Hot Wheels are one of the most inflation-proof toys in American history | Hacker News Reader

Hot Wheels are one of the most inflation-proof toys in American history

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94 pointspseudolus76 comments

An entire story lionizing Hot Wheels as historic and seminal and without once noting that the entire brand was created as a cheaper and lower quality knockoff of Matchbox, founded 15 years earlier.

Matchbox Rock. Boxed matchbox are immensely valuable. None of my Matchbox or Corgi or Britains are boxed, all bear the proud scars of the sandpit and throwing at siblings.

Matchbox and the EcoPark (neé Edmonton Incinerator) wee both in Edmonton, London.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_EcoPark

As a child I had a Matchbox incinerator toy set, inspired their nearby infrastructure.

Around 1970 or so when I was 5 one of my older sisters worked for the summer at the Matchbox factory in London and gave me a Matchbox Lamborghini Muira - which I loved and, of course, proceeded to totally wreck.

That is funny cause as a kid in the 90s getting a matchbox instead of a hotwheels was a real downer. They were just worse quality.

I was a kid in the 1970s and my recollection is that I thought the two (Matchbox and HotWheels) were one-in-the-same.

They probably were kept apart in the store where I bought them, but I never noticed. And my brothers and I never made that distinction as we honed our "driving" skills on the hardwood floor.

Until I read your comment, I thought Matchbox & HotWheelw were the same thing.

grew up in 70s, felt the same way. But when I purchase these cars for my son, I felt that best Hot Wheels were way better than Matchbox. That being said, Hot Wheels does make some kooky models that I would stay 100 miles away from just on aesthetic grounds.

I didn't even know Hot wheels existed up until few years ago, while I played with Matchbox in late 80s or early 90s as European kid, they seem to have better marketing/distribution here in Europe, you can find them displayed prominently while Matchbox is either hidden somewhere or not sold at all. My kid has both brands. From what I noticed Matchbox seem to produce real models, while HW has huge share of weird (unbuyable) models.

We have hot wheels from my brother-in-law’s childhood and the cars made ~30 years ago are much higher quality. All metal, better axels, just feel more hefty. The new ones are mostly plastic and the axels are like cheap paper clips. They weigh significantly less.

I see this as an example of “shrinkflation” - ostensibly it’s the same product at the same price, but it’s clear that inflation has caused it to become shittier over time.

That's for sure. My kiddos play with my old childhood Fisher Price and Mattel toys from the late 1970s/early 1980s and they are still in great condition despite decades of abuse. They really were built to last compared to the cheap instant landfill fodder that lines store shelves today.

If you want similar toys that are higher quality, I highly recommend Japanese Tomica. They also usually have doors that open. Loads of variety. I believe in the US you can now buy them at Walmart, but they're not too difficult to order from Amazon JP either (just make a new Amazon account with your same or different email as the US or wherever account and confirm the seller ships globally).

Tomica is also 4 times more expensive.

If you want really high quality there’s even nicer german brands (Siku), with rubber wheels and all.

All made in China though :/

As is usual, price to quality (to enjoyment factor) ratio.

These days as I'm older and collect more sparingly, I prefer quality over quantity and the price evens out.

But if you're just buying for kids to have a ton of cars then hot wheels are probably still the option.

Eh, it adds up. One car a month for 2-4 years means you have 24 cars spread throughout the house.

And if you keep an eye out at Goodwill you can find them mixed together in a grab bag now and then for cheap.

> I see this as an example of “shrinkflation” - ostensibly it’s the same product at the same price, but it’s clear that inflation has caused it to become shittier over time.

Came here to say the same thing, and the trend was even noticeable in the 90s. I can't even imagine how flimsy they must be now -- probably even worse than a 90s cereal box prize car.

This is pretty evident across the board. I loved my toys as a child so i kept a lot of them. Plastic was way better. The one they have now is super shitty. I go to toys r us and I am disappointed constantly. I'm ready to pay a decent price, there is just nothing worth (beside lego probably)

if you want great toys i recommend shops that stock old toys. they of course come at a premium, but the quality is generally much better. places like mandarake in tokyo come to mind, but there are many out there.

I used to play a lot with the power ranger mechas and those made from Bandai are incredible quality, unless you are up for the modern metal ones, but those cost SO much.

Anything around Canada (or north america)? Does mandarake ship to Canada?

Modern Transformers are amazing. Way better than in the '80s.

You have to buy the collector-targeted stuff, though. The current line is called Legacy. If you are willing to pay, the Masterpiece line is also excellent, and there are fantastic third-party transformers as well: these have lots of metal, ratcheting joints, complex transformations, and usually cost over $100, up to $300. I will plug https://tfsource.com/

Avoid the kiddie-oriented lines (Cyberverse) and the mass-market lines (usually co-marketed with the most recent movie).

