The whole point of Hot Wheels was that they weren’t supposed to just look cool. It looked great, but the bus had serious handling issues. ![]() ![]() Hot Wheels’ original version of the Beach Bomb had lifelike proportions scaled down to 1/64 size and tiny surfboards sticking out the back window. For 1969, Hot Wheels’ second year on the market, designers wanted to include a California-style model of the famous Volkswagen bus. That $150,000 model, for instance, was a failed experiment. This Hot Wheels Volkswagen prototype toy is worth an estimated $150,000. They’re mostly prototypes that were never intended for a life outside of Mattel’s corporate offices. Auctioneers of Rhode Island.Īlthough he hasn’t inspected the car himself, Landry said that Pascal’s toy is easily worth $100,000 but probably more, especially as values for all sorts of collectibles have risen in recent months.īefore you start digging around in your closet to find that old vinyl carrying case full of Hot Wheels from when you were a kid, you should know that Pascal’s most valuable models – many of them worth thousands of dollars – were never sold in stores. “When it comes to any field of collecting, there’s always that pinnacle ‘Holy Grail’ item where it’s just that the supply that’s out there can no way meet the demand and that causes the price to go through the roof,” said Travis Landry, an appraiser with Bruneau & Co. Pascal, a Washington DC-area commercial real estate executive, is the owner of what is believed to be the most valuable Hot Wheels car in the world: a 1969 version of the “Beach Bomb” Volkswagen bus estimated to be worth as much as $150,000.Ĭollectibles experts say the appraisal of the tiny car is entirely believable based on its extreme rarity and its nearly perfect condition. But for Bruce Pascal, a nearly lifelong obsession with the tiny cars has turned into a collection of mind-boggling value. One labeled Cheetah on the base could be worth in the neighborhood of $10,000, according to Zarnock.You can buy most Hot Wheels cars for about a dollar at Target, Wal-Mart or pretty much any local drugstore. Cheetah and Python examples made there have smaller front wheels, blue-tinted windows and greater detail on the base and in the interior. and Hong Kong, while the Cheetahs were produced just in Hong Kong. Hot Wheels manufactured Pythons in both the U.S. One of the first 16 Hot Wheels cars ever produced, it mimicked a custom “ Dream Rod” designed and built in 1963 by Bill Cushenberry for Car Craft magazine that creatively Frankenstein’d used parts from a ’60 Pontiac, ’53 Studebaker and a ’61 Corvair, among others.Ī handful of early versions of the toy, mostly red, were produced with the Cheetah name stamped on the base-until it was discovered that General Motors engineer-designer Bill Thomas had claimed that name for his “Cobra Killer” race car. The so-called “Cheetah” Base Python also earns its place in the pantheon of rare, high-value Hot Wheels because of a naming snafu. ![]() (Credit: Mattel Inc.) 1968 ‘Cheetah’ Base Python (Hong Kong) With very few of these cars around today, Zarnock values them at upward of $4,000, loose (not in the blister pack). According to Hot Wheels collector, historian and appraiser Mike Zarnock, they were also available through a cereal mail-in and by sending in Proof-of-Purchase points from the backs of U.K. Shaver was a driver on the first Hot Wheels-sponsored drag-racing team in the U.K., and the specialty-packaged Ed Shaver AMX cars (which included a sheet of decals matching those on his dragster) were distributed at race events. ![]() But in terms of rarity, the most valuable by far is the slightly later blue “Ed Shaver” version. For the sporty 1969 die-cast Hot Wheels version, most (like the one above) trade for hundreds of dollars, with hard-to-find colors like salmon and antifreeze fetching on the higher end. The real AMX street car was a short-lived two-seater produced by AMC that, like most muscle cars, stuffed a high-powered engine into a midsize frame. (Credit: Mattel Inc.) 1970 Ed Shaver Custom AMX
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