectors, um, But just to kind of button up
Speaker 1: the history of Hot Wheels, it all came full circle
Speaker 1: in when um, Mattel bought Tycho and hence Hot Wheels
Speaker 1: bought Matchbox. So they're all on environmental at this point. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll get to the design and collecting right
Speaker 1: after this. So back then, if you wanted to do
Speaker 1: a smaller version of a larger car and scale it down, UM,
Speaker 1: you didn't have computer aided design and stuff. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: might have had a blueprint, which helped, but sometimes you
Speaker 1: just had to get out there in the parking lot
Speaker 1: with the tape measure and just take some measurements and
Speaker 1: then um, you know, be good at math, right basically,
Speaker 1: And like like we said, Harry Bradley, who's the daddy
Speaker 1: of the Hot Wheels designs, Who's the guy who did
Speaker 1: the first sixteen Um, he was a GM designer originally
Speaker 1: in his footsteps followed Howard Reese, and then after that
Speaker 1: Larry would and they those are something like the legendary
Speaker 1: Hot Wheels designers. That's the Mount Rushmore of hot wheels
Speaker 1: pretty much. Yeah, um and yeah. They would just literally
Speaker 1: go out and measure these things. And that was one
Speaker 1: way that hot wheels were born. Another way was that
Speaker 1: And this definitely differentiates Hot Wheels from Matchbox is that
Speaker 1: there are hot Wheels that only exist in the Hot
Speaker 1: Wheels world. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They they are called
Speaker 1: the fantasy cars, like they're just the designers imagination come
Speaker 1: to life. Right, whereas Matchbox only I believe has uh
Speaker 1: bread trucks, well, they only have cars that are based
Speaker 1: on real cars, right right. Hot Wheels has a whole
Speaker 1: fantasy line. It's interesting that their own bites of the
Speaker 1: same company still and that they just have kept that distinction,
Speaker 1: you know, because some people are matchbox kids and some
Speaker 1: kids are Hot Wheels kids. I had both. That ink
Speaker 1: had a bread truck. Is that why you keep going
Speaker 1: to the bread truck? Well, no, I didn't have a
Speaker 1: bread truck, but I do remember having a couple of
Speaker 1: like weird utility type vehicles. Uh that I don't remember.
Speaker 1: There were probably gifts or stocking stuffers or something. I
Speaker 1: don't think I like sought it out. I was always
Speaker 1: into Tonka trucks. I thought Tonko was great. They were
Speaker 1: obviously much bigger, but those were like construction vehicles, like
Speaker 1: dump trucks and stuff like that. And still today. Um
Speaker 1: that Volvo dump truck, the giant one, yeah, um with
Speaker 1: the huge wheels, I think is one of the coolest
Speaker 1: vehicles ever created. Yeah. I think I had one of
Speaker 1: those when I was a kid. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of Tonka stuff. Um. One of my favorite Hot
Speaker 1: Wheels though, was the little red Express truck. I don't
Speaker 1: remember that if you saw it, you might it might
Speaker 1: ring a bell. It was basically, uh, I can't remember
Speaker 1: what kind of truck it was. I think it was
Speaker 1: a Dodge, but it was just a cool red step
Speaker 1: side pickup truck and it had the two uh, the
Speaker 1: two vertical mufflers on each side that went up above
Speaker 1: the truck. I think, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cool. And if you go to them the
Speaker 1: Peterson Automotive Museum in l A. Oh yeah, they have
Speaker 1: a really cool exhibit there that I haven't been to
Speaker 1: in person, but I was looking at it, a line
Speaker 1: permanent exhibit where they have the real life versions of
Speaker 1: the hot wheel cars and they have a little red
Speaker 1: express truck, a full size one. Yeah, and I saw
Speaker 1: it and I was like, whoa, you just die from nostalgia. Look.
Speaker 1: Might have cheered up a little bit at at the desk. Um,
Speaker 1: but they have, you know, the gussied up corvettes with
Speaker 1: the big chrome engines coming out of the hood. And
Speaker 1: do they have the four or four two? Uh? I
Speaker 1: don't know if they have the four forty two. But
Speaker 1: I'm but it's in his will, I'll go straight to
Speaker 1: the museum. I'm gonna go to this thing though at
Speaker 1: some point I don't know, in this next l A
Speaker 1: trip or not. But um, it's right there near the
Speaker 1: Labraa tarpets. I think, oh yeah, so I want to
Speaker 1: go check it out. There. Yeah, it's neat. It is neat.
