9 ms·

The Rise and Fall of Matchbox's Toy-Car Empire

182 points by NaOH 2y ago

grendelt 2y ago
> Whereas a Hot Wheels is designed to race down those iconic orange tracks, and often feature wild customizations or complete fantasy builds, a Matchbox is more realistic and accurate. This is exactly what I've noticed with a little one that loves toy cars. We often end up getting Matchbox because they're cooler and not meant to only rocket down a Hot Wheels track. Hot Wheels are too much fantasy these days, Matchbox is where it's at.
- rjsw 2y ago
  There were Matchbox tracks too.
- glimshe 2y ago
  As a kid I also liked them because they were heavier and felt higher quality for that reason.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  Have recent experience with both. Hot Wheels makes both replica and fantasy cars. IMO, replica Hot Wheels are better than equivalent Matchbox.
- ourmandave 2y ago
  I had Hot Wheels orange tracks with loop-the-loops and stuff. But also had the glow-in-the-dark fold out Matchbox City in a suitcase.
- securingsincity 2y ago
  My dad kept a lot of his old hot wheels from the late 60s and what is fascinating is those orange tracks even from then still fit with tracks you can buy today. They've modified the design but they still connect. Makes you think will what you build keep the same interface or at least backwards compatibility 50 years from now? Probably not and most wouldn't blame you. But it brought us a lot of joy to take things we bought in target that day and connect them to those old sets.
  - bitwize 2y ago
    What's neat about the tracks is that Mattel had a variety of toy lines compatible with them. They marketed a Hot Wheels variant called Sizzlers that had a tiny motor inside, powered by a small nickel-cadmium battery. You charged it up with a battery-powered charger called the "Juice Machine" (sold separately) and the motor would make the car go. There was also a line of electric trains called "Hotline" that would run on the orange tracks; these were also charged with the Juice Machine. My nephew ended up getting all my Hot Wheels tracks, and yes, they were forward compatible with new tracks and with all his 1:64 cars. When he was four he would stage elaborate crash scenarios on them, which he called "challenges". I would talk to him in the voice of the Homestar Runner character Stinkoman (an alternate, anime version of Strong Bad), e.g. "That was an exciting challenge! I was excited by the challenge!" Whenever he was playing with his Hot Wheels and I was around, he would exhort me to "do the challenge voice again!"
  - whoopdedo 2y ago
    > Makes you think will what you build keep the same interface or at least backwards compatibility 50 years from now? SMTP comes to mind.
- Mindwipe 2y ago
  TBF Hot Wheels do both, but the realistic ones tend to be significantly more expensive, and hence mainly not bought by/for kids .
- thinkingtoilet 2y ago
  Hot Wheels has a ton of realistic cars if you want them. It's also legal to use them not on an official track.
- chrisdhoover 2y ago
  My 4th grade teacher used the orange track to swat hands and backsides. The worst offender in class was taken to the book room and disciplined. I swear the both liked it. She also brought a refrigerator card board box in and set over him and his desk.
pge 2y ago
As an American growing up in the late 70s/early 80s, we called all die-cast metal cars “matchbox cars,” even though many (all?) of them were Hot Wheels. I never knew there were two competing brands.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  Growing up in a french speaking country, we'd call all ballpoint pens "bic". Because of this: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_(entreprise) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_(entreprise) Up to this day many still say, on a daily basis, say, a "bic bleu" (blue ballpen) or "bic noir" (black ballpen). And virtually everyone french speaking calls a refrigerator (fridge) a "frigo".
  - dghf 2y ago
    In the UK, any ballpoint pen is commonly a biro for similar reasons.
    - alias_neo 2y ago
      Hoover, Cellotape, Pritt-Stick, Velcro, Coke, iPad, Google, WD40, Fairy liquid... Some were so ubiquitous that I grew up not knowing some of the things we say are actually brands until I was older.
  - MEMORYC_RRUPTED 2y ago
    Goes even further than purely French speaking, we do the exact same thing in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium!
  - tetris11 2y ago
    I was puzzled when I sneezed in Germany and someone asked if I wanted a Tempo.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      I was shocked when I first started participating in discussions on-line on international boards like this one, some 10+ years ago, and discovered that in America, you sneeze into a Kleenex and cut stuff with X-Acto knives. Then again, we've been calling a certain class of shoes "Adidas" since 1990s, so I shouldn't be surprised by the phenomenon. Not to mention, I don't think anyone in Poland ever used the generic term for a photocopier - we all call it "ksero" machines (from Xerox).
rob74 2y ago
> Mattel is looking over its various intellectual properties and imagining a Scrooge McDuck–sized swimming pool of cash. Pah, these small reporters with their small ambitions! Scrooge McDuck didn't have a "pool of cash", he had a whole silo-sized building filled with cash, and the "pool" that he used to swim in was merely the visible surface of it: https://www.duckipedia.de/images/archive/d/d3/20230517100725%21BigBinOnKillmotorHill.jpg https://www.duckipedia.de/images/archive/d/d3/20230517100725...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- chongli 2y ago
  Also Scrooge’s cash was in the form of gold coins that appreciate in value as commodity gold does. If it were a silo full of fiat currency it would be depreciating with inflation!
  - rwmj 2y ago
    But better would be a swimming pool full of stock certificates.
    - Filligree 2y ago
      He tried that; it wasn’t better. Though arguably only due to Scrooge’s naivety.
      - foobarian 2y ago
        He probably got greedy and didn't stick to plain old boring index certificates and bonds.
  - adventured 2y ago
    Gold doesn't appreciate in value. It's an important distinction when considering investments. It tends to act as a store of value, that is it retains value. While the dollar price of gold goes up (now ~$2700 (!) as the dollar keeps imploding over time), that isn't the same as it appreciating in value. The dollar is losing value, gold is what is staying still in terms of value. And while that isn't always perfectly accurate (certainly gold sometimes varies upwards or downwards in value for various supply etc reasons), it tends to be mostly correct. The reason it's an important distinction is because eg the S&P500 will tend to smash gold over time as a value generative asset (because gold is not a productive, generative asset; gold holds value, the S&P500 generates value (profit/growth/etc)).
mgraupner 2y ago
Growing up in the Eastern Bloc, it was such a joy to own/get an original Matchbox. Memories...
bitwize 2y ago
