Warren native designs remote-control toy car

By Ed Runyan

He and his co-workers brainstorm for toy ideas, many of which involve cool cars.

LOS ANGELES — Angelo Kafantaris, 25, a Warren native and 2002 Harding High School graduate, has pursued his passions — cars, art and engineering — into an interesting career in Southern California with the toymaker Mattel.

Kafantaris has reached a milestone with his employer, the Mattel toy company: Friday, the company rolled out the 1‚Ñ20 scale Hot Wheels remote-control car Firebolt, which Angelo designed.

“Your first car is special,” Angelo said by telephone from Los Angeles, where he lives and makes a short commute to the company’s El Segundo headquarters.

Angelo has actually designed several remote-control cars for Mattel since he started working for its “Wheels” design team in February 2009. The team designs for Hot Wheels, Matchbox and Tyco. A couple more of his cars will come out later this year.

He and other members of the design team are also helping with a Hot Wheels feature film and an animated television show, both being developed by the Hot Wheels entertainment division.

Angelo says he’s always been interested in cars and remembers playing with a Tyco remote control car in the parking lot of his father’s office on North Park Avenue near his home with one of his three older brothers, Mark.

He also has a collection of the Hot Wheels signature product, the 1‚Ñ64 scale die-cast car, which made its debut in 1968. Mattel, the largest toy manufacturer in the world, also makes products under such names as Fisher-Price, Tyco, Barbie and American Girl.

While Angelo played with toy cars as a kid, he was also interested in real ones with some help from his father.

“I grew up fixing a lot of old cars, so that is how I got interested in automotive design,” Angelo said.

Among his favorites was his father’s 1974 MGB sports car, white with black stripes.

“I learned everything about mechanical design on that car,” Angelo said.

He also credits the advanced classes offered at Harding, such as those in the International Baccalaureate program, for giving him great training in art and engineering.

Later, while earning a degree in industrial design at the College of Creative Studies in Detroit, Angelo served an internship with carmaker Toyota in Southern California. There, he saw how a car designer works on one car for three years before moving on to another project.

Conversely, when Angelo started to work for Mattel, he saw that he would have greater opportunities for creative freedom.

“You can do anything you want,” Angelo said of the toy industry. “The sky’s the limit.”

His first creation for Hot Wheels, the Firebolt, is a bright-red car with a glass roof that lights up with brilliant blue flashes of lightning.

Angelo says he’s expecting the car to be a hit. A nephew who came to visit over the holidays liked the car so much, he slept with it, Angelo said.

He adds that there is “purity” in designing a Hot Wheels car in that he gets to handle every aspect of its design.

He’s also finding that he enjoys his role in the feature film and the animated television series Battle Force 5, for which he helps design vehicles and helps develop plot points and characters.

No matter what type of project Angelo works on, it’s interesting, he said, because the design team is made up of talented and creative people.

“When we’re developing a new toy, we get together and brain-storm. We throw out ideas and sketch ideas and develop it,” he said. Then one designer completes the idea on his own.

“I work with the biggest kids in the world, and everybody has the freest and most creative minds,” Angelo said of his co-workers. “Here, everybody just likes to play.”

runyan@vindy.com