Speaker 1: But back to the design. These days, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: need a tape measure and stuff like that. You're gonna
Speaker 1: photoshop designs and you're gonna even get a three D
Speaker 1: printer to maybe to your PROD type. That had to
Speaker 1: have helped them tremendously because you know, with if you're
Speaker 1: designing real life cars and you have a three D printer,
Speaker 1: that's pretty handy, but with Hot Wheels like you can
Speaker 1: print out pretty much exactly what it's gonna look like.
Speaker 1: And once they have them the prototype done, they'll make them.
Speaker 1: They'll make a mold out of it and then inject
Speaker 1: it with molten metal under tremendous pressure. And that's why
Speaker 1: it's called die cast. You create a die that you
Speaker 1: cast all of the ensuing ones from. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think they're made with less metal than they used to be. Um,
Speaker 1: but they still have metal components, right. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: a new one in a while. I haven't either, but
Speaker 1: I'm almost positive they do. And apparently they're still about
Speaker 1: like a dollar. Yeah. I was on the Hot Wheels
Speaker 1: collector site today and like they kept making reference to
Speaker 1: about a dollar, so so just what's called the mainline
Speaker 1: the ones that they make on mass exactly. UM. I'll
Speaker 1: bet if you got your hands on that citation be
Speaker 1: worth a few bucks. But they kept referring to the
Speaker 1: mainline stuff. So as about a dollar, well, they just
Speaker 1: kept making their manufacturing cheaper and cheaper, so they've maintained
Speaker 1: that cost, I guess. Uh. So as far as collecting goes, uh.
Speaker 1: The most valuable and that is not um this crazy
Speaker 1: one made out of diamonds for the anniversary, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute, But the most valuable regular
Speaker 1: hot wheel is the UH sixty eight beach Bomb, which
Speaker 1: was a VW bus and hot pink that had UM
Speaker 1: real surfboards sticking out of the back of it. Yeah. Originally,
Speaker 1: UM they only released I think twenty five of them
Speaker 1: like that. There are a couple of problems. It was
Speaker 1: difficult to manufacture them with the surfboards sticking on the back,
Speaker 1: even though it was more realistic. And it also um
Speaker 1: was terrible on like a loop de loop track because
Speaker 1: I guess the surfboards that either way I'm down there,
Speaker 1: it would get stuck. So they only made just a
Speaker 1: few of these things. The each Bomb that was the
Speaker 1: highest selling, um the hot Wheels ever was a pink
Speaker 1: one that made even fewer of those, because apparently a
Speaker 1: lot of boys were like, I'm not playing with some
Speaker 1: pink van, even if it does have cool surfboards sticking
Speaker 1: out the back. So the things sold for like I
Speaker 1: think seventies something seventy five thousand dollars in two thousand,
Speaker 1: and it is since sold again in two eleven. I
Speaker 1: saw in like l a magazine for like a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five thousand. It's a lot of money for
Speaker 1: a tiny little car. Yeah, and that's the highest one
Speaker 1: ever apparently, Um by a long shot too. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen others that were worth like ten
Speaker 1: grand and stuff, Like I think one of those two
Speaker 1: originals is like ten grands. Yeah, I guess like nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy mongoose or cobra are worth about ten grand these days. Um,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them, just like with any collector's item, Um,
Speaker 1: you'll see if there was just a few of them made,
Speaker 1: obviously they're going to be worth a lot more. Um.
Speaker 1: If there's something that where they adjusted the design, like
Speaker 1: for example, the python was originally called the cheetah, and
Speaker 1: then they found out that a real life executive with
Speaker 1: real life lawyers at GM owned the name Cheetah because
Speaker 1: apparently GM executive just owned names for cars that could
Speaker 1: potentially be used like every an fast animal name, right exactly.