I remember Matchbox cars and had a few. I mainly had Hot Wheels and a few off-brand toy cars. And I kept all my 1:64 cars in a carrying case with Fast 111s branding, another die-cast line by Kenner whose gimmick was tiny license plate decals on the rear of each vehicle, each with a random state and number. But Matchbox really sticks out in my mind as the manufacturer of the die-cast Voltron toy that every kid wanted in the mid-1980s -- and only rich kids got; at $60 in 1985 or nearly $175 in today's dollars, that shit's steep. I did end up with the Panosh Place plastic Voltron. It was plastic, and the lions didn't combine in a show-accurate way to form Voltron, but I didn't care, it was Voltron. These days, we have Transformers from Robosen that transform on their own and respond to voice commands -- so rich kids' Christmases are on a whole 'nother level now.
- throwup238 2y ago
  https://us.robosen.com/products/flagship-megatron https://us.robosen.com/products/flagship-megatron Holy crap…
- Loughla 2y ago
  I had two legs of the die-cast Voltron that my rich, snotty cousin gave me when he lost the other pieces. They were so big and heavy and just so cool. That, combined with my thundercats dagger (that came free with my sweet thundercats underwear) made me the coolest kid on my schoolbus for like three weeks.
rwmj 2y ago
There are a bunch of youtubers who restore Matchbox vehicles, eg https://www.youtube.com/user/pso316a/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/pso316a/videos
flohofwoe 2y ago
Those things were pretty popular in East Germany as present from your relatives across the border or bought at the 'Intershop' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intershop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intershop). I still have a shoebox or two full of Matchbox cars in the attic. Also I remember that during my job education as (industrial) tool maker in East Germany our master used to rave about Matchbox cars (and specifically Matchbox, not other brands) and how surprisingly hard it is to build the precision tools needed for creating such fine detail, and how baffled he was that western companies could afford to build such production lines "just for toys" - in that sense, Matchbox was even an effective Cold War propaganda weapon ;)
- chiph 2y ago
  Part of me thinks "Oh they're just cast from cheap pot-metal" But if he was talking about the machining needed to make the molds (in a pre-CNC environment), including multi-part molds to allow for parts of the car that curved in (i.e. not a straight lift-out on release), then yes. The tooling needed to make them in volume, at the quality they needed, was pretty impressive for "just a toy" So add Matchbox cars to Levi's 501s as subversive western imports. :)
  - nosianu 2y ago
    As another Ex-GDR citizen here, I think the most subversive were the thick shopping catalogs of the big West-German mail-order companies (Otto, Quelle, Conrad [Electronics]). I don't remember how or why we got them, but for some reason we did, once in a while. I think they should have been confiscated at the border, but apparently enough West German visitors happened to have one with them on visits, that remained undiscovered, or they were left in some of the many parcels (especially around Christmas time) sent from West to East Germany. We would look through those thick foto-color glossy paper catalogs, looking at one unobtainable item after another. In every category, from clothes, furniture, tools, toys, to electronics. The difference in quality was several decades, the difference in variety and quantity was at least two orders of magnitude, with many items having no equivalent at all in the East. The paper and the print quality alone were on another level, and they made that for a throwaway shopping catalog? Just for comparison, when I turned 14 and was given some money I spent about 1100 East German Marks on a mono cassette recorder (https://ddr-hifi-technik.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/IMG_20230222_175853-scaled.jpg https://ddr-hifi-technik.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/IMG_2...). At the same time a stereo recorder's price in West Germany was something like 99 DM. I could not afford the East German stereo variant, that would have cost 1400 East German marks. A typical salary in East Germany was around 1000 East German Marks.
crispyambulance 2y ago
Matchbox cars were the best! In particular, they tended to roll much better than Hot Wheels. The "axles" were some kind of fine spring steel. The matchbox cars had noticeably less drag than other brands and rolled farther and more straight. The plastic on the wheels was more flexible and smooth. I do think that some thought went into how these things rolled. Or maybe I am mis-remembering my childhood experiences? I guess I will never find out!
- flohofwoe 2y ago
  Nope, Matchbox were indeed the best. They were incredibly high quality compared to similar brands. Really surprising for such a cheap mass-produced toy.
  - Mistletoe 2y ago
    It’s interesting that Hot Wheels got the Coke and Matchbox seemed like Pepsi to me, someone that was from the outside. I wonder why. Maybe the name is just better.
    - lproven 2y ago
      Huh. Could this be a UK/US thing? Brit here and for us Matchbox was 100% the Coke, and Hot Wheels the generic supermarket-own-brand cola. HW aspired to be Pepsi.
- RandallBrown 2y ago
  Interesting. I remember my Hot Wheels rolling better than the few Matchbox cars I had (early 90s). Maybe the Matchbox cars I had were older and left over from my brother, or maybe the quality had changed at that point.
  - fuzzfactor 2y ago
    Before the early 1960's I was a preschooler and like many American kids had gotten a Matchbox car in a Christmas stocking one year. They came in a little box that had the two-tone artistic motif intended to be reminiscent of an actual box of traditional wooden matches. It's hard to remember if they were all right-side steering, but the boxes were definitely made for the North American market, and naturally in the days of non-fiat currency were permanently imprinted with the purchase price in US terms which was 50c. Approximately half the size and twice the price of a pack of cigarettes. Like anything else there was no foreseeable reason that the price would be expected to increase whatsoever. A half-dollar for something like this was recognized as truly overpriced already compared to many other types of toys, but sooner or later most young boys had one or more. In Florida most people still went back up north during the summer, except for a number of hardy retirees who actually liked the sub-tropical environment. Remember almost nobody had air conditioning yet except for banks and supermarkets. Which had big lobbies where senior citizens would congregate daily, of course banks closed at 2:00 PM and no supermarket opened before 8:00 AM or remained open much after dark. If you wanted some essentials outside those business hours your only choice was a 7-11 store, which as the name implies, was open from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM. But on a Sunday many of those 7-11's had not yet defied tradition, and were not open for business, just like anything else. In the local Eckerd Drugs store, they had small selection