Hot Wheels Paddy Wagon

The Paddy Wagon is another classic Tom Daniel design created for Monogram and released as a plastic model kit in the 70s.

Here's the original redline Mattel Hot Wheels Paddy Wagon released in 1970.  The plastic top is removable.

Mattel still uses this casting but recently renamed it Copper Stopper perhaps because Paddy can have a negative connotation.  Compare the Hot Wheels car to a nicely built-up example of the model kit.

Hot Wheels Golden Submarine

Built by Webb's Automotive Art in Burton, MI, the car is a modern interpretation of the 1917 Golden Submarine race car that was raced by driving legend Barney Oldfield. It features an all-aluminum body and Ford Racing Zetec ZX3-spec alcohol crate engine producing 175 horsepower. 

An odd choice for a Hot Wheels but I'd buy it as a mainline car.  Zamack would be nice or perhaps DeLorean gold.  Here it is from Larry's Garage premium line...

I Left Another Treasure Hunt on the Pegs!

I'm sorry but this is just too darn ugly.  And yet the casting is based on a classic design. The rear wheel wells are whack and the color, well the color... oh the horror!

 

1/18 1965 Shelby Daytona

The real Daytona was a beautiful car and it can be done right like the The 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe CSX2601 1/18 Blue #26

Hot Wheels Silhouette

The Silhouette, one of the original sixteen models from 1968, is perhaps the most recognized Hot Wheels cars of all-time.  Many people think of this iconic car when they think of Hot Wheels.  But the Silhouette was not an original Hot Wheels design.

The Silhouette, "designed" by Harry Bradley for Mattel, was based on the 1963 show car built by Bill Cushenbery in 1962.   It's most prominent feature was the bubble top, a popular item for show cars at the time. 

Cushenbery's original was purchased by the Ford Motor Company in 1963 and included in their Ford Custom Car Caravan road show.  It was apparently stolen in recent years and gone missing.

AMT made a popular scale plastic model kit and added a similarly styled custom trailer.

There is a YouTube clip from the 1967 television special, The Wonderful World Of Wheels.   The show yielded another kit release.

In 1964 Cushenbery started to work on the Corvair-powered Silhouette II but did not complete it.

 

In the '90s Mattel created their own Silhouette II a less radical departure from the original. For a drive down memory line try WONDERFUL WORLD OF WHEELS DVD host Lloyd Bridges.

 

Hot Wheels Funny Money

1972 Hot Wheels 'Funny Money'

Hot Wheel's Funny Money funny car was based on Tom Daniel's design for Monogram, a plastic model kit named the Jinx Express that was a fabulously fun build and resulted in a 1/24th scale armored truck bank with working vault door in back with a combination lock that really worked.

1971 Monogram Model Kit

Tom Daniel doesn't get royalties from the many Hot Wheels that he designed or inspired because Mattel owned Monogram and was able to reuse his designs as they pleased.  He licensed his cars for Johnny Ligtnings in the '90s and more recently a line of well-detailed larger scale toys such as the Tom Daniel Fast Buck Money Truck 1:43 Scale.