Welcome to Toy Car Thursday! Each week, this will be the place for all manner of car-related toys and hobbies, whether it’s old and new kids’ stuff or “big boys’ toys” like premium plastic models and hobby-grade radio-control cars and trucks. I’m officially the Toy Car Thursday caretaker, but you can expect guest appearances from The Bishop with vintage-toy explorations and (fingers crossed) Mark Tucker with RC builds that will get you excited for small-scale off-road action.
For this first installment of Toy Car Thursday, our subject is the Hot Wheels Factory. Hot Wheels themselves need no introduction, I’m sure. As soon as Mattel released the first batch of sixteen models (the “sweet sixteen” to collectors) in 1968, Hot Wheels were an instant hit and established brightly-painted 1/64 scale replicas of performance cars, customs, and hot-rods on fast-rolling wheels as the recipe for kid-citement and huge sales that sidelined Matchbox as the big little-car brand.
Tracks and playsets that expanded play beyond shoving the cars pell-mell across the kitchen floor were also major factors in Hot Wheels’ success, and I’m sure most of you have plugged together your fair share of orange track segments.
Hot Wheels tapped the full zeitgeist of the car scene, from the excitement of the street and strip to seemingly mundane but play-value-packed locations such as service stations and parking garages. Perhaps Hot Wheels’ most ambitious accessory was the Hot Wheels Factory, which was not designed to replicate the appearance of a factory but instead perform the actual role of a factory, allowing kids to pump molten “Plastix” into two-piece molds to create their own Hot Wheels cars. Watch:
Raise your hand if you want one now. I do!
The set included molds to make cars with ten different body styles as seen below, complete with chassis weights to give the cars the heft of their die-cast counterparts so they could perform effectively on Hot Wheels tracks. In the lower left corner, you can see the “Plastix” material the “Factory” heated and injected into the mold. I couldn’t find an explanation of what Plastix actually was, but as later Factory toys used wax sticks, I would be unsurprised if the material is a hard wax like the type jewelers use.
The chassis and body are molded individually, with the wheels being cast into the chassis via their axles. The ribbed area seen in the first photo below is the inverse of the seats, as revealed when the chassis is demolded in the second photo. Neat!
There’s the Hot Pipes body after demolding (above). The humps to the right of the body shapes are the canopy designs for those body styles, which would be molded separately–you can see the injection port between them.
The screen grabs above come from the video below, which offers a detailed look at the car-molding experience as kids would have discovered at their own kitchen table, far from the idealized world of the Rod Serling-voiced commercial:
Mattel has revisited the Factory concept a few times since its original version, but injection molding has always been the core of the concept. The most recent version skips heat for a chemical reaction that begins when “Fusion Fluid” is injected into the mold, which simultaneously mixes the two-part compound.
On the plus side, there’s no danger of burning yourself, but on the downside, the floppy bodies produced by the two-part goop are profoundly underwhelming. Pass.
Before I go, it should be noted that Mattel was no stranger to hot-selling, literally hot toys before the Hot Wheels Factory hit shelves in 1970. The Mattel Vac-U-Form of the early 1960s was just what it sounds like, a miniature vacuum former wherein kids heated a sheet of styrene until soft, then swung it over a positive form where a fan sucked the material tightly into shape – pure magic. Just don’t lean on the hot sheet-heater. Watch:
In 1964, Mattel introduced the Thing Maker and Creepy Crawlies, which featured hot open-faced molds that kids poured “Plasti-Goop” (liquid PVC) into to create bugs and scary costume pieces and what not. What could go wrong?
Many a kid, including me, would forget the metal molds were hot and pluck them from the heater with bare fingers, a mistake only made once. See? It’s educational.
And that’s Toy Car Thursday! I hope you found it fun, and by all means, let me know if there’s a toy you’d like to see covered here. And be sure to tell me if you still have any scars from your own Hot Wheels Factory, Vac-U-Form, or Thingmaker. Brothers (and sisters, I’m cool) of the burn!
Top graphic images: Mattel
“I hope you found it fun, and by all means, let me know if there’s a toy you’d like to see covered here.”
Jarts!
You tryna kill me bro?
Jarts were fun!
We still have a set, and I’m planning on getting them out this summer.
Getting hit in the head with a big U-shaped piece of iron could probably kill someone, too, but people still play horseshoes.
Big Cornballer energy
¡Soy loco por los cornballs!
Every damn time!
So it’s fine for kids to injection-mold auto parts at home, but they’re not allowed to do it at a Hyundai factory in exchange for a steady paycheck? smh
It doesn’t make SENSE
Between the burn risk and the assumed toxic fumes from the plastic, I’m starting to piece together why my older gen-x friends are the way they are.
