Some time in 2008, during a family gathering, one of my young nephews asked me what is my favorite Hot Wheels car. I thought about it for a moment or two, wondering to myself if I even actually had an answer. Turns out I did. It's the one that first made me consciously seek out specific Hot Wheels models.
Oh, I had, of course, pretty much always had Hot Wheels cars during my childhood. Beatnik Bandit, Hot Heap, Deora, Red Baron (I think everyone had a Red Baron back then -- I think they were issued out as part of a mandatory government program). And I recall having at least one Hot Wheels catalog, with names like Boss Hoss and Heavy Chevy and Roger Dodger. And I seem to recall telling Mom or Dad, Boy I sure would like that one!, and probably getting one of the standard generic parental responses. But then ... there was that commercial.
The year was 1977. Star Wars came out. Oh, we kids went crazy. But before that ... there was that commercial. A commercial for new Hot Wheels models. A commercial with designs that caught our young attentions so readily, we kids actually talked about it on weekend get-togethers. Yeah, serious: we talked about a commercial! "Did you see that new ad for Hot Wheels? Man, those new models are wild!"
There was Spoiler Sport, a kind of futuristic-looking van; the GMC Motorhome, with its rich orange color and groovy palm tree decal (we didn't know the word "tampo" back then); oh, and Odd Rod, this weird half-breed dragster, a t-bucket in back and a rail-bird up front, with this crazy clear shell over the rail section.
And then ... there was the Doozie. The '31 Doozie. That one just made my little mind light up like nothin' else. Long and lean; rich orange with brown and tan; that long hood and those curly side pipes. A true classic. A truly beautiful classic. Yeah, it was the Doozie. A design from literally decades before I was even born. That's the one that changed me from "Hey, Mom, can I get a Hot Wheels car today?" to "I want that one."
Oh, yeah, it's pock-marked and discolored; it's showing its age.
But it's still a very handsome design. By Larry Wood, no less.
Like most little boys, I had an instinctive desire to take things apart to see how they worked (there's probably also a sub-conscious desire to see if it can be put back together and still work). I recognized that the '31 Doozie was a convertible, so naturally I popped the canopy off to see how it looked "top down". (Dig that interior windscreen! How upper-class is that!) And of course I was greatly relieved to learn the canopy could easily be snapped back into place! Further, I was happy to discover that the canopy could be installed backwards to act as an airfoil.
Now, at this point you may be wondering, why would I want the canopy to act as an airfoil? Here's the thing: as a child, I was blessed with an outrageously wild imagination (which pretty much still operates in that mode, by the way). And this wild imagination informed me that you need the canopy to act as an airfoil ... when you're cruising around in Turbo Mode!
Yea!I have this in three different variations.
ReplyDeleteThe redline version,the green version with green running boards and this one in the photo above,but the rareist of all is the one that`s orange with the green fenders.A real tuffy to find at that.