of various toys in one aisle, and had been carrying Matchbox cars obviously since before I was born. And a few of those were still on the shelf, priced at 35c. These were the unpopular oddball construction models or very unfamiliar designs that did not resemble any American cars. Apparently 35c was the price they were when it was closer to the immediate post-war period. So all the mainstream models had been picked over for years before I became a student and earned an allowance of 25c per week for various household chores. Remember back then there was only a small percent of the number of kids in the Florida "snowbird" cities compared to any ordinary US state, since most residents were over 65 years old. When they would buy a Matchbox for a grandchild the purchase was usually made up north where the grandchildren were, but when the kids came down to visit grandma in Florida they would sometimes get one. However there was a great deal of hesitation for someone born in the 19th century to pay 50c for such a small toy. Or anything else where you could detect the least bit of overpricing. A lot of them were still in shock from the pre-war devaluation of the US dollar, where their parents' generation of private ownership of gold was first outlawed, confiscated and reimbursed at a "fair" price, before the devaluation could be accomplished. This had been so painful that there was somewhat of a backlash of attitude that it could never happen again outside of another world war brewing. Anyway, I don't think the Matchbox factory built very many different models at one time. Probably doing a large run of each new model, which would go into inventory and sell for years while the factory retooled for the next designs. So they would arrive in the stores like comic books, on a regular basis the store would get about a dozen of a new model, about half would fly off the shelf and the rest of the new ones would join the other recent models so there was always a selection of between 10 and 20 different choices, other than the few dusty old 35c items. I would imagine when a certain model sold out at Eckerd it would be restocked until factory inventory had been fully depleted. There were a number that I had wanted to buy but were sold out before I could save the money. But there was always something interesting and new on a regular basis. I would save my money and try to purchase one per month, I didn't know the value of the dollar to begin with but I thought they were nifty. Kids who had them did feel kind of fortunate having a fancy imported toy, even if it was a small example. A very big number of pre-teens back then had been born up north where their family had traditionally earned twice as much for generations compared to Florida, where there wasn't even 10 percent as many career opportunities, most anything else would be considered minimum wage today. Of course there were no "minimum-wage" regulations yet. Well they just didn't value the dollar as highly as we did, and didn't take as good care of their toys by nature. These were models worthy of display when new, but kids played with them, plowing through the sand, crashing into each other and stuff. One thing was, the paint on some chipped real easily, they could be dented and they only rolled as well as you would expect from a model descended from things originally produced mainly for sitting on a shelf decoratively. Once there were more numerous spoiled kids who had moved down, and Matchbox got more popular, those kids were rapidly accumulating more than I had which took me years. But I was careful only to crash a small number of mine, especially since most of them were irreplaceable and had not been available for years. Eventually they had collector cases that held a couple dozen, and I had two cases where only a handful were not in mint condition. One day, Hotwheels came out and as the name implies all the focus had been on making them roll so much more friction-free as a more fun playable toy than the Matchboxes which just happened to have rolling wheels. A Matchbox would only roll a few feet or less but Hotwheels would go across the room, so much of the time not stopping until it did crash into something. Then they got the fast tracks for Christmas, and the whole novelty was because Matchboxes were everywhere by then, but nobody ever dreamed there could be a little car like this that was the least bit speedy. So it was a real game-changer and they flew off the shelf. I only ever added about a half-dozen Hotwheels to my carrying case which I would bring to my friends house where he had dozens of banged up Matchboxes he had been crashing along with my limited number of non-mint cars for a couple years. By that time silver US coins had then been discontinued, replaced by much less worthy metals, Matchboxes had risen to 55c but Hotwheels were over a dollar. He would set up the tracks that covered the floor in his room, and his mom would let him keep it that way for weeks. The next summer we did the same thing but by then we had basically outgrown them, we spent more time riding our bikes to the beach, fishing or skateboarding than playing with toys, even in the air-conditioning which had become much more common by then. People who had it were cooling to 80F (27C), it was such a luxury but quite costly for those paying the electric bill. One day she picked up all the tracks and cars, put them in his closet with other less-utilized toys and they remodeled his room. Mine were in there somewhere and I didn't really think about it for a couple more years when I figured I should bring my cases back home even if I was not going to play with them any more, they were a pretty good collection. Too late, she had already donated about half the closet to Goodwill, never to be seen again :(
wavefunction 2y ago
Matchbox were made of metal too, not mostly plastic with minimal metal like many of today's toys for children. I gave some of the ones my little brother and I played with in the early 1980s to my neighbor's kid last year. They were a little scratched and scuffed in places but that just added to the versimiltude. They had all the wheels and the hoods and doors and other moving parts still move and close.
neilv 2y ago
Years ago, with the help of eBay, I built a "dream" small collection of Matchbox cars that I would've liked in childhood, and that would've practically been impossible to find amongst brick&mortar stores then. Sorry, I'll admit I unboxed the ones still boxed, since I think toys are meant to be out and played with, not pumped collectible investments. (I no longer have them, though. I was selling my Concept 2 erg, in preparation for moving house, and the buyer noticed my Matchbox dream collection in a tray on the table, and remarked that her nephew/grandson would love those. She'd just given me several hundred dollars for the rowing machine, and I was moving, so I threw in the Matchbox cars.)
- whamlastxmas 2y ago
  That’s a cute anecdote, thanks for sharing :)
- opwieurposiu 2y ago
  A theme in the Toy Story movies was collectors vs. kids, and the toys always seemed to prefer being with the kids. I think you made the right decision.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
