I May Be On To Something

I've always loved buildings, I've always loved wheels. I've never thought about it in this way exactly, but I have also had a special fascination with homes that go. Building and designing compact, movable living quarters such as campers and mobile homes require clever packaging and often times modular, multi-purpose fixtures, all of which are things that I strangely take pleasure in figuring out. More often in the case of RVs, people can hire designers and builders to specially construct a vehicle to their needs on top of an existing chassis. This process is called coach building, a practice more common decades ago for personal cars but mostly reserved today for larger vehicles. More on this at the end of the post.

My earlier attempts at "not-quite coach built custom bodies" from nearly eight years ago might not have turned out to be very elegant but alas, I have made some improvements to my craft:

New cover photo for the blog? I think so. 

Ebay Finds of the Scorching Kind

Those who know me or have been following this blog for a while will be familiar with the fact that I am not only into bicycles and cars, but also collecting toy cars. I am not the type of collector who takes into account the future value of the car for resale or bragging rights: I simply grab what I like and what I can afford and that's that.

To give some background, Hot Wheels first started making toy cars in 1968. Seeing a potential market for 1:64 scale die cast toys that rolled as fast and looked as nice as their full-size counterparts and the lack of such a product in the height of the muscle car age, Mattel seized the opportunity, hired a few custom car fanatics and designers, and that was that. The original line included 16 cars, all of which had red-lined tires (hence the nickname "Redlines"), suspension made of "music wire" that prevented axle damage in the event of accidents, "frictionless" wheel bearings, and "Spectraflame" paint. Most models also included opening hoods, exposed engines, or removable parts. The goal was to extract the maximum "play value" from a toy car while still keeping retail price under a dollar. In the years immediately following, Hot Wheels also released "Sizzlers," which were electrically-powered 1:64 cars designed to propel themselves down sections of the already-famous orange track. Through the 1970s, Mattel gradually cut costs by removing the suspension and red tire lines, reducing the number of cars with opening or removable parts, and downgrading to regular enamel paint. While the novel features definitely set the cars apart in the beginning, there is no doubt that children and adults enjoy new Hot Wheels cars today just as much as they have been for almost the last 50 years.

Four-Way Wheel Swap

This post has actually been a draft for so long that plans have changed and it's no longer a 4-way wheel swap.

Four years ago, I got this '70 Oldsmobile 442 W-30, likely inspired by the muscle cars that raced Baja in the '60s and '70s.  It was cool for a while but I kind of wanted to lower it to stock height.

Cool Classics and Other Luxurious Rides

During the past spring break, which was the first week of March, I had a short, very informational internship with an architecture firm.  After work every day, I'd stop by the store just to look at which cool Hot wheels cars they had for sale.  I ended up letting go of some cash in exchange for some exceptionally interesting cars.

Mustang Alley and the Woodward Dream Cruise: Boss 429 Spotted

Yesterday, my friend Kevin and I volunteered to be photographers for Mustang Alley at the 20th annual Woodward Dream Cruise.  Each year since 1994, Woodward Avenue starting from the Detroit city limits to about sixteen miles to the north fills up with classic and modified cars on specific dates.  The Woodward Dream Cruise started out as a fundraiser but has since expanded into a multiple-day event in which large corporations are involved, namely Detroit's Big Three automakers.  Mustang Alley at 9 mile and Woodward, itself in its 16th year, is run by Ford and saw an especially large turnout in cars this year because of the Mustang's 50th Anniversary.

I picked up Kevin and essentially drove more than twenty miles east on the very road that we live on.  After several scenery changes and a few turns, we found ourselves in the volunteer parking garage and walked out into the "Snake Pit", a purely-Shelby and SVT vehicle display area in Mustang Alley.

Riveted

I always catch myself wondering about funny little things that don't matter.  Right now, I'm a little mystified as to why Hot wheels cars offered in McDonald's Happy Meals are so different from those sold in stores.  I only have one example, which is called Riveted that my friend gave to me nine years ago.  Riveted looks to be based off a 1969 Mustang fastback except the two inner grille headlights were moved out to the outer headlight buckets.  It also has gull wing doors, quad circle tail lights, and a spoiler that looks like it's been "riveted" on.  The valve covers of engine are reminiscent of the Boss 429 V8 which was also offered in 1969.