The problem with collector models is that they break way more easily. Also $300 means I can buy stuff the caliber of Soul of Chokogin ( https://live.staticflickr.com/5553/15149130081_124d4867f0_b.... ), which is super high quality. Or I might as well buy some of the power ranger mechas from my days, to inspire some interest in mechanics.

My daughter did fall in love with a small Gundam SD she built "oh I have an action figure too now!!!", but she of course want to play with it, she doesn't love the fact that's just in the display case.

I'm not talking about model kits: I'm talking about high-quality toys. In my experience toys from Hasbro's Masterpiece line, as well as toys from third party-companies from like FansToys and Mastermind Creations easily exceed the build quality of Bandai.

For example, comparing my FansToys Stomp ( https://tfsource.com/fanstoys/stomp/ ) to my DX Chogokin Macross VF-1J, there's no contest: the FansToys is more durable, better articulated, with a more interesting transformation. It's just a better toy. I have Daltanius and other SoC toys as well, and they are fine, but they seem primitive in comparison to, say, Hasbro's MP-44 Optimus Prime.

Having said that, they are not children's toys. For kids I would recommend Studio Series ( https://tfsource.com/hasbro/transformers-studio-series-86/ ).

We are not making an apples to apples comparison though. The bandai power ranger toys would be in the $100 range today. For the same range of price, they released a full megazord + dragonzord + titanus in metal, and they can transform an merge, that's what should be compared to.

I wish I liked some design of the transformers lines you linked. Unfortunately that's entirely subjective, I understand that's nobody's fault. I used to like the transformer "animals" (I had the gorilla, the trex and the eagle), but I love veichles, I just don't like their mecha-form design and rather prefer gundam or power rangers style. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be decent toys for those nowdays.

Sorry I forgot to mention, independently of my comment, that suggestion is good, I saw a bunch of cool designs.

The funny thing is that everything that actually looks good is marketed at collectors.

The problem is also that my children are still young, so I need stuff with some resistance, somewhat.

The latest collector-oriented, wide-distribution lines from Hasbro are an outstanding value, with interesting transformations, durable enough for kids, and pay homage to the characters their parents know from the '80s. I'm talking specifically about Siege, Earthrise, Kingdom, Legacy, and Studio Series 86.

https://tfsource.com/hasbro/transformers-studio-series-86/

https://tfsource.com/transformers/war-for-cybertron-trilogy/...

https://tfsource.com/generations-legacy/

Cyclonus in particular is an amazing toy for kids or adults: https://tfsource.com/tfsource/cyclonus-and-nightstick-voyage...

You can find these at Target or Walmart in the US for even cheaper.

> You have to buy the collector-targeted stuff, though. The current line is called Legacy. If you are willing to pay, the Masterpiece line is also excellent, and there are fantastic third-party transformers as well: these have lots of metal, ratcheting joints, complex transformations, and usually cost over $100, up to $300. I will plug https://tfsource.com/

Wow, they actually managed to make them look both like the cartoon robots and transform into the cartoon vehicle. I remember one or the other always being pretty iffy.

For anyone that wants a direct link to one of these (there's a lot of stuff on that site that doesn't transform), here's a $700 transforming Optimus Prime: https://tfsource.com/transformers-branded-merchandise/optimu...

The still images don’t do that toy enough justice. There’s a review video with Adam Savage, a former designer at Industrial Light & Magic:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ytI929g4puE

Also of mythbusters fame

That one is famous. It's the way to go to kill the fun. Transforming a transformer is the most fun part!

To be clear: the linked toy is able to transform itself. It is therefore both a toy and a robot, not merely a toy robot.

Most toys on the site are able to be transformed by manual manipulation, which must be learned by the user. For me, that's most of the fun: I enjoy learning the intricacies of each transformation and it's satisfying to move them back and forth between their various modes. Therefore a self-transforming toy, while technically impressive, has little allure for me.

Tomica is another choice.

WOW, some stuff here looks amazing, thank you!

Just for some anecdata, I like buying hot wheels for desk toys every so often.

They definitely feel light and cheap, but still roll really smoothly and straight. From reading up on their history, I recall that was the main innovation that made it so popular. It's neat they kept that going!

That said, I'm not a kid crashing them together every day in a sandbox, I just fiddle with each every few days for maybe 3-6 months or so at a time before switching out to new ones.

So your mileage may vary (ha) depending on how taxing you are on them.

My parents kept all of my cars from the 80s and my brothers from the 90s, so my kid plays with 50 years worth of them.

The shrinkflation was between 1980 and early 2000s. The cars today are cheaper, but not junky. They are raising their margins by other means now. That low price point exists, but with a much smaller number of cars. When I was a kid in the 80s, there was 50-100 cars at the same price. Now there is much less, but the cool cars are often branded and may be 2x-3x the price.

I actually think the cars are still decent quality. I’ve bought a number of them for my 4-year-old son recently, and we have a lot of fun racing and crashing them. They’re holding up well so far after months of daily use.