    >> A theme in the Toy Story movies was collectors vs. kids, and the toys always seemed to prefer being with the kids. I suspect my Barbies would have preferred to be with a collector and keep all their limbs and eyes and hair. #Barbicide
    - Interloper2099 2y ago
      Isn’t barbicide the blue liquid that I look at while getting my haircut?
      - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
        It is, yes. But it sounds like "Barbiecide" :P
JohnMakin 2y ago
I still like to collect these. Something about small toy cars with intricate details really tickles me. I really like classic car lego sets too. Great read
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Matchbox was certainly the gold standard when I was young (in France). I don’t recall ever hearing of Hot Wheels — maybe those were just in the US?
- ericd 2y ago
  Funny, I’ve always thought the French Majorette were the best. Many of them had pretty good suspension which helped a lot in rolling across uneven ground.
  - musha68k 2y ago
    Same here, because of that and some of the more extravagant models at "low coin" :)
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    maybe the Matchbox ones were more "desirable" at that time because they were imported? I can't remember anymore (this was mid- to late- 70s).
    - selcuka 2y ago
      I've always thought Majorette and Bburago were higher-end than MatchBox. Maybe it was because of the scale (1:43 for Bburago vs 1:64 for MatchBox).
    - ericd 2y ago
      Heh yeah, I guess the flip side might’ve been working on me, Majorette was the exotic imported brand.
paulorlando 2y ago
I have a set of hand-me-down Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars I had growing up. There's an astounding difference between them and the newer ones my kids have been given. I actually use that difference as a lesson in workmanship to my kids. See, you can choose to make things cost less and take less material, but there's a tradeoff in quality....
maeil 2y ago
Hugged to death, or just geoblocking whole countries for no good reason? Getting a 403.
- alisonatwork 2y ago
  Geoblocked for me too, it happens to me fairly regularly. A bunch of sites seem to just ban the whole continent of Asia.
rithikjainNd01 2y ago
Even as a child I preferred Matchbox over Hotwheels. I still buy a cool looking moving parts or construction vehicle if I find it interesting. Cool article!
IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
This article made me wonder what ever happened to Micro Machines. They just sort of dissappeared from the public consciousness. It seems like the brand (Micro Machines) was stopped from production, and its IP sort of died away when Galoob was bought by Hasbro [1] I used to have a huge collection of them. My mom amazingly kept them around, and now my kids have a huge collection to play. What a present! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Machines
- seattle_spring 2y ago
  I had so many Micro Machines, and I've been wondering the same thing about their fate for years. I thought they were so much cooler than Matchbox or Hot Wheels. There were tons of Micro Machine airplanes too!
- showerst 2y ago
  Micro machines were awesome! I still remember the commercials with the fast talker. It's funny how a random thing can date you so specifically, it seems like their heyday was only from 1987-1994 or so.
- russdill 2y ago
  I think there was a consumer safety issue that made it hard for to hit their core demographic. iirc their small size got them a "5 and up" recommendation.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Or perhaps it was a consumer perceived safety issue. I notice parent these days seems very concerned about choking hazards compared to 20 years ago.
- ambarp2 2y ago
  Same!! My mom still keeps one of my micromachines on the windowsill in the kitchen, it’s at least 30-35 yrs old.
- animal531 2y ago
whartung 2y ago
In my day, we had roughly 3 classes. Tootsie Toy, which, originally, were either rough die cast or stamped metal. They were literally just hollow shells of cars with axles, in solid color. They were sold loose in a box next to the penny candy. These cars were small, 1" to 1.5" long. Tootsie Toy, later, really up'd their game. The cars were about twice as big as Matchbox/Hot Wheel. Next were Matchbox, these were the "replicas". They had the normal sized cars, but they also had some King Sized, I was particularly fascinated by this truck and trailer pipe truck they had. Then, there were Hot Wheels, which were mostly fantasy cars. Splittin' Image, Red Baron, the surf board truck, Jack Rabbit Special. I swear we had hundreds of feet of Hot Wheels track as a kid. And then they brought out the Sizzlers, electric, rechargeable cars. Those were a lot of fun. Also there were the Hot Wheels Heavyweight and the Chopcycles. Oh, and I should also mention the Hot Wheel Factory. This was back when the toy companies had no compunction selling toys with open heating elements to children. Here you melted rubber-ish compound into an injection mold system where you'd place bases and wheels into the mold and squeeze molten rubbery plastic to make your own cars. At the high end were Corgi, those were really nice. I had a very nice ambulance. The cars were hefty. But they were rare, not like Matchbox or Hot Wheels. Trying to compete with Hot Wheels was Johnny Lightning. Known mostly for their elaborate race sets. Where Hot Wheels had things like the Super Charger (which had a pair of spinning wheels used to shoot cars out one end, very useful for loops), Johnny Lightning had a conveyor system. Kind of like a marble track, with cars. Dinky had some really nice stuff, but they were very exotic. There was a small toy store near where I lived that had not just those, but another line that was very detailed construction equipment. It was all out of my price range as a kid, though. I was definitely wanting Dinky's Thunderbirds models.
- animal531 2y ago
  The other brands were before my time, but my brother who was born in 1966 had a few. Other makers often made bigger cars, I'm guessing around 1:24 scale or so. Those ones were extremely strong and could withstand a lot of damage.
kev009 2y ago
The quality of toys seemed to be in steep decline after my generation. I had a collection of Ertl diecast tractors growing up, and the detail was spectacular. Occasionally I have seen the toys section in big box stores and it looks like Idiocracy in comparison.
TaurenHunter 2y ago
Related: there is a fun to watch YT channel hyper-specialized in diecast car races https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRMUZDVwmC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRMUZDVwmC0
themadturk 2y ago
Back in 1967 or 1968, my grandmother gifted me five or six Matchbox cars. As far as I remember, I was the first kid in my school to have the, and started off a huge craze among my friends. When Hot Wheels were introduced a year or two later, we saw them as flashy imitations, and I never had a Hot Wheel in my house until my wife started collecting them 30 years later. One of those original Matchboxes was the bright red Jaguar XKE, a car I have never fallen out of love with (and managed to re-acquire a few years ago).

