The diminutive automobiles known as “Hot Wheels” are among the most enduring toys in recent history. There aren’t many 50-year-old playthings that you could still give to a modern child without seeing their face drop. But as recently as 2019, Hot Wheels were still the number one selling toy in the world. They live alongside Lego in their ability to endure a changing toy landscape as well as their ability to completely destroy the adult foot.
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One thing that undoubtedly keeps them fresh is their variety, with more than 11,000 variations of Hot Wheels existing today, enough to fill the world’s largest and loudest Rubbermaid tub.
Where, though, did it all begin? Would they ever have become as popular if their first iterations were of cars that kids had no interest in? There’s a reason that sensible station wagons are still few and far between in the Hot Wheels catalog. Nobody wants to pretend they’re piloting a 1998 Mercury Sable.
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Mattel wisely didn’t put all its eggs in a single car-seat, and the first launch of Hot Wheels included 16 cars, known to collectors now as the “Sweet Sixteen.” Even now, the lineup is spot-on for Hot Wheels offerings, covering everything from classic American muscle, to hot rods Rat Fink would be proud to pilot, to futuristic, borderline concept cars.
Even among the Sweet Sixteen, though, there’s one car that is the progenitor of all that came after it. After all, they weren’t simultaneously struck in one large mold, creating the full litter in one fell swoop.
That Hot Wheels Head Honcho? The die-cast car from which 11,000 vehicles were born? That would be the “Custom Camaro” in blue, first offered for sale on May 18, 1968.
Though, arguably, there is one earlier car sold, completely by accident: that same Custom Camaro, but a prototype painted completely in enamel white to check for imperfections. A couple of these reportedly snuck their way to shelves, and as the third rarest Hot Wheels car in existence, they fetch a pretty penny.
Curtis Palmer
