Hot f***ing Wheels
August 17, 2016 12:11 AM   Subscribe

Hot Wheels Road Trip. You really want to hang on until the second minute.

previously
previousler



In total there are 11 cuts in the video, 7 between locations and 4 for slow motion footage. The jump section and the loop section were filmed twice, once in 30 fps and again in 120 fps, and the final video cuts from the normal speed footage to the slow motion footage for the duration of both the jump and the loop.
posted by philip-random (32 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
OK, I am not ashamed to admit that I love this.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:03 AM on August 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Where did they get all that track from?
posted by Grangousier at 2:59 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


And - excuse my ignorance - is this car powered in some way? When I was a kid Hot Wheels cars depended on gravity to move, but the car in one of the linked videos is obviously electric or clockwork. Also I only had enough track for about one and a half seconds of fun, but it was the seventies and we made our own entertainment in those days.
posted by Grangousier at 3:06 AM on August 17, 2016


The video description claims it's 100% gravity powered, Bravo if true. The underwater but was especially impressive.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:11 AM on August 17, 2016


I'm with you, if by impressive, you mean unbelievable. there's no way it could maintain enough momentum underwater to rise back up out of the water.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:28 AM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


there's no way it could maintain enough momentum underwater to rise back up out of the water.

That, of course, being one of the cuts. In general, when it went through a tunnel there was an instant of all dark or at times blinding flash as it emerged.
posted by oheso at 3:50 AM on August 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


You're not even questioning why someone would have their in-ground swimming pool drain onto somebody's driveway.
posted by ardgedee at 4:36 AM on August 17, 2016 [18 favorites]


We go one beanplate at a time.
posted by notyou at 5:24 AM on August 17, 2016 [7 favorites]


Yeah, I'm willing to believe that the only trickery here is clever cutting.
posted by 256 at 5:33 AM on August 17, 2016


Sadly, it took me until the end of the pool to realize he was cutting footage together
posted by timdiggerm at 5:38 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


The only thing missing from my childhood is parents tripping over the track and teaching me swear words.
posted by srboisvert at 6:09 AM on August 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Reminds me of the marble run videos my 5yo spent a couple weeks watching.
posted by HighLife at 6:43 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was a kid when Hot Wheels first hit the market, and this really rings all the bells for me. I'm completely willing to ignore the obvious impossibility of some of the scenes, especially the underwater bit. In realsies, the car would have left the track the second it hit the water and floated to the bottom. But, whatever. That was fun!

~Looks over at the case full of his childhood Hot Wheels and smiles.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:02 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


There are sperate clips glued together at the tunnels as the makers clearly state. I was skeptical of the underwater scene as well, but I realized that the camera would add extra weight and additional weight could be added as well to keep the cars on track.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:11 AM on August 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


Where did they get all that track from?

eBay. I bought a shit ton of classic orange track (with the purple connectors and the clamp things) when my son was prime Hot Wheels age. We had a blast running cars out from a 2nd story window across the back yard.

I love that we live in a world where we can put cameras on Hot Wheels cars.
posted by bondcliff at 7:33 AM on August 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


Pretty sure this is exactly what my 4-year-old's dreams consist of. (Well, also marble runs.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:46 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Reminds me of the marble run videos my 5yo spent a couple weeks watching.

Oh, good, you've got me watching Pythagoras Switch videos now.
posted by Grangousier at 9:19 AM on August 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


"There's no way it could maintain enough momentum underwater to rise back up out of the water."

I think you're missing the obvious, those tubes are actually matter transporters. I love how they've got the pool bottom one tuned to only let a tiny bit of water out as well as the car.

I loved Hot Wheels when I was a kid, and in my dreams could actually ride in one. Thanks!
posted by Marky at 10:17 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]



This is really nicely done and I'm glad I got to see it.

However:

I was a kid when Hot Wheels first hit the market, and this really rings all the bells for me.

I was too, and it torked me off when all the stores started to deprecate Matchbox (real) cars in favour of Hotwheels (bullshit fantasy) cars. Several boxes full of Matchbox cars still exist back in the rookery and it still pains me to find one of my little brothers' goofy- metalic- bubble- domed- multi- engine- mutant vehicles in there. It's like finding a jeff in your jar full of buffaloes.

What I liked about Matchbox was that they modeled a lot of European cars that weren't sold in the US; if you found an exotic-looking Matchbox you could still be pretty sure that it represented a real vehicle sold somewhere in the world. A weird looking Hotwheels was just a 38 year old designer's idea of what a eight-year would find 'cool-looking'.

I'd take a 'Unimog' over a 'Beatnik Bandit' any day.

Also, I owned a red 'MGB-GT' years before I owned a red MGB-GT, which counts as something. Still working on the real Unimog.



As you were.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:25 AM on August 17, 2016 [8 favorites]



Thinking about the momentum vs video cuts argument, I seemed to recall that soon after introducing the Hotwheels cars and tracks, Mattel offered a little orange and white house with flappers inside to provide a boost on the flats, and sure enough here is it: the Hot Wheels Super Charger.

This guy has the full scoop.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:36 AM on August 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


This taps into my inner 6-year-old in powerful ways. I'm envisioning my beloved long-lost Hot Wheels 1969 Boss Hoss Mustang Silver Special...
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:44 AM on August 17, 2016


and it still pains me to find one of my little brothers' goofy- metalic- bubble- domed- multi- engine- mutant vehicles in there.

