My fun hobby..Old Hot Wheels aka - Redlines

[Redline69 27]

 A hobby I took up about 15 years ago, is Redline collecting. Redlines are the old Hot Wheels made from 1968-1977. I stay in the 68-72 years, we call them the Spectra-flame era. Spectra flame was the candy colored paint jobs they used to use then. After that they went with enamel paints, which are nice also, but I stay with the Spectra flames.

 

 Here's some 1968s, these were made in Hong Kong.

 

 

 

 Here's the same 1968 models that were made in US.

 

 

 

 

 Camaros are one of my favorites.

 

 

  Here's some 1969s.

  These are a mix of HK and US cars.

 

 

 70s.

 

 

 71s.

 I don't have a group shot of 71s, so these are the Olds 442s. Very desireable casting.

 

 

 

 72s.

 

 

 Plus some of us like to go for what we call Rainbows. Collect all the colors of one casting. These are my Chargers.

 

 

  

  I also recently got into what are called unspun cars. These are basically cars that were not put together at the factory. So they are very hard to find.

 These are actually unpainted,and unspun. A little blurry in front..sorry bout that.

 

 

 

 

 

Just a taste of what I have here. Also have the Rumblers,and Sizzlers,and Chopcycles that were Hot wheel related, and were released in the same era.

 

 My Photobucket album is public, you can look around if you like.

 

 http://smg.photobucket.com/user/rdln%2A66/library/

 

 There are several message boards around to chat redlines. One I'm involved in is called Chickluu's fabulous redlines. Membership by application. I'm a mod there. Not sure if the guidelines allow me to post another message board here. If so, I can add it later.

 

 

 Appreciate any questions, or comments. If you have any old redlines you want to share, then by all means..post away!

 

  

  Thanks.

 Frank

[Ken B 3,116]

I still have a bunch of my old Hot Wheels from the late 60's early 70's. Not too many Red lines though, maybe a handful. That is a pretty expensive hobby, (aren't most hobbies?) especially if the car is on its original card. I still have some of my Old Hot Wheels Garages and a Car wash, not sure if that is Match box though. I'd have to look.

[neil 2,398]

Ah,,,,, that takes me back , I remember pushing these cars round the orange loop track thingy .

I used to have hours of fun with these , wish i still had my collection .

[AMC RULES 36,941]

Been collecting diecast my whole life...storage tubs, and bins full of MOC HW's, and JL's here.

Most of my Spectra Flame collection consists of about twenty, loose Open Fire Gremlins, but they're squirreled away so far, I can't even put hands on 'em anymore. Then, I was off the deep end for the longest...collecting all of the AMC slots that Aurora had to offer too. Of course, any of the loose RWB cars...are going to be the special one's in my collection.

I then, one day...discovered AMC was the parent company of Wheelhorse tractors, and I've been adding heavy red metal to my AMC collection ever since.  

Edited February 15, 2014 by AMC RULES

[squonk 38,844]

Here's one of my prized possessions. It's the "Heavy Chevy" you got for joining the Hot Wheels club. I had 2 of them but 1 is lost. This car got the snot beat out of it racing on the "road runner" track as you can tell. I also had a drag racing set with a working Christmas tree! 

[Sparky-(Admin) 19,439]

Cool stuff! So is there a value difference between two cars that are the same but one a US made car and one from Hong Kong?

Mike............

[Redline69 27]

Thanks for the comments crew.

 

 Hey Ken,

 Yeah, it can get pretty expensive depending on how you go about your collecting. You can run the gamut from $5 beaters, to HTFs,and protos worth well into the thousands. The legend goes, that one VW bus as a pink proto sold for $70,000  Yep, that's seventy THOUSAND, for one car.

  As you say, you can still find redlines on BP, I have some shown below. Or you can just find some kid loved pieces, that are well worn,and well loved..lol.  I found that the cleaner the cars were, the easier it was to resell, if you ever had to.

 

 Hey Neil, the track was what made it all fun. I still have my old childhood sets here,and I used to run newer cars on the track with them when they were younger. It really takes you back.

 

 Hey Craig, Love those AMXs. I have a Custom AMX Bow here myself. No Shaver though..lol. The Shaver I'm referring to is the blue AMX Craig has in his picture. It was a very rare AMX only sold in Europe( or so we believe) and was done up with the billboard stickers like the Mongoose/Snake cars,and was driven by Ed Shaver. Very Rare car, especially in BP. Worth thousands,and it's basically just because of the stickers, or if you still have it in BP.

 

 Hey Mike, Great to still have one of your childhood cars. I still have most of mine here yet too. I believe you are referring to the Rod runner,which used to be an elastic powered contraption. You would push down a lever,and that would reset it. When the care came through, it would somehow trigger a push bar,and give the car a big push from behind. Those were great sets too.