182 points by NaOH 2y ago

> Whereas a Hot Wheels is designed to race down those iconic orange tracks, and often feature wild customizations or complete fantasy builds, a Matchbox is more realistic and accurate. This is exactly what I've noticed with a little one that loves toy cars. We often end up getting Matchbox because they're cooler and not meant to only rocket down a Hot Wheels track. Hot Wheels are too much fantasy these days, Matchbox is where it's at.

rjsw 2y ago
There were Matchbox tracks too.
glimshe 2y ago
As a kid I also liked them because they were heavier and felt higher quality for that reason.
jgalt212 2y ago
Have recent experience with both. Hot Wheels makes both replica and fantasy cars. IMO, replica Hot Wheels are better than equivalent Matchbox.
ourmandave 2y ago
I had Hot Wheels orange tracks with loop-the-loops and stuff. But also had the glow-in-the-dark fold out Matchbox City in a suitcase.
securingsincity 2y ago
My dad kept a lot of his old hot wheels from the late 60s and what is fascinating is those orange tracks even from then still fit with tracks you can buy today. They've modified the design but they still connect. Makes you think will what you build keep the same interface or at least backwards compatibility 50 years from now? Probably not and most wouldn't blame you. But it brought us a lot of joy to take things we bought in target that day and connect them to those old sets.
- bitwize 2y ago
  What's neat about the tracks is that Mattel had a variety of toy lines compatible with them. They marketed a Hot Wheels variant called Sizzlers that had a tiny motor inside, powered by a small nickel-cadmium battery. You charged it up with a battery-powered charger called the "Juice Machine" (sold separately) and the motor would make the car go. There was also a line of electric trains called "Hotline" that would run on the orange tracks; these were also charged with the Juice Machine. My nephew ended up getting all my Hot Wheels tracks, and yes, they were forward compatible with new tracks and with all his 1:64 cars. When he was four he would stage elaborate crash scenarios on them, which he called "challenges". I would talk to him in the voice of the Homestar Runner character Stinkoman (an alternate, anime version of Strong Bad), e.g. "That was an exciting challenge! I was excited by the challenge!" Whenever he was playing with his Hot Wheels and I was around, he would exhort me to "do the challenge voice again!"
- whoopdedo 2y ago
  > Makes you think will what you build keep the same interface or at least backwards compatibility 50 years from now? SMTP comes to mind.
Mindwipe 2y ago
TBF Hot Wheels do both, but the realistic ones tend to be significantly more expensive, and hence mainly not bought by/for kids .
thinkingtoilet 2y ago
Hot Wheels has a ton of realistic cars if you want them. It's also legal to use them not on an official track.
chrisdhoover 2y ago
My 4th grade teacher used the orange track to swat hands and backsides. The worst offender in class was taken to the book room and disciplined. I swear the both liked it. She also brought a refrigerator card board box in and set over him and his desk.

pge 2y ago

As an American growing up in the late 70s/early 80s, we called all die-cast metal cars “matchbox cars,” even though many (all?) of them were Hot Wheels. I never knew there were two competing brands.

TacticalCoder 2y ago
Growing up in a french speaking country, we'd call all ballpoint pens "bic". Because of this: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_(entreprise) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_(entreprise) Up to this day many still say, on a daily basis, say, a "bic bleu" (blue ballpen) or "bic noir" (black ballpen). And virtually everyone french speaking calls a refrigerator (fridge) a "frigo".
- dghf 2y ago
  In the UK, any ballpoint pen is commonly a biro for similar reasons.
  - alias_neo 2y ago
    Hoover, Cellotape, Pritt-Stick, Velcro, Coke, iPad, Google, WD40, Fairy liquid... Some were so ubiquitous that I grew up not knowing some of the things we say are actually brands until I was older.
- MEMORYC_RRUPTED 2y ago
  Goes even further than purely French speaking, we do the exact same thing in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium!
- tetris11 2y ago
  I was puzzled when I sneezed in Germany and someone asked if I wanted a Tempo.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    I was shocked when I first started participating in discussions on-line on international boards like this one, some 10+ years ago, and discovered that in America, you sneeze into a Kleenex and cut stuff with X-Acto knives. Then again, we've been calling a certain class of shoes "Adidas" since 1990s, so I shouldn't be surprised by the phenomenon. Not to mention, I don't think anyone in Poland ever used the generic term for a photocopier - we all call it "ksero" machines (from Xerox).

rob74 2y ago

> Mattel is looking over its various intellectual properties and imagining a Scrooge McDuck–sized swimming pool of cash. Pah, these small reporters with their small ambitions! Scrooge McDuck didn't have a "pool of cash", he had a whole silo-sized building filled with cash, and the "pool" that he used to swim in was merely the visible surface of it: https://www.duckipedia.de/images/archive/d/d3/20230517100725%21BigBinOnKillmotorHill.jpg https://www.duckipedia.de/images/archive/d/d3/20230517100725...

deleted 2y ago
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chongli 2y ago
Also Scrooge’s cash was in the form of gold coins that appreciate in value as commodity gold does. If it were a silo full of fiat currency it would be depreciating with inflation!
- rwmj 2y ago
  But better would be a swimming pool full of stock certificates.
  - Filligree 2y ago
    He tried that; it wasn’t better. Though arguably only due to Scrooge’s naivety.
    - foobarian 2y ago
      He probably got greedy and didn't stick to plain old boring index certificates and bonds.
- adventured 2y ago
  Gold doesn't appreciate in value. It's an important distinction when considering investments. It tends to act as a store of value, that is it retains value. While the dollar price of gold goes up (now ~$2700 (!) as the dollar keeps imploding over time), that isn't the same as it appreciating in value. The dollar is losing value, gold is what is staying still in terms of value. And while that isn't always perfectly accurate (certainly gold sometimes varies upwards or downwards in value for various supply etc reasons), it tends to be mostly correct. The reason it's an important distinction is because eg the S&P500 will tend to smash gold over time as a value generative asset (because gold is not a productive, generative asset; gold holds value, the S&P500 generates value (profit/growth/etc)).