I, too, was there for the first run of Hot Wheels and recall that, of the first twenty or so models to hit the market, only two were what you'd call fantasy/mutants: the Hot Heap and the Silhouette. The rest were Mustangs, Cougars, etc. Probably not as detailed as Matchbox options, but similar ... except, of course, for the fast moving wheels.

Of course, little kids being little kids, I recall we mostly preferred the mutants. Which Mattel's marketing no doubt realized and so, as they rolled out subsequent Hot Wheels options, more and more of them were fantasies.
posted by philip-random at 10:59 AM on August 17, 2016



That Silhouette model looks vaguely familiar, but the one I remember is the Beatnik Bandit, which was based on a real -- in the sense of existing in 1/1 scale and able to nominally be operated by a human being -- but no less fantasy vehicle.   [Previously].

I was moving on from toy cars before all this (so I thought), but I remembered that BB being among the first Hotwheels cars my little brothers got in '68 - '69 and mixed in with my Vauxhall Estates, Gull Wing M-Bs, and Stincoln Continental convertibles with suicide doors. Could be it was later.
 
posted by Herodios at 11:22 AM on August 17, 2016


The first Hot Wheels seemed to have been 1967 and I distinctly remember playing with them in 1968, so the Beatnik Bandit could've been in stores by 1969.
posted by philip-random at 11:48 AM on August 17, 2016


Sooo...I thought I'd share some bits of my childhood with y'all...
posted by Thorzdad at 3:07 PM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Nice. I do sorta remember 'those badges'.
 
posted by Herodios at 7:48 PM on August 17, 2016


I was the first kid in my school with Matchboxes. Hated Hot Wheels, an obvious rip off. I still don't understand my wife's mania for collecting Hot Wheels. Our kids did love those four-way supercharges, though.
posted by lhauser at 5:56 AM on August 18, 2016


I don't want to derail but:

> "It's like finding a jeff in your jar full of buffaloes."

Say what now?
posted by Tevin at 6:44 AM on August 18, 2016


Say what now?

Consider the term "jar full of buffaloes" in the context of personal collections of minor cultural artifacts.

This whole thread has been a real memory jogger, well worth the five centdollar admission!

I remember now that, after ruling the world for years, Matchbox* started to lose ground to Mattel's Hotwheels**. Matchbox responded with the Superfast*** line of low-friction 'racing' models.

Meanwhile, I can't match Thorzdad for preservation, and my old Matchbox cars are all a five hour drive away, but these pics from OPs collections found online show some of the memorable models we had:
  • Vauxhall Victor Estate Wagon. I think this was the first Matchbox I ever owned.
  • MG 1100 with dog in the back seat.
  • Lincoln Continental with suicide doors. Not a convertible, as it turns out.
  • Mercury Commuter Station Wagon, with two dogs looking out the back window.
  • Studebaker Lark Station Wagon, with sliding roof and hunter and dog figures. Why, yes, I do like station wagons. Actually, given the figures, this was probably meant to be a 'shooting brake' which is the same thing as a station wagon only 'cooler'.
  • Land Rover
  • VW Camper
  • Ice Cream Van with Mr. Morrison inside.
  • BP Petrol Tanker. Matchbox had lots of green and white BP branded toys, which were exotic, because this was 25-30 years before BP became a recognised brand in the US (BP acquired Sohio in 1991 to gain a foothold).
  • Road Roller Machine
  • Dump Truck
  • 'Grit Spreader' Truck. You can fill the hopper with 'grit' and actually spread it by pulling the tab that opens the chute on the bottom of the hopper.
  • Crane Truck Sno-Trac
  • Mercedes Benz's inimitable UNIversal MOtor Gerät, the univeral motor machine. Remember I said that Matchbox brought us exotic vehicles from around the world (mostly Europe). To this day, I associate UNIMOG with Matchbox cars and have to remember that they don't all have a bright blue cab and bed with a bright red undercarriage.

Here's one I didn't have that may be of some interest:
  • Matchbox No. 30, The Ford Prefect. It's "nicely inconspicuous".
------------------------
* "The three dominant brands in the world at the time, all British-made (Dinky, Matchbox and Corgi), could seemingly do no wrong. "
** "[A]lthough less true to scale and often featuring fantasy vehicles, [Mattel's Hotwheels] were painted in bright metallic colours, fitted with racing-style "mag" wheels and slick tires, were decidedly American in their model choice, and were marketed aggressively and with numerous accessory products . . ."
*** "This was effectively a transformation of the 1969 line to include low-friction wheels . . . often accompanied with new colours. The result was, at first, a strange but interesting line of fast-wheeling cars, trucks, and trailers . . . Racing track sets and the like were also released . . . new models with wider tyres appeared and older models (including trucks still in the line) were retooled to fit slicks. By the mid-'70s, Matchbox was again a force on the world . . . even updated its line to include some fantasy vehicles."
-- all quotes from Wiccuhpeedia's Matchbox article.

posted by Herodios at 9:21 AM on August 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


We had the supercharger house, although it took some damage from leaky D cells. Also: Matchbox Batmobile.
posted by thelonius at 4:37 AM on August 19, 2016


We had both the single-level and the two-level Superchargers. Those things were great as weapons, too.

Anyone remember Mattel's Sizzlers?
posted by Thorzdad at 7:27 PM on August 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Vaguely. I was an SSP msn though.
posted by thelonius at 7:02 PM on August 20, 2016


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