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.

Hot Wheels Splittin Image and TwinMill

Two of my childhood Hot Wheels: the aptly named TwinMill and Splittin Image.  As kids we loved these original design cars.  Sure, hot rodded Custom Camaros and Mustangs were cool but these were amazing.  Somewhat ironically, most adult collectors favor the real cars to the fantasy vehicles and today's values reflect those preferences.

Snake vs. Mongoose and The Rapid Transit System

This snapshot was taken in 1971 at a Plymouth Dealership in South Florida.  It is a replica of Don "The Snake" Prudhomme's Funny Car that toured as part of the Rapid Transit System (RTS).  RTS featured custom performance versions of the Road Runner, 'Cuda GTX, Duster 340 and Sport Fury GT.  The Snake remains one of my favorite Hot Wheels, produced by Mattel in 1970, along with its racing rival Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen's red Duster.  The Snake vs. Mongoose rivalry is one of drag racing's greatest.

Note that there are spoilers on the roofs of the toy cars.  Apparently, this was not good for the real cars' aerodynamics so they were moved to the trunk.

For a really awesome accounting of the fabulous Snake vs. Mongoose match races this is THE book to own (just click on the pic to link to Amazon).  It is simply a gorgeous book.



If you're "just" into toys then this Hot Wheels set is the way to go.

Found: Hot Wheels 1:87/HO 1966 Batmobile!

I found this amazing Hot Wheels 1:87/HO scale Batmobile at Toys R Us.  They are very hard to find as they only come one per case and many of the cars are slow sellers.  The finish and detail are amazing.


 

If you want to find out more about the real car this is a great book (just click on the photo above).  I bought this great book a few years ago and its an excellent overview to many of George Barris' finer works.

Hot Wheels Beach Bomb

One of my favorite castings is the Volkswagen Beach Bomb released by Mattel in 1969.  It's one of the most popular and desirable cars from the redline era.  A customized VW Van it comes complete with hippy-style flower power decals packed under the cardboard that the car sits on. 

There are orange and yellow surfboards on either side in bodyside extensions that were designed to allow the car to be used in some of the track sets of the day; prototypes without them were too narrow and didn't race well. 

Finding Beach Bombs still in blister pack is particularly tough.