mgraupner 2y ago

Growing up in the Eastern Bloc, it was such a joy to own/get an original Matchbox. Memories...

bitwize 2y ago

I remember Matchbox cars and had a few. I mainly had Hot Wheels and a few off-brand toy cars. And I kept all my 1:64 cars in a carrying case with Fast 111s branding, another die-cast line by Kenner whose gimmick was tiny license plate decals on the rear of each vehicle, each with a random state and number. But Matchbox really sticks out in my mind as the manufacturer of the die-cast Voltron toy that every kid wanted in the mid-1980s -- and only rich kids got; at $60 in 1985 or nearly $175 in today's dollars, that shit's steep. I did end up with the Panosh Place plastic Voltron. It was plastic, and the lions didn't combine in a show-accurate way to form Voltron, but I didn't care, it was Voltron. These days, we have Transformers from Robosen that transform on their own and respond to voice commands -- so rich kids' Christmases are on a whole 'nother level now.

throwup238 2y ago
https://us.robosen.com/products/flagship-megatron https://us.robosen.com/products/flagship-megatron Holy crap…
Loughla 2y ago
I had two legs of the die-cast Voltron that my rich, snotty cousin gave me when he lost the other pieces. They were so big and heavy and just so cool. That, combined with my thundercats dagger (that came free with my sweet thundercats underwear) made me the coolest kid on my schoolbus for like three weeks.

rwmj 2y ago

There are a bunch of youtubers who restore Matchbox vehicles, eg https://www.youtube.com/user/pso316a/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/pso316a/videos

flohofwoe 2y ago

Those things were pretty popular in East Germany as present from your relatives across the border or bought at the 'Intershop' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intershop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intershop). I still have a shoebox or two full of Matchbox cars in the attic. Also I remember that during my job education as (industrial) tool maker in East Germany our master used to rave about Matchbox cars (and specifically Matchbox, not other brands) and how surprisingly hard it is to build the precision tools needed for creating such fine detail, and how baffled he was that western companies could afford to build such production lines "just for toys" - in that sense, Matchbox was even an effective Cold War propaganda weapon ;)

chiph 2y ago
Part of me thinks "Oh they're just cast from cheap pot-metal" But if he was talking about the machining needed to make the molds (in a pre-CNC environment), including multi-part molds to allow for parts of the car that curved in (i.e. not a straight lift-out on release), then yes. The tooling needed to make them in volume, at the quality they needed, was pretty impressive for "just a toy" So add Matchbox cars to Levi's 501s as subversive western imports. :)
- nosianu 2y ago
  As another Ex-GDR citizen here, I think the most subversive were the thick shopping catalogs of the big West-German mail-order companies (Otto, Quelle, Conrad [Electronics]). I don't remember how or why we got them, but for some reason we did, once in a while. I think they should have been confiscated at the border, but apparently enough West German visitors happened to have one with them on visits, that remained undiscovered, or they were left in some of the many parcels (especially around Christmas time) sent from West to East Germany. We would look through those thick foto-color glossy paper catalogs, looking at one unobtainable item after another. In every category, from clothes, furniture, tools, toys, to electronics. The difference in quality was several decades, the difference in variety and quantity was at least two orders of magnitude, with many items having no equivalent at all in the East. The paper and the print quality alone were on another level, and they made that for a throwaway shopping catalog? Just for comparison, when I turned 14 and was given some money I spent about 1100 East German Marks on a mono cassette recorder (https://ddr-hifi-technik.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/IMG_20230222_175853-scaled.jpg https://ddr-hifi-technik.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/IMG_2...). At the same time a stereo recorder's price in West Germany was something like 99 DM. I could not afford the East German stereo variant, that would have cost 1400 East German marks. A typical salary in East Germany was around 1000 East German Marks.

crispyambulance 2y ago

Matchbox cars were the best! In particular, they tended to roll much better than Hot Wheels. The "axles" were some kind of fine spring steel. The matchbox cars had noticeably less drag than other brands and rolled farther and more straight. The plastic on the wheels was more flexible and smooth. I do think that some thought went into how these things rolled. Or maybe I am mis-remembering my childhood experiences? I guess I will never find out!