 So your Heavy Chevy came with the Club Kit? Those were always fun. With the big glossy HWs annual magazine,and and iron on, some stickers, a little cardboard certificate. Those club kits still go for a good buck these days.

 

  Hey Mike,

 The values are all over the map. Cars like the Custom Camaro, or Barracuda, or VW, are desirable, Whether HK or US, and  some colors are very common, and some colors are more rare. 

 Then a lot of collectors like US cars because they have a thicker, nicer paint job. But the HKs seem to have better detail. I like a clean HK car myself, but they are hard to find in clean shape.

 And of course condition rules. The better the condition, the higher the value. We look at paint chips, toning, or darkening under the paint, Wheel condition, base condition, glass condition. And some have decals, so the condition of the decals, or exposed engines.  Very hard to find a true mint car, no matter what they say on Ebay..lol.

 

 My AMX Bow.

 

 

 And some BPs,

 

 Red Heavy Chevy.

 

 

 Very rare Pink Boss Hoss.

 

 

 

Oh,and sometime we LIBERATE a car from the package. Just for the fun of it. Takes you back to when you were a kid ,and couldn't wait to get in the house before you ripped that sucker from the packaging..lol.

 

 

 

 

Thanks again.

 Frank

[squonk 38,844]

I funded most of my hot wheels from snow shoveling. Get a couple of bucks and head downtown. (about a 4 mile round trip walk) and buy a car or 2. Then at home with a couple of friends we would set up the drag race. I lived in a big long house so we would have like 20 ft to race with. The Christmas tree was another rubber banned contraption with 2 release levers, 1 for each lane. You lifted a panel and then let go and the tree would count down showing yellow dots in windows. When the green appeared you released your car. If you left early the red dot appeared.We had so many cars it would take almost 3 hrs. to run all the cars thru the brackets.

 

I also had the Sizzler Californa 8 with the air powerwed esses brake with a Camaro and Trans -Am. Darn Sizzlers would jump the track and you would have to chase the cars across the house.  Finally moved up to the Fat Frack

Edited January 31, 2014 by squonk

[Redline69 27]

 Hey Mike.

 

  What amazes me, is those things were a buck back in the day. Today, they are still a buck..lol. I guess that's why HWs are made off shore.

 

 I had the California 8 Set also. Fun, until the Ol Juice machine ran low on battery power.

 Here's a few of my Sizzlers.

 

  Boss 302s

 

 

 

 Pink TA, Pink Cuda, along with a Club Kit I managed to nab.

 

 

 

   Fat Daddy Ram Rocket,and Steering Trailer. Very tuff piece.

 

     

 

 

 And I do have one Camaro, in blue.

 

 

Thanks again.

 Frank

[AMC RULES 36,941]

If you had to pick just one...

what's your all time favorite Hotwheel car? 

[squonk 38,844]

I also had the Gold Mustang Sizzler and a Indy car Lola The Lola was way cool. It had little nubs on the front wheels that would make it "sing" like an F-1 car. It would blow every other sizzler away on the Fat Track. The first few laps it was so fast you could hardly follow it. It met it's untimely demise though. Coming out of a turn it got sideways and was headed for the lap counter which had a funnel that brought the cars down to 1 lane to go through the counter. It hit the funnel got a bit airborne and slammed into the counter. It exploded like a real Indy car. Parts everywhere. I know what you mean about the Juice Machine. I ended up getting one of those Power Pits with the loud timer

[squonk 38,844]

My Californa 8 had a brake controller with a pin hole some where in it. If you pushed on it too much the air pressure would get to low. Just like driving a car with a brake problem! 

[Redline69 27]

Gads..pretty hard for me to pick one Craig. As I aleady said, really like anything Spectraflame.

 

 Having said that, I like my Chargers, Camaros, Firebirds. My AMX bow is pretty cool. I really like the Spoiler series. They came out in 71,and are basically Custom Camaros,Cougars,T-birds, Firebirds, VWs, Eldos, and Cudas that have been hopped up with a bigger engine, bigger wheels,and stripes.

 

 Here's some Evil Weevils.

 

 

 

 

 Light My firebirds.

 

 

 

 A Sugar Caddy,and Heavy Chevy battling it out on the orange Track!

 

 

 

I think Mike is ready to join a Redline message board. Looks like you still have the memories,and the passion for it!

 

Here's a link to our redline board. Membership by application. If you're interested in joining, just say Frank sent you.

 

  http://www.chickluus-fabulous-redlines.com/apps/forums/

 

  Thanks for the comments all.

 

   F.

[stevasaurus 22,229]

Frank...I still have all my Sizzlers and Fat Track...with extra straight and extra 360's.  What a riot we had with those.  I'll have to get some picks of the cars.  Is that stuff worth anything now...do not want to sell, but I have been curious about the fat track stuff being hard to find now.  Thanks this does take you back. 