You’ve only just found the tip of the iceberg on that, my young(er) friend!
We got stories…
Gen-x’s parents had much higher exposure to nasty chemicals and whatnot – so much cancer in my mother’s family. Her brother used to regale his kids with stories of him dipping his hands into pcb oil at his high school job – which became an early superfund site when I was in jr. high school, among many other exposures – he died of cancer in his early 60’s.
My grandmother (Greatest Generation) used to talk about peeling off chunks of roofing tar from trucks and chewing on it. She lived to 103.
Yeah, the lead and asbestos, etc. Yuck. 🙁
But can you remember any of them? 😉
Mostly, I think! 🙂
The air was not yet unleaded.
I remember making the creepy crawly bugs when I was a kid…but I was born in 1993. I seem to recall pouring some kind of molten rubber into an open face mold, so maybe these dangerous things stuck around longer than we thought? Or I could be misremembering, which is entirely possible.
I was also born in 93 and this kind of thing definitely stuck around until the mid 2000s or so. I wanted a creepy crawlie thing so bad but my mom never got me one. Thankfully my neighbors had one so I’d get my fix over there.
If that commercial wasn’t narrated by Rod Serling, they definitely told the guy to do his Rob Serling impression.
I preferred the real model kits as a kid.Who can forget the funny way you felt after about 20 minutes in a sealed room while using Testors glue.
I also had a brief flirtation with plastic model kits and balsa plane kits until my parents realized that me + x-acto knife was a Final Destination movie scene just waiting to happen. And me without even a FP PXL-2000 cassette camcorder to film it on.
Don’t forget some Testors paint and then paint thinner to clean off the brushes for further brain cell melting…
Ah, is that what that stuff was? As I recall it didn’t taste great.
That’s why they replaced it with gummie material.
No, they had their chance. I’m not trying it again.
It would be cool if you guys could get Steve Magante to talk about plastic model kits for one of these.
Cool!
I was born in 1970, and do not remember these.
Although whenever my wife asks me about stuff from the ’70s and if I had that as a kid, my standard reply was, “Those were only for the rich kids.” 🙂
The Sears ‘wishbook’ was just that….
I had the creepy crawlers set where you made bugs and gross things from liquid rubber. I miss the days of dangerous as hell toys.
How do I not remember this? I was born in ’65, so was a kid squarely in the early Hot Wheels era and loved them. I wish I still had my Thundershift 500; that worked better with an extra length of track or two in the straights but was always incredibly fun.
I’m the same age and remember Hot Wheels, including the battery powered ones recharged by the Juice Machine but the Factory slipped my mind, guess I’m getting old
I have the Juice Machine, but the cars disappeared
sizzlers!
I still have my Thundershift, but I beat the crap out of the Torino and Monte Carlo. Were mu fave cars
I had an Enamlaire, arty parents.
Yes, actual enamelling It was a kln, some precut copper shapes and lots of fine coloured powder, also a pair of sheet cutters and more copper. The powder was glass. Yes, actual enamelling at home for eight year olds, using a pointy tool one could draw things in molten glass, take the piece out of the kiln onto an asbestos mat and job done. After the kitchen table caught fire the thing was moved outside onto a steel bench. I was told to make sure that my five year old sister did not hurt herself.
The electro plating of the copper was fun too.
The 1960’s were wild man!
My family had one too!
Seemed fine at the time, also candles and batik, the two went together, somehow.
Yep! Batik was a thing too!
That sounds pretty cool!
As a child of the 70s and early 80s, I had quite the car collection. About the time I hit 13-14, my mom and I were moving after the divorce and I felt maybe I had “outgrown” my toy cars. I gave them to my friend down the street, a few years younger.
Fast forward to my 30-40-50s and the collection I’ve rebuilt, at much higher cost. Also, my grandfather had given me a handful of Red Line cars and I had no idea what they were, or how special they would later be. Gave them away like they were nothing.
I go to toy car shows here occasionally and I still can’t look at Red Line cars and their prices.
I had one of the original injection molders. It was really cool to play with and a constant burn hazard. It would never get past the CPSC today.
You could mix the colors too, so you’d get a rainbow effect.
Exactly. A classic example of how things used to be fun for the simple reason that they were dangerous. I wonder how many kids couldn’t pitch at the little league game for a couple weeks after molding a few cars at home after the game.
Wow that is cool
I had the later poured-wax version of this, called Master Caster, I think? I ran out of wax, and tried re-melting the cars I already made, which led to every car eventually coming out a uniform brown as the colors mixed.