Speaker 1: So they changed it to the the python. But there
Speaker 1: they that was after they'd started manufacturing the cheetah. So
Speaker 1: there's some out there that say cheetah uh stamped on
Speaker 1: the bottom, and if you have one of those, it's
Speaker 1: support ten grant. Yeah, it's funny to think about. It's
Speaker 1: the same with Star Wars, like sometimes the mistake ones
Speaker 1: are the ones that are super valuable because like there
Speaker 1: was some recall, but like, oh, but you want that
Speaker 1: one because the Boba Fett's rocket really shot out before
Speaker 1: kids started choking on them right or on fire, and
Speaker 1: that's the one you want. But like you said, it's
Speaker 1: all about scarcity and supply to man, dude, this whole
Speaker 1: thing has reminded me of um, a really great gallery
Speaker 1: I put together about hilarious knockoff toys. Yeah. I go
Speaker 1: to stuff you should Know dot com and look that up.
Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome. There's some really strange interpretations of beloved toys,
Speaker 1: including Star Wars toys that people who make counterfeit toys
Speaker 1: come up with to try to skirt trademark law maybe
Speaker 1: or something or else. They just fully don't understand the
Speaker 1: toy and what it's a lureus, so they just make
Speaker 1: it in this weird interpretation. It's pretty hilarious stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good one. We'll post that again. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I did mention the diamonds studded one. I always
Speaker 1: think these things are just ridiculous. But um, but like
Speaker 1: to take any like the diamond studded bras was worth
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, forgotten Bucks. I just always think it's
Speaker 1: kind of done. But they did make at anniversary in
Speaker 1: edition in nineteen I'm sorry, in two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: with little diamonds and bees for tail lights and uh
Speaker 1: black diamonds for the tires and all that stuff. Eighteen
Speaker 1: here at white gold body. But um, that's where a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty cost a hundred and forty thou dollars
Speaker 1: to put together. I'm sure it's gaudy. It's a gaudy
Speaker 1: hot wheels, the cars cool. It looks like Mad Max's car.
Speaker 1: Oh you get is that a picture of it? I
Speaker 1: don't think I saw that. Can you identify that car? Uh?
Speaker 1: What is that? Looks familiar? It does look familiar to
Speaker 1: sort of like a DeLorean, but I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: I don't think so either. No, man, that new Mad
Speaker 1: Max looks good though. Are they remaking Mad Max? Well,
Speaker 1: there's a new reboot I guess is what they call
Speaker 1: it these days? Cool? Um? What's his face? That played
Speaker 1: h Bain? Um? Tom? But it looks it's the same director,
Speaker 1: Tom Hardy. Yeah, Tom Hardy. But it's the same director
Speaker 1: from all the Mad Max series. So it's oh really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it just looks just the whole it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be just like one long, intense chase battle. It sounds
Speaker 1: a lot like a Mad Max movie. You want. Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen Vanishing Point? I think? So? What is that?
Speaker 1: It was like? Uh, man, I can't remember the car,
Speaker 1: but the car was basically the Star. It was one
Speaker 1: long car chase from like I think, um, Colorado to California. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that. That's a good one from the seventies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two lane Blacktops. That's another. Yeah, I haven't seen that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. When that one weirdly had James Taylor in it.
Speaker 1: When he was young and like on drugs and cool.
Speaker 1: Were they apologizing to France? No, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the deal was. Did you hear about that? So that
Speaker 1: whole Charlie Hebdough um Solidarity March, the US sent like
Speaker 1: I think the assistant be in charge of the s
Speaker 1: d A or something like that. Um, so to apologize,
Speaker 1: John Carey head um, James Taylor go to France to perform.
Speaker 1: You've got a friend for the French government. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: talk about I know. Isn't it send guns and roses
Speaker 1: or something? At least well, not send guns and roses
Speaker 1: from nineteen I had any guns and roses. Man. One
Speaker 1: more thing about collecting. If you wanted to be the
Speaker 1: coolest collector of hot wheels on the planet, you would
Speaker 1: have to build a time machine and go back to
Speaker 1: to my hometown of Toledo, Ohio, which is where the
Speaker 1: first ever hot Wheels Convention Collector's Convention was held. I
Speaker 1: really wish I would have gone to that because I
Speaker 1: was there at the time. What your wash? I can't
Speaker 1: believe we've sent James Tayler. I'm still just like I
Speaker 1: can't focus on anything. Well, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about James Taylor, hot wheels, or just about anything
Speaker 1: there is in the universe. You can type it into
Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff works dot com. And
Speaker 1: since I said search parts time for listener mail, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this um minimum wage argument, not argument proposal.