[squonk 38,844]

Oh boy, The " Big  Kid" is here now!!    

 

A little off topic I had another friend who was spoiled rotten. He had a big Aurora/AFX slot car layout plus electric trains and all the accessories to go with it. We would race for hours and constantly change the layouts. He had the slot car train crossing section and a big AWD HO train engine.We loaded that engine up with every car we could and weighed it down with old d cell batteries pennies and anything else we could find and ran that Loco around. It took about 10 laps to build up speed.  We started racing and you had to "beat" the train. I didn't make it once and the engine clipped the car. The car flew up and landed on a porch of a nearby house right on top of a little man sitting in a chair. We left that car there for about a year.

[stevasaurus 22,229]

I was buying my son cars when he was a little guy...born in 1978...it is up in the garage...have to look...could be Match Box not Hot Wheels. 

[AMC RULES 36,941]

I was thinking more like a specific...model...

like say the Twin Mill maybe? 

Now, that's pretty hot, don't you think? 

[squonk 38,844]

I had an orange Twin Mill . Car was slow as heck on the orange track

[neil 2,398]

Found this Hot wheel ad

 

[Coadster32 793]

Really cool topic, and collection for sure.  My son plays with/beats on my old cars from when I was a kid. He gets new cars sometimes from an uncle or such, but the new stuff now is all junk and doesn't last. (of course none of it is name brand though).

[squonk 38,844]

Hot Wheels races at the Show !

[AMC RULES 36,941]

 

Yeah, them hot Wheelhorses dirt track racing on Friday night.   

Edited February 3, 2014 by AMC RULES

[Redline69 27]

Too hard for me to pick one specific model guys. I seem to waffle back and forth between a handful of models.

 

 Interesting fact, The Twinmill was the 1st in house Mattel designed Hot wheel.

 

 Basically all the 68s were based on AMT model kits,or Show cars, as were the Beatnik Bandit ( Big Daddy Roth), The Silhouette ( Cushenberry), the Deora (Alexander Bros), Python/Cheetah was based on the Car Craft dream rod (Cushenberry), and the Shelby racer Ford J car. In the case of the Custom Corvette, It was taken right from the original plans. Mattel designer Harry Bradley had connections with GM,and managed to pilfer a set of plans. So the newly designed Custom Corvette was actually released to the public before the actual car was.

 

 Chevy was not very happy at first, but when they seen the popularity of the new HWs, they quickly changed course,and were pleased with the promotion the HW provided them.

 

 Here's some of my childhood (survivor) cars,along with a some that met with the pliers, vice, hacksaw,fire cracker..spray bomb..lol.

 

  The yellow and burgundy cars are called Hot Shots. They were a pull string/spring loaded dragster that shot sparks out the back when they ran. It came with a set called Cool Duel. I wonder if the spark shooting toy would fly today..lol.

 Along with a red TNT-bird, Green Tow truck heavyweight,and a Funny Money Armored truck Funny car. And one of my old 69 collector catalogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 Here's a light green Whip Creamer, Paddy wagon that came with a very rare Canadian and European set, The Great Getaway. I still have that,and box and parts. My Old Chrome Club Boss Hoss, that has been repaired. And what's left of my old green Mighty Maverick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Up front we have the red Demon, from the Great Getaway set. My old Mongoose and Snake Funnies. And to the left is what's called a Revver. It's name is Haulin Horses,and it's an elastic run car made in 73. You wind it up by rolling the trunk mounted wheel on the floor,and that winds up the elastic. Hold the rear wheels, til you wanted to release it.

 

 

  

 

Thanks again.

  F.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Redline69

[Redline69 27]

Frank...I still have all my Sizzlers and Fat Track...with extra straight and extra 360's.  What a riot we had with those.  I'll have to get some picks of the cars.  Is that stuff worth anything now...do not want to sell, but I have been curious about the fat track stuff being hard to find now.  Thanks this does take you back. 

 

 Hey Steve,

  Most Track sets are readily available, usually as opened sets. Some rare unopened are still around. Most sizzler and fat track sets are not really very valuable. And most are missing the cars. Even a lot of the Sizzlers that survived have paint issues from the fumes emanating from those little Sizzler batteries.

 As for the regular HW Track sets, one of the rarest is the Great Getaway that I refered to earlier. Mainly because it has the Paddy wagon with the different roof than what came on the regular Paddy Wagons.

 

  In the end, they are still,as they were then..lots of fun.

[AMC RULES 36,941]

I remember reading somewhere, back in the day...

one of the Hotwheels designers pulled into the employee parking lot with a set of these bolted onto the hood of his daily driver El Camino. Ultimately became the Hotwheels Fleetside Custom model...always loved that model too.