Hot Wheels Die-Cast Vehicles from Mattel
Hot Wheels were introduced by Mattel in 1968 as a competitor to Matchbox. Hot Wheels is known for creating 1:64, 1:43, 1:18 and 1:50 scale die-cast toy cars. Over the years, there have been a myriad of actual automobile manufacturers who have licensed their cars to Hot Wheels, allowing them to create scale models of their real-life vehicles using the original design blueprints and detailing to create the toy vehicles.
Although Hot Wheels were originally intended as toys, they are now popular with children as well as adult collectors. As such, Hot Wheels occasionally releases limited edition models to appeal specifically to the collector market.
As opposed to Matchbox cars which were primarily based on actual cars, Hot Wheels were designed to be more like concept cars or trick cars.
Collaboration of Hot Wheels
Over the years, Hot Wheels has teamed up with various pop culture properties to create toy cars that are branded for that property. Mattel has had great success creating Hot Wheels die-cast vehicles based around Marvel Comics superheroes and villains. Additionally, Mattel has also created Hot Wheels die-cast vehicles of DC Comics super-heroes and super-villains.
Dates of Hot Wheels Vehicles
Figuring out when your Hot Wheels car was manufactured can be a little tricky. On the base of each Hot Wheels car you will find a four digit date or year. This date actually represents a design copyright date and not a manufacturing date for the toy.
To confuse things a little further, the copyright date seen on the base of the vehicle is specifically for the base of the car which, in most cases, is actually the same date as the the copyright for the entire design of the car. However, it's important to note that there are some cases where this is not true.
With regards to the year the die-cast vehicle was manufactured, the copyright date is usually the year before the Hot Wheels car was first introduced publicly, but it is sometimes the same year. So, generally speaking, a car with a copyright of 1995, was probably manufactured in 1996.
One last thing to throw into the mix... due to the fact that Mattel reuses many models of Hot Wheels cars, a car with the date 1975 on the base could have been made at any time between 1975 and the present or the time you first obtained it, for example.