flohofwoe 2y ago
Nope, Matchbox were indeed the best. They were incredibly high quality compared to similar brands. Really surprising for such a cheap mass-produced toy.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  It’s interesting that Hot Wheels got the Coke and Matchbox seemed like Pepsi to me, someone that was from the outside. I wonder why. Maybe the name is just better.
  - lproven 2y ago
    Huh. Could this be a UK/US thing? Brit here and for us Matchbox was 100% the Coke, and Hot Wheels the generic supermarket-own-brand cola. HW aspired to be Pepsi.
RandallBrown 2y ago
Interesting. I remember my Hot Wheels rolling better than the few Matchbox cars I had (early 90s). Maybe the Matchbox cars I had were older and left over from my brother, or maybe the quality had changed at that point.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  Before the early 1960's I was a preschooler and like many American kids had gotten a Matchbox car in a Christmas stocking one year. They came in a little box that had the two-tone artistic motif intended to be reminiscent of an actual box of traditional wooden matches. It's hard to remember if they were all right-side steering, but the boxes were definitely made for the North American market, and naturally in the days of non-fiat currency were permanently imprinted with the purchase price in US terms which was 50c. Approximately half the size and twice the price of a pack of cigarettes. Like anything else there was no foreseeable reason that the price would be expected to increase whatsoever. A half-dollar for something like this was recognized as truly overpriced already compared to many other types of toys, but sooner or later most young boys had one or more. In Florida most people still went back up north during the summer, except for a number of hardy retirees who actually liked the sub-tropical environment. Remember almost nobody had air conditioning yet except for banks and supermarkets. Which had big lobbies where senior citizens would congregate daily, of course banks closed at 2:00 PM and no supermarket opened before 8:00 AM or remained open much after dark. If you wanted some essentials outside those business hours your only choice was a 7-11 store, which as the name implies, was open from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM. But on a Sunday many of those 7-11's had not yet defied tradition, and were not open for business, just like anything else. In the local Eckerd Drugs store, they had small selection of various toys in one aisle, and had been carrying Matchbox cars obviously since before I was born. And a few of those were still on the shelf, priced at 35c. These were the unpopular oddball construction models or very unfamiliar designs that did not resemble any American cars. Apparently 35c was the price they were when it was closer to the immediate post-war period. So all the mainstream models had been picked over for years before I became a student and earned an allowance of 25c per week for various household chores. Remember back then there was only a small percent of the number of kids in the Florida "snowbird" cities compared to any ordinary US state, since most residents were over 65 years old. When they would buy a Matchbox for a grandchild the purchase was usually made up north where the grandchildren were, but when the kids came down to visit grandma in Florida they would sometimes get one. However there was a great deal of hesitation for someone born in the 19th century to pay 50c for such a small toy. Or anything else where you could detect the least bit of overpricing. A lot of them were still in shock from the pre-war devaluation of the US dollar, where their parents' generation of private ownership of gold was first outlawed, confiscated and reimbursed at a "fair" price, before the devaluation could be accomplished. This had been so painful that there was somewhat of a backlash of attitude that it could never happen again outside of another world war brewing. Anyway, I don't think the Matchbox factory built very many different models at one time. Probably doing a large run of each new model, which would go into inventory and sell for years while the factory retooled for the next designs. So they would arrive in the stores like comic books, on a regular basis the store would get about a dozen of a new model, about half would fly off the shelf and the rest of the new ones would join the other recent models so there was always a selection of between 10 and 20 different choices, other than the few dusty old 35c items. I would imagine when a certain model sold out at Eckerd it would be restocked until factory inventory had been fully depleted. There were a number that I had wanted to buy but were sold out before I could save the money. But there was always something interesting and new on a regular basis. I would save my money and try to purchase one per month, I didn't know the value of the dollar to begin with but I thought they were nifty. Kids who had them did feel kind of fortunate having a fancy imported toy, even if it was a small example. A very big number of pre-teens back then had been born up north where their family had traditionally earned twice as much for generations compared to Florida, where there wasn't even 10 percent as many career opportunities, most anything else would be considered minimum wage today. Of course there were no "minimum-wage" regulations yet. Well they just didn't value the dollar as highly as we did, and didn't take as good care of their toys by nature. These were models worthy of display when new, but kids played with them, plowing through the sand, crashing into each other and stuff. One thing was, the paint on some chipped real easily, they could be dented and they only rolled as well as you would expect from a model descended from things originally produced mainly for sitting on a shelf decoratively. Once there were more numerous spoiled kids who had moved down, and Matchbox got more popular, those kids were rapidly accumulating more than I had which took me years. But I was careful only to crash a small number of mine, especially since most of them were irreplaceable and had not been available for years. Eventually they had collector cases that held a couple dozen, and I had two cases where only a handful were not in mint condition. One day, Hotwheels came out and as the name implies all the focus had been on making them roll so much more friction-free as a more fun playable toy than the Matchboxes which just happened to have rolling wheels. A Matchbox would only roll a few feet or less but Hotwheels would go across the room, so much of the time not stopping until it did crash into something. Then they got the fast tracks for Christmas, and the whole novelty was because Matchboxes were everywhere by then, but nobody ever dreamed there could be a little car like this that was the least bit speedy. So it was a real game-changer and they flew off the shelf. I only ever added about a half-dozen Hotwheels to my carrying case which I would bring to my friends house where he had dozens of banged up Matchboxes he had been crashing along with my limited number of non-mint cars for a couple years. By that time silver US coins had then been discontinued, replaced by much less worthy metals, Matchboxes had risen to 55c but Hotwheels were over a dollar. He would set up the tracks that covered the floor in his room, and his mom would let him keep it that way for weeks. The next summer we did the same thing but by then we had basically outgrown them, we spent more time riding our bikes to the beach, fishing or skateboarding than playing with toys, even in the air-conditioning which had become much more common by then. People who had it were cooling to 80F (27C), it was such a luxury but quite costly for those paying the electric bill. One day she picked up all the tracks and cars, put them in his closet with other less-utilized toys and they remodeled his room. Mine were in there somewhere and I didn't really think about it for a couple more years when I figured I should bring my cases back home even if I was not going to play with them any more, they were a pretty good collection. Too late, she had already donated about half the closet to Goodwill, never to be seen again :(

wavefunction 2y ago

Matchbox were made of metal too, not mostly plastic with minimal metal like many of today's toys for children. I gave some of the ones my little brother and I played with in the early 1980s to my neighbor's kid last year. They were a little scratched and scuffed in places but that just added to the versimiltude. They had all the wheels and the hoods and doors and other moving parts still move and close.

neilv 2y ago

Years ago, with the help of eBay, I built a "dream" small collection of Matchbox cars that I would've liked in childhood, and that would've practically been impossible to find amongst brick&mortar stores then. Sorry, I'll admit I unboxed the ones still boxed, since I think toys are meant to be out and played with, not pumped collectible investments. (I no longer have them, though. I was selling my Concept 2 erg, in preparation for moving house, and the buyer noticed my Matchbox dream collection in a tray on the table, and remarked that her nephew/grandson would love those. She'd just given me several hundred dollars for the rowing machine, and I was moving, so I threw in the Matchbox cars.)

whamlastxmas 2y ago
That’s a cute anecdote, thanks for sharing :)
opwieurposiu 2y ago
A theme in the Toy Story movies was collectors vs. kids, and the toys always seemed to prefer being with the kids. I think you made the right decision.
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
  >> A theme in the Toy Story movies was collectors vs. kids, and the toys always seemed to prefer being with the kids. I suspect my Barbies would have preferred to be with a collector and keep all their limbs and eyes and hair. #Barbicide
  - Interloper2099 2y ago
    Isn’t barbicide the blue liquid that I look at while getting my haircut?
    - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
      It is, yes. But it sounds like "Barbiecide" :P