Reminds me of the Master Caster. I had that one and when I ran out of the wax pods I used crayons. made some cool swirly effects!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU0EkiW-OI8
Ah yes, I had forgotten!
The worst part of the Vac-u-Form experience was trying to cut out what you made from the plastic sheet with dull kid scissors. (The scissors were dull; jury is still out on the kid.) You were likely to ruin the piece and get cut on the sharp plastic.
I was a big fan of the demo derby cars that broke into spring-loaded body parts when they hit the wall. We were easily amused back then.
Want to hear about playing with the mercury from a broken thermometer? Sticking your hand in the soapy sink to wash the Vega-matic? Building a hot air balloon from dry cleaner bags, coat hangers and a candle? No?
I had the demo cars-SSTs. We had cats, lost the hoods and doors
I didn’t have a vacuum former, but I was allowed sharp scissors and an X-acto knife when I started making models and I quickly learned to clandestinely treat my own minor cuts so I could continue having them.
Balloon… didn’t Wham-0 sell a tube of plastic goop that you rolled into a ball, stuck on the end of a straw, and you blew into balloon shape?
Lawyers, they ruined childhood.
I had one of the later models. Christmas day, Dad showed me how to use it. I could only use it in the garage in fear of burning down the house 🙂
I had the late 90s/early 2000s version of this. The plastic came in glue stick looking rods and I remember I was never able to get a good mold out of it. My mom would always freak and start yelling at me to stop because “once you run out of that plastic, I’m not buying you any more. You better not waste it”. But she’d always start yelling before the mold was full.
Little me preferred the play dough thing I had that was similar because I could crash the play dough cars into each other, then peel it off and make some new ones.
My brother had a Creepy Crawlers maker. You better believe we burned ourselves many times on that thing. Amazing what they let kids play with back then. Later on I got an Incredible Edible maker, which was the same premise but you could eat the results. Heaven only knows what we were actually ingesting.
Between crap like that and just the kind of junk food that’s suspiciously no longer sold (and all the damn hotdogs I used to eat), I was shocked that my colonoscopy revealed that I didn’t even have polyps.
Ya, I sorta recall Incredible Edibles, seems a little blurry tho, those plus the leaded gas fumes…
Right? It was tough to avoid inhaling the fumes when washing up with good old Ethyl.
My father had lumps of lead in a corner of the garage from when he was a kid and they would cast army figures with it. Good times.
O think we had a plastic one and also Incredible Edibles. One made gummy candy versions of creepy crawlies and a slightly newer version made little cookies.
Hit me up if you want to chat about the modern, grown-up (relatively speaking) version of this, 3D printing 1:64-scale cars. I am at this very moment in the middle of assembling my 100th 3D printed car of my own design.
Only 100?
Shit’s expensive…
I can’t see the filament being that expensive, but the design time? Oh yeah (if you put a dollar value on it)
Filament gets expensive too if you have to do a bunch of test prints to dial in the right settings, and for a 1:64 scale I have to imagine you get much better results with a resin printer, which is also more expensive.
So we now have a Toy Car Thursday? Is that a replacement for Pontiac Pthursday?
Nope! In fact, we have a Pontiac Pthursday today as well!
Ptoy Ptontiac Phturthsday. One big ptarty of pterodactyls in their best phthalo blues.
DO NOT READ COMMENT ALOUD. DAMAGE TO TONGUE MAY RESULT
Pdamage Pto Ptongue?
I vividly recall Xmas of 1968 when I came out to see a new Hot Wheels set all set up and ready for me – I had a Nordic Blue Cougar and a Gold Corvette. It had a starter hooked to the back of a chair, and the tracks ran to the floor with a pair of loops – all gravity powered.
It was later – maybe 1970? – when I got my next Hot Wheels set – it was the one where you charged the cars via a small RCA plug in the side of the car (early toy EVs!) and put them on an oval racetrack which had banked corners . I had a red metallic Mustang Fastback and a white Firebird Trans Am with blue stripes.
Aw man, SIZZLERS, what a toy. I believe the cars were actually powered by a capacitor. The charger held two D-batteries, and was a replica of a gas pump. Fantastic fun.
The cars had a Nickel Cadmium power cell.
My set had the “Power Pit” – the car plugged into a service station which was run off a household plug.
https://hotwheelsracetracks.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/1970-hot-wheels-juice-machinepower-pitpower-pak/
I had the Pacific 8 racing set
https://hotwheelsracetracks.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/1970-hot-wheels-sizzlers-pacific8-race-set/