For 1969, Mattel commissioned a photo book of Hot Wheels in action for kids.
Front Cover of The Fast Cars Book.
The book only cost 29 cents. That was significantly cheaper than the price of a single Hot Wheels car.
The book was published by Golden Press of New York. Jo Anne Wood did the writing and aimed it at young kids. But it’s the photography by Gerry Swart that stands out.
Although there was no 6 lane raceway in 1969…
2017 edition of the 6 Lane Raceway.
…the book starts with that layout.
l to r: Ford J car, Custom Firebird, Splittin’ Image, Deora, red Hot Heap and aqua Hot Heap.
Next, the book takes us into some curves.
Ford J car in the curves.
Twinmill running hot!
Splittin’ Image blasting through a full turn.
Then we see some stunting.
A Custom Camaro and Silhouette in the loop.
Taking the jump.
Here comes the 2 lane Drag Race Action Set from 1968.
The Silhouette beats the Custom Camaro to the flag.
The 1969 Action City play set is the backdrop for the next page.
Action City’s full layout.
A red Hot Heap on an Action City road.
For the Service Station picture, this 1968 Pop Up play set gets used.
Pop Up Service Station – front.
Pop Up Service Station – back.
A Custom Camaro getting full service treatment.
Back to Action City.
Next up, the 1969 Talking Service Center.
For some reason, the blue Splittin’ Image is travelling backwards down the top floor ramp of the Talking Service Center.
Finishing up in Action City.
Last page.
Back cover.
Here’s my YouTube video of this book.
So there you have it. 1969s Hot Wheels “The Fast Cars Book”
Showing Hot Wheels are still fast. Still fun.
1969 Collectors’ Catalog picture of the Action City play set. Copyright Mattel, Inc.
One of the remarkable features from the early years of Hot Wheels is the artwork. Great car designs came from Harry Bradley, Ira Gilford and Larry Wood. Amazing package art was handled by Otto Kuni. But when it came to classic comic images with story telling, Mattel’s go-to-guy was Alex Toth.
Self portrait of Alex Toth.
Alexander Toth (June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006) was an influential American cartoonist whose work began in the American comic book industry during the 1940s. But he is also known for his animation designs with Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His TV work included Super Friends, Space Ghost, The Herculoids and Birdman.
A book of Alex Toth’s work featuring Space Ghost on the front cover.
For Mattel, he worked on the 1970 Hot Wheels comic book issues, the 1969 Saturday morning “Hot Wheels” cartoon series and all 4 Sunday newspaper cartoon ads from the summer of 1970.
Comic Books
The Hot Wheels comic book project began with this promotion.
A total of 6 issues were generated and Alex Toth was heavily involved in the first five.
In the late 1960s there was one time, and one time only, for every kid to watch cartoons. That was every Saturday morning. The Hot Wheels cartoon show first arrived on September 6, 1969 and new shows continued to air through December 20, 1969.
A total of 17 shows were produced (each 1/2 hour long), often with 2 episodes per show (a total of 32 episodes were made). This popular cartoon remained on the Saturday morning circuit for 2 years from September 6, 1969 to September 4, 1971.
Here’s a link to the cartoon’s introduction.
Here’s a show with 2 episodes: “Ardeth the Demon” and “Tough Cop”.
Sunday Newspaper Comic Ads
Back in the day, the Sunday newspaper “Funnies” always had the best comics. They were large. They were colorful. They told the fullest stories. As a kid, you spent the whole week looking forward to them. During the summer of 1970 Mattel took advantage of this enthused audience and ran a series of ads in comic strip form. I know of 4 ads. The first showed up on July 19th and the last on Aug 30th.
The story line always starts with 2 friends, the Hot Wheels Kids, at the track watching their automotive heroes in action. Either Dan Gurney or the duo of Tom McEwan & Don Prudhomme would be in a spectacular race. But each episode took what transpired in the real world and then replicated it with a Hot Wheels set. The kids demonstrated the ins and outs of their toy tracks much to the interest of Gurney, McEwan & Prudhomme.
Here are the 4 Sunday newspaper comic ads.
Sunday Newspaper Comics Section. Mattel’s Hot Wheels ad for the Mongoose & Snake Drag Race Set. July 19, 1970. Courtesy eBay.
Sunday newspaper Comics section. Mattel’s ad for the Sizzlers California/8 Race Set. August 16, 1970. Courtesy eBay.
Sunday Newspaper Comics Section from August 23, 1970. This ad is for Mattel’s Road Trials Set featuring racing legend Dan Gurney.
Sunday Newspaper Comics Section. Mattel’s Hot Wheels Ad for drag racing with the Dual-Lane Rod Runner. August 30, 1970. Courtesy eBay.
So there you have it. The simply amazing artwork of Alex Toth for Hot Wheels. He certainly captured how Hot Wheels are “Still fast. Still fun”.
Each of the “Sweet 16” cars is represented. Five of the cars have custom paint jobs just for this display. This includes a Watermelon Custom Mustang, Chocolate Brown Custom Camaro, Honey Gold Custom T-Bird, Light Blue Custom Cougar and the Ruby Red Custom Barracuda.
For 1969 three displays are offered. The first diorama shows Hot Wheels cars on a hilly coastal roadway crossing above cars that are travelling through a tunnel.
The second display is located in Europe, possibly Monaco, where Grand Prix race cars are being paced at the race’s start by a Maserati Mistrel. Spectators have parked their European cars nearby. A ship at water’s edge is a nice touch.
The third display puts us at the Daytona Motor Speedway where race cars are on the high banks of the track. In this case, spectators from a vintage car club have shown up presumably to cheer on the Classic ’57-Bird.
The 1970 Display is a ‘Multi-Mural’ diorama with a white curved sloping track.
1970 display. Courtesy eBay.
The first three murals, from left to right, show a Spoiler style car, a heavyweight vehicle and a race car.
Close-up left side.
The last mural on the right reveals the open road for Hot Wheels to travel on.
Close-up right side.
Top view – left.
Top view – right.
Also, for 1970, Hot Wheels was going ‘head-to-head’ with Matchbox so in England a special store display was used.
1970 U.K. display. Courtesy pinterest.com.
The English store display is an open six-tiered white grandstand made of wood. The entire display holds 50 cars (6 rows of 8 or 9 cars each) and has a colorful backboard illustrating a Porsche 917 with the caption, “ Here’s why more Boys prefer: Hot Wheels”. Obviously a direct challenge to Matchbox whose display looked like this…
U.K. Matchbox display. Courtesy pinterest.com
So there you have it. A look at some of the early Hot Wheels diorama displays used in stores.
