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I'll be honest; this video caused me a lot of grief during a long development hell, so please watch it!
From humble beginnings as a loving father's dream to a dire downfall and a determined resurgence, the story of Hot Wheels is a long and twisty road, and one that has largely escaped thorough documentation until now.
Zero disrespect intended to Andy of Big/Little Car, who is very talented, nor the certain other RU-vidr who I may appear to slate - like Top Gear, Hot Wheels (and diecast cars in general) are a subject I am very passionate about and I wish so many people wouldn't just boil it down to the Redlines and Acceleracers, as the story of Hot Wheels is much more three-dimensional than that, and I wanted to get that across.
This video is dedicated to the life and memory of Ryu Asada. One of the kindest and toughest souls I have ever known, whose and passion and love for cars remained with him to the very end.
Supposed to release in March, with patrons having seen the video a full week in advance, but as you may be able to tell from my tone of voice at the end of the video, once again some compounding circumstances put paid to that. I powered through this to make sure everything was 100% finished and polished this time around, even if I wasn't.
This is, to my knowledge, the first time anyone has told anything resembling the story of Hot Wheels in full. It took an awful lot of time to write the script and put this video together, since much of my source material was scattered across the internet. Wikipedia and even the semi-official Hot Wheels Wiki had a lot of blank/conflicting information. I hope no falsehoods have fallen through the cracks, but I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy given that a lot of Hot Wheels' official history has never been disclosed outside of the occasional production number.
Probably the craziest part is that of the 45 years Mattel spent at Hawthorne, 23 of those producing Hot Wheels, I could only find one grainy black and white photo from the late '70s across the whole internet. I also managed to find a similarly blurry satellite photo of the location dating back to 1994, but unfortunately the lot was bulldozed in 2002 to make way for a Ford dealership who relocated to the site the following year, and still stands to this day.
A special shout-out to Bruce Pascal, who along with helping me out at certain points through this video's production, unfortunately (but conclusively) debunked the urban legend that the C3 Corvette was "spoiled" by Hot Wheels, because if that were true, Harry Bradley would surely have talked about it at some point. Neither Bradley, nor any of his colleagues or successors, nor anyone else connected to Mattel has ever publicly spoken of this matter. Details between stories also conflict, in classic urban legend style, with some stating the design was smuggled out through a hollowed cane, and others suggesting the car was developed openly by Bradley and Mattel decided to "surprise" General Motors to gauge their reaction.
In truth, the C3 Corvette was already revealed to the public the previous November at the largest car show in the country. Only around 500,000 people saw the car and got up close with it, meaning that although the car may not have come out for many months thereafter, its design was hardly a secret. Add to this the fact the Mako Shark II had been out since 1965, and anyone with a remote interest in cars could have accurately predicted the appearance of the C3 without the need for corporate espionage. The trademark for Hot Wheels' Corvette was registered after this appearance.
I believe the rumours originated in the mid 1980s - 1990s, when Mattel did in fact spoil the design of the C4 Corvette due to GM expediting the full car's launch until late 1983 as a 1984 model, but after having already sent the toy company the car's design, meant tiny facsimiles of the car had already been built, packaged, and ready for sale from late 1982, when the C4 was supposed to be launched. I believe this story was corrupted, whether willingly or unwillingly, by a prominent Hot Wheels author (possibly in an early issue of the Hot Wheels Newsletter) to reflect the C3 being spoiled instead of the C4, as even now the Redlines have a mystique to them that modern Hot Wheels lack. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, evidence suggests lightning did not in fact strike twice.
7 апр 2023