JohnMakin 2y ago

I still like to collect these. Something about small toy cars with intricate details really tickles me. I really like classic car lego sets too. Great read

insane_dreamer 2y ago

Matchbox was certainly the gold standard when I was young (in France). I don’t recall ever hearing of Hot Wheels — maybe those were just in the US?

ericd 2y ago
Funny, I’ve always thought the French Majorette were the best. Many of them had pretty good suspension which helped a lot in rolling across uneven ground.
- musha68k 2y ago
  Same here, because of that and some of the more extravagant models at "low coin" :)
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  maybe the Matchbox ones were more "desirable" at that time because they were imported? I can't remember anymore (this was mid- to late- 70s).
  - selcuka 2y ago
    I've always thought Majorette and Bburago were higher-end than MatchBox. Maybe it was because of the scale (1:43 for Bburago vs 1:64 for MatchBox).
  - ericd 2y ago
    Heh yeah, I guess the flip side might’ve been working on me, Majorette was the exotic imported brand.

paulorlando 2y ago

I have a set of hand-me-down Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars I had growing up. There's an astounding difference between them and the newer ones my kids have been given. I actually use that difference as a lesson in workmanship to my kids. See, you can choose to make things cost less and take less material, but there's a tradeoff in quality....

maeil 2y ago

Hugged to death, or just geoblocking whole countries for no good reason? Getting a 403.

alisonatwork 2y ago
Geoblocked for me too, it happens to me fairly regularly. A bunch of sites seem to just ban the whole continent of Asia.

rithikjainNd01 2y ago

Even as a child I preferred Matchbox over Hotwheels. I still buy a cool looking moving parts or construction vehicle if I find it interesting. Cool article!

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago

This article made me wonder what ever happened to Micro Machines. They just sort of dissappeared from the public consciousness. It seems like the brand (Micro Machines) was stopped from production, and its IP sort of died away when Galoob was bought by Hasbro [1] I used to have a huge collection of them. My mom amazingly kept them around, and now my kids have a huge collection to play. What a present! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Machines

seattle_spring 2y ago
I had so many Micro Machines, and I've been wondering the same thing about their fate for years. I thought they were so much cooler than Matchbox or Hot Wheels. There were tons of Micro Machine airplanes too!
showerst 2y ago
Micro machines were awesome! I still remember the commercials with the fast talker. It's funny how a random thing can date you so specifically, it seems like their heyday was only from 1987-1994 or so.
russdill 2y ago
I think there was a consumer safety issue that made it hard for to hit their core demographic. iirc their small size got them a "5 and up" recommendation.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Or perhaps it was a consumer perceived safety issue. I notice parent these days seems very concerned about choking hazards compared to 20 years ago.
ambarp2 2y ago
Same!! My mom still keeps one of my micromachines on the windowsill in the kitchen, it’s at least 30-35 yrs old.
animal531 2y ago

whartung 2y ago

In my day, we had roughly 3 classes. Tootsie Toy, which, originally, were either rough die cast or stamped metal. They were literally just hollow shells of cars with axles, in solid color. They were sold loose in a box next to the penny candy. These cars were small, 1" to 1.5" long. Tootsie Toy, later, really up'd their game. The cars were about twice as big as Matchbox/Hot Wheel. Next were Matchbox, these were the "replicas". They had the normal sized cars, but they also had some King Sized, I was particularly fascinated by this truck and trailer pipe truck they had. Then, there were Hot Wheels, which were mostly fantasy cars. Splittin' Image, Red Baron, the surf board truck, Jack Rabbit Special. I swear we had hundreds of feet of Hot Wheels track as a kid. And then they brought out the Sizzlers, electric, rechargeable cars. Those were a lot of fun. Also there were the Hot Wheels Heavyweight and the Chopcycles. Oh, and I should also mention the Hot Wheel Factory. This was back when the toy companies had no compunction selling toys with open heating elements to children. Here you melted rubber-ish compound into an injection mold system where you'd place bases and wheels into the mold and squeeze molten rubbery plastic to make your own cars. At the high end were Corgi, those were really nice. I had a very nice ambulance. The cars were hefty. But they were rare, not like Matchbox or Hot Wheels. Trying to compete with Hot Wheels was Johnny Lightning. Known mostly for their elaborate race sets. Where Hot Wheels had things like the Super Charger (which had a pair of spinning wheels used to shoot cars out one end, very useful for loops), Johnny Lightning had a conveyor system. Kind of like a marble track, with cars. Dinky had some really nice stuff, but they were very exotic. There was a small toy store near where I lived that had not just those, but another line that was very detailed construction equipment. It was all out of my price range as a kid, though. I was definitely wanting Dinky's Thunderbirds models.

animal531 2y ago
The other brands were before my time, but my brother who was born in 1966 had a few. Other makers often made bigger cars, I'm guessing around 1:24 scale or so. Those ones were extremely strong and could withstand a lot of damage.

kev009 2y ago

The quality of toys seemed to be in steep decline after my generation. I had a collection of Ertl diecast tractors growing up, and the detail was spectacular. Occasionally I have seen the toys section in big box stores and it looks like Idiocracy in comparison.

TaurenHunter 2y ago

Related: there is a fun to watch YT channel hyper-specialized in diecast car races https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRMUZDVwmC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRMUZDVwmC0

themadturk 2y ago

Back in 1967 or 1968, my grandmother gifted me five or six Matchbox cars. As far as I remember, I was the first kid in my school to have the, and started off a huge craze among my friends. When Hot Wheels were introduced a year or two later, we saw them as flashy imitations, and I never had a Hot Wheel in my house until my wife started collecting them 30 years later. One of those original Matchboxes was the bright red Jaguar XKE, a car I have never fallen out of love with (and managed to re-acquire a few years ago).