{"id":11592,"date":"2024-08-02T09:55:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T09:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/?p=11592"},"modified":"2024-08-02T09:55:07","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T09:55:07","slug":"how-hot-wheels-are-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/?p=11592","title":{"rendered":"How Hot Wheels are made"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hot Wheels\u2019 56-year history is awash with cool stories and even cooler race replicas. We meet some of its iconic designers, and one of the brand\u2019s biggest fans; racer Patrick Long.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With eight billion examples sold since its 1968 launch, Hot Wheels<\/a> is less a toy, more a phenomenon. A recent addition to its \u2018premium\u2019 line is a detailed recreation of the Alfa Romeo 155 V6 Ti DTM racecar of the 1990s. Perfect for those of us who can\u2019t quite stretch our budget for the real thing<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photographer David Chickering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Passion for race cars<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Crucial in bringing it to life was designer Mark Jones. Known as The Godfather within his team (and on Hot Wheels fans\u2019 forums), Mark retired from head company Mattel in 2023 after 36 years of service and over 300 car designs. This amazingly accurate Alfa is among his final flourishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Hot Wheels\/David Chickering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a Mattel toy years ago called the Vac-U-Form,\u201d he tells me. \u201cYou\u2019d plug it in and vacuum-form little car bodies. I got one aged 11 and started making bodies for my slot cars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add character<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While he ventured into full-size car design once his childhood hobby evolved into a vocation, he soon gravitated back to toymaking \u2013 an industry that\u2019s gone through vast change across his storied career. The dawn of digitised design and 3D printing has certainly sharpened the Hot Wheels production process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Hot Wheels\/David Chickering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With the Alfa Romeo 155, Mark\u2019s job wasn\u2019t to simply shrink the real-life DTM racer down to a 1:64 scale mould; Mattel\u2019s designers mine the character of the car they\u2019re making to truly replicate (and occasionally exaggerate) its key traits. \u201cThe gentleman at Alfa Romeo was a designer himself which meant he could be a little more critical of what we\u2019d done,\u201d Mark says of the validation process. \u201cI was able to use his input to force my manufacturing people to do the things I really wanted in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No time for decals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Racecars come with their own unique challenges, chiefly liveries. \u201cSome companies own the rights to everything which allows us to use the whole design. But then it\u2019s limited by our production budget and how many colours we can do. We\u2019re running the production line so fast we can\u2019t apply them as decals. We either do a tampography rubber stamp or a more detailed laser print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Hot Wheels\/David Chickering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like racecars. So I\u2019ve had to try and control myself when we\u2019re deciding what to make. When I was first doing \u2018basic\u2019 line cars I did a GT1 Porsche, Le Mans Mercedes even an Alfa Bat. But at that time racecars maybe weren\u2019t big sellers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe computer games have really helped us; they\u2019ve helped broaden our audience\u2019s awareness of these cars. Those who were too young to see them run in races have now driven them in games. We\u2019re two industries growing hand in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patrick Long. Photo Porsche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“Mainly Porsches”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It helps having friends in high places, too. Patrick Long has winners\u2019 trophies from the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Daytona but grins just as widely discussing his other automotive passion: Hot Wheels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mainly collect Porsches,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are too many offerings to focus on more than one brand, otherwise my house would be full of them! I\u2019ve never bought anything online, it\u2019s just hunting on my travels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patrick Long. Photo Porsche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unboxed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI keep them in the packet, but I\u2019ll take them out if I have extras. I have a collector gene; as a kid I collected stickers and never stuck them anywhere. It\u2019s almost a shame to not actually play with them! But it\u2019s not about value. The packaging tells the story of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His role isn\u2019t limited to collecting, however, having rolled up his sleeves and got involved in designing his own Hot Wheels<\/a> thanks to a tie-up between Mattel and Luftgek\u00fchlt<\/a>, Patrick\u2019s events series in celebration of air-cooled Porsches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patrick Long, 2020 Petit Le Mans with Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R. Photo Porsche<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe design team liked what we were doing, so they asked if I wanted to go and meet them,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s such a young, forward-thinking team, one which does a great job of celebrating its history and its legends. I started out as a fan, so to have helped create a few Hot Wheels of my own? When you stop and think about it, that\u2019s pretty cool!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot Wheels\u2019 56-year history is awash with cool stories and even cooler race replicas. We meet some of its iconic designers, and one of the brand\u2019s biggest fans; racer Patrick Long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":11612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[1622,340,1607,183,1621,1474,1366,1316,137],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-11592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing-related-products","tag-1622","tag-alfa-romeo","tag-alfa-romeo-155-v6-ti","tag-dtm","tag-hot-wheels","tag-lifestyle","tag-luftgekuhlt","tag-patrick-long","tag-porsche","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/HCP34_W_22_Alfa_Romeo_155_V6_T1_116.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/229"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11627,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11592\/revisions\/11627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11592"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fthb-sponsors&post=11592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}