Speaker 1: Listen to how Homelessness Works from quite a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and you guys commented that part of the problem was
Speaker 1: at low minimum wage. In comparison the cost of renting
Speaker 1: a two bedroom apartment, you'd have to work something like
Speaker 1: eighty seven per hours eighty seven hours per week to
Speaker 1: afford it, with the implication we need to raise minimum wage.
Speaker 1: After hearing this, a clear solution occurred to me. I
Speaker 1: think disagreements on raising minimum wage a result the simple misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: On the raised side, people believe this wage should be
Speaker 1: set at a level that would allow someone to raise
Speaker 1: a few children and live a modest but reasonably comfortable level,
Speaker 1: or at least a safe level. On the don't raise
Speaker 1: it side, people believe minimum wage is just a starting
Speaker 1: point for working, uh, like for teenagers at their summer
Speaker 1: job or after school. This I believes workers should uh
Speaker 1: we're never intended two and should not expect to be
Speaker 1: able to support a family that pays minimum wage. So
Speaker 1: here's my solution. Since we're a democracy here, let's just
Speaker 1: decide what it is supposed to accomplish and then set
Speaker 1: it at the appropriate level to do that. If we
Speaker 1: decide as a nation that someone should be able to
Speaker 1: raise a family in a two betroom apartment while earning
Speaker 1: a wage minimum wage, let's just figure out but that
Speaker 1: would cost and set the wage there. Figure in rent, clothing, food, utilities, transportation, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's twenty seven grand per year, then set
Speaker 1: it at that rate. The other hand, if we as
Speaker 1: a nation decide that minimum wage is just a starting
Speaker 1: point and not meant to support a family. It's intended
Speaker 1: for people with no work history or experience and low
Speaker 1: to no marketable skills, and we need to set minimum
Speaker 1: wage at a relatively low level and let the market.
Speaker 1: The free market will ultimately determine the wage for entry
Speaker 1: level workers, and workers historically have been able to increase
Speaker 1: compensation by gaining skills and good work history. With the settled,
Speaker 1: any argument about setting minimum wage at a living wage
Speaker 1: would be mistaken because we all just decided that people
Speaker 1: are not meant to live on minimum wage and certainly
Speaker 1: not meant to support a family that is from Joe
Speaker 1: Prohaska in Reno, Nevada, and uh interesting. I look forward
Speaker 1: to seeing the rebuttal emails. I love that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great proposal. I mean so, I think that
Speaker 1: is what it's based on. But as far as I know,
Speaker 1: the cost of living calculations are really out of date
Speaker 1: and take a lot of stuff into account that doesn't
Speaker 1: really apply any longer. Plus, regardless of what you think
Speaker 1: it should or should not be, the fact is adults
Speaker 1: with two kids are still going to be working these jobs.
Speaker 1: It's not just going to be teenagers looking to advance.
Speaker 1: But it would be nice to put that issue to bed,
Speaker 1: to stay like this is what we're trying to achieve,
Speaker 1: or this is not what we're trying to achieve, at
Speaker 1: the very least, to get everybody talking. Yeah, because should
Speaker 1: some teenager at this first job make like fourteen bucks
Speaker 1: an hour? I don't know. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: sending the right message either. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll leave it up to you guys, our dear listeners.
Speaker 1: When I started working, it was like three bucks an hour.
Speaker 1: Or something. It was ridiculously low. That is ridiculously low.
Speaker 1: If you want to let us know how you feel
Speaker 1: about Joe's proposal, was it Joe? I believe it was Joe.
Speaker 1: You know Joe? Uh. You can tweet to us at
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can post it on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
Speaker 1: put it in an email at stuff podcast, at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and just for kicks, you can
Speaker 1: hang around our home on the web Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com