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.

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.