HOT WHEELS Some bigger boys like smaller toys

One Hot Wheels model was sold at auction for nearly $70,000.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
At a crowded toy convention, Bruce Pascal delicately pulled a small plastic cylinder from his pocket. He popped the cap and out slid a 3-inch-long bundle swathed in bubble wrap.
"I'm asking $35,000," he said, unwrapping his treasure: a die-cast, deep-purple model of a Volkswagen bus, made in 1969 by Mattel Inc.'s Hot Wheels unit.
Pascal, a commercial real estate agent in Washington, didn't make this sale at the 17th annual Hot Wheels Collectors Convention in Irvine, Calif. But he has bought and sold several other Hot Wheels toys for five-figure prices in recent years. He paid what's considered a record for a Hot Wheels item: nearly $70,000 for a one-of-a-kind, hot-pink prototype of a VW bus model, called the Beach Bomb. It's now on display at the Hot Wheels exhibition at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
After 35 years and 3 billion toy car sales, Hot Wheels is in a world of its own. There are about a dozen competitors -- Italy's Bburago and domestic brands such as Ertl, American Muscle and Maisto. But these toy firms focus on larger-scale, more accurate reproductions than Hot Wheels' basic line of cartoonish models.
A league of its own
Although sales have fallen and flattened out in the past two years, in part because of a weak economy, no one comes close to Hot Wheels' estimated $275 million in annual sales, second only to Barbie in Mattel's lineup. And none has the hard-core adult following, probably 25,000 strong, that collects old models and keeps driving prices higher on eBay and upscale auction houses such as Sotheby's.
British dealer Charles Kitson sells a software program to track 24,500 Hot Wheels products, including 1/64-scale car models, racetrack sets, lunchboxes, children's shoes, posters, coloring books and other paraphernalia.
Collectors prize older Hot Wheels in pristine condition and often keep them in their original packaging, unopened. That's probably why one Hot Wheels buyer missed the chance to turn a 99-cent Corvette model into the $35,000 real thing. A decade ago, Hot Wheels celebrated the production of its 1 billionth car with a promotional campaign that included a special edition gold-colored Corvette model. One toy came with a coupon that could be redeemed for a real 'Vette.
But the winning Corvette coupon was never claimed -- and the giveaway expired.
"We assume that one of our collectors purchased the product but didn't open the package, to keep the packaging in mint condition," Mattel spokeswoman Alisa Feinstein said. "More than likely, the collector still has it and never realized it was the winner."
There are occasional tales of marriages destroyed by manic Hot Wheels collectors, with their compulsion to overspend on the tiny metal cars.
Broken marriage
Ross "Buzz" Anderson, 52, said it was the spending and the household disruption caused by his need to display his treasures that cost him his marriage. The Solvang, Calif., resident, a freelance legal writer, said that when his wife filed for divorce in 1987 she cited his hobby as a reason.
"She told me she was sick and tired of me wasting money on 'those [expletive] little cars that are taking up all the room in the spare bedroom,'" Anderson said.
He had about 1,500 Hot Wheels items back then. His collection of about 12,000 vintage toys today includes about 8,000 Hot Wheels pieces, Anderson said. "It just gets in your blood."
Many enthusiasts say their collections are driven by a simple impulse.
"It's a chance to own all the cars we could never afford as kids," said David Lopez, a Hot Wheels collector in San Jose, Calif. Lopez, 52, said his collection -- 3,000 pieces and counting -- was fueled by a desire to have the childhood he missed while growing up in a migrant farm worker family.
How they came about
Mattel detoured into toy cars in 1968, when cap gun sales faltered and it was stuck with excess production capacity. Company co-founder Elliot Handler wanted a toy for boys to complement the Barbie line for girls. He knew that an English firm, Matchbox -- now owned by Mattel -- was successful selling realistic metal toy replicas of milk trucks, wagons and mass-production cars.
Inspired by the customized vehicles he spotted in Mattel's El Segundo, Calif., parking lot, Handler told his designers to create a new car toy with a California look.
Ever since, Hot Wheels signature cars and trucks have had exaggerated proportions: big engines, fancy bright paint, chrome trim, slick oversized wheels, hood scoops, flame decals, low front ends and other customized hot-rod features. Handler came up with the name Hot Wheels because the big wheels and axles made of slender piano wire helped the cars roll faster than competitors' models.