Carpet Bumps are Always Welcome

This is the same car that is in the current banner photo for the blog.  It's a Revell 1:25 1956 Ford Thunderbird model kit that came with a pre-painted metal body.  The box had images of the TV show American Dreams on it but I'm not familiar with it, so I can only guess that this car must have appeared in the show.

Photo credit Nikolai Hedler

Breaking Records in a Hot Wheels Car

Being a car enthusiast from when I was only a few years old, it makes sense that I'm a fan of all things Hot wheels.  Hot wheels not only produces toys, but they have created numerous real-life, driveable versions of their cars for display and publicity and stuff like that.  Within the last few years, they've gone so far as to break records with their running, driving cars.  I don't think this post needs any further introduction.

Video from Hot Wheels

1949 Mercury Coupe and 1956 Ford F-100: The Quintessential Customs

It is common knowledge in the car community that the 1949-1951 Mercuries, along with their Ford and sometimes Lincoln counterparts, are some of the most popular, if not most sought-after custom cars.  Starting at the time when these cars were new, people started shaving, slamming, and repainting the curvaceous bodies to be sleeker, lower, and more beautiful.  Most of these customs were more focused on appearance than on speed, although raising performance was not uncommon.  Today, a quick Google image search of "49 Mercury" will yield many more customs than stock, restored vehicles. With the popularity of the cars among hot rodders, it's no wonder that the '49-'51 is the most replicated Mercury in small scale models.

Nissan 300ZX

 I have two Nissan 300ZX Matchbox cars that came with built-in suspension.  The first is a white one that came with a small, spiral parking structure kind of track when I was about five years old.  It was "well loved," so they say.  The gray and blue one was won from some sort of game at school and it was already very used when I got it.  It had dark blue paint and strange silver patterns that resembled riveted and torn metal.  The headlights had been pushed down into the car.

Hot Wheels USB Drives

In the summer of 2011 before my junior year of high school, I made my first Hot wheels flash drive (or USB, jump drive, thumb drive, whatever you call it).  I remember the very day I made it: I had spent two and a half hours in the basement hacking around, only to have my father come home and yell at me for wasting my time.  I was apparently supposed to be studying for my first ACT class, even though there was nothing to study before the first day of class ...

'10 Mustang GT, HP v165w 16 GB flash drive

Front and rear faces detailed with Sharpies as always.

LEGO 1965 Ford Pickup

In the summer of 2013, I combined two of my favorite LEGO vehicles: the 4404 Land Busters pickup truck and the Technics 8285 Tow Truck.  I took what I felt were my favorite features of both sets to build a roughly-1:12 scale model of a 1965 Ford F-250, one of my dream cars.

The boom was the most complex part of the truck.  I did not disassemble that part.  

The Land Busters pickup shown before suspension was taken.  

"V4" engine was swapped for a carbureted V8.  More on this one later; it has suspension once again.  

Pull-back Hot Wheels Cars

This was one of the few projects that I finished without having thought about it for too long.  I usually have a backlog of fun things I want to do that never get done mainly because of money, lack of time, or being told not to by parents.  This was rather spontaneous and ended up working quite well.

Near the end of the last school year, I purchased a pack of three extremely cheap pull-back toy cars.  They had rubber wheels for traction but the cars themselves were nothing more than clear plastic shells.  Thinking I could do better, I thought maybe I could stick the pull-back motors into Hot wheels cars.  I was afraid the metal cars would be too heavy for the weak motors but I went forward with the project anyway once I returned home from school.

I didn't get a picture of the original cheap car but here's the Hot Wheels '70 Mustang under construction

First Set of New Cars for This Blog

Whenever I talk about getting a new car, it's probably going to be about a Hot wheels car.  I had 487 cars of ~1:64 scale size last time I counted and I bought four more last weekend.  When I was at the store buying a gallon of milk, a huge stand of Matchbox cars caught my attention.  I prefer Hot wheels because they have skinnier, faster axles and they usually look better; however, I bought three Matchbox and one Hot wheels car this time.