And even if the quality of Hot Wheels has gone down over the years/decades, I think it’s awesome that each car still only costs about $1. I can easily afford to buy one or two cars every time I go to the grocery store with my son, which makes the shopping experience much more fun for both of us. If the cars were 10x the price, then I couldn’t do that.

> I can easily afford to buy one or two cars every time I go to the grocery store with my son, which makes the shopping experience much more fun for both of us. If the cars were 10x the price, then I couldn’t do that.

This brought back memories for me. As a very young father still starting out in a professional career this was one of the few bright spots of my life back then. Being able to see my son's excitement to go to the store with me every Saturday to choose his new wheels really was a small part in keeping me going.

Very happy to see this "tradition" continuing 20 years later.

The 90s was a really low point. Somewhere in the 2000s manufacturing or materials got cheap enough and the small toy cars started getting better again. The ones my kids throw at each other are pretty durable again it seems.

Experiencing inflation in my lifetime has been interesting. When I was a kid in the 80s, a quarter meant a Hershey's bar or a game of Pac-Man. I remember my dad telling me that when he was a kid, Hershey's were a nickel, and a lot larger.

Of course I didn't believe him. Then over the years candy just jumped up in price every decade. 50 cents, then 75, then it stalled at $1 for a long time it seemed, to today's $1.50.

Two responses to this comment: Wow, only 25 cents or, Wow, you eat that vomit-odor sludge?? inevitably setting off yet another chocolate thread. Not my point.

You have to post the inflationary measure of the nickel at some basis of purchasing parity. I'm not sure either chocolate or arcade games can do it. It's quite likely both have undergone huge expected shifts in the basket of goods informing inflation.

The decline of metal money plays a bit here too. I was really shocked when I realised that the only coins I am using feed meters and buskers. I haven't withdrawn money from an ATM in almost a year. Buskers use stripe. So does the street market for vegetables I use weekly. Even tax avoiding niches are now almost solely online. Swiping for $2 and avoiding any overt tariff and paying $2 in service charges for $20 of trade makes $2 the new 15c

One unexpected side benefit of having left the Old Country is that (the smallest folding denomination being larger than 1) coins are actually worth something: small shop purchase, short taxi ride, quick snack, etc.

> I remember my dad telling me that when he was a kid, Hershey's were a nickel, and a lot larger.

IIRC, for a long time Hershey's always sold a 5¢ candy-bar, and regularly varied the size based on their costs. They even occasionally got larger if their costs dropped. I believe it was some thing about wanting every kid to be able to afford a candy bar.

I think they gave up when the most they could do was a halloween-candy/"fun size" bar.

I recall spending $86 on a pair of Gap jeans in 1992. It was a lot of money back then, I was 15 and had no job. Checking out the Gap site, a pair of new Jeans today cost $99 CDN.

It can be hard to determine if they’re really “the same” as many items have changed to keep similar price points. I know there’s bowling about Levis.

Same experience here, back in 90s my decent leather branded sneakers (Adidas/Nike) could cost easily in my country like 1/4th of minimum wage, now you can buy same brands similar quality models for like 1/12th of minimum wage, so these branded sneakers are much more accessible. Let alone novels for kids, noname brands cost maybe 20-30% less, but the difference is actually just few euros so not really worth buying noname for kids.

In the Soviet Union, tipping[0] was often done in vodka bottles. At some point, the soviets realised that vodka bottles were not only more stable than the ruble, but had a real return higher[1] than the bank savings account rate.

[0] a carton from Krokodil, in which a Muscovite wife gestures around an apartment where bottles are stacked to the ceiling along the walls and on every conceivable flat surface, was captioned: "My husband is an excellent plumber, but unfortunately he doesn't drink."

[1] did consumption of this "currency" provide deflationary pressure?

This reminds me of video games that consume a currency as a form of deflationary pressure.

I guess we never destroy dollars but games will happily destroy gold you hand to a vendor, or Stones of Jordan, or crafting components to items that then become untradeable.

That's how their revenue recognition works. Buying gold with USD isn't profit till the gold is gone.

https://bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/accounting-for-saas-and-sw...

Wow, funny how pencil-pushing[0] accounting conventions so strongly affect fantasy worlds!

I recall an anecdote about a Venus probe. It needed some large sapphire (or some such) to serve as an instrument window. US Customs naturally charged an arm and a leg upon import of such a large gem. NASA was able to get their money back after launch, however, as they kept receipts, then sent them back to customs along with proof that the gem had left US soil (indeed, it was never coming back).

[0] https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iBDQOXCHTEU/S7-zQt9R-8I/AAAAAAAAA...

Not only vodka, but any alcohol (at least at more prosperous times). And for a few reasons. 1. It's not a bribe if it's not money. 2. Liquidity: good luck converting your soviet rubles into anything useful.

Given that we're talking about alcohol, this may be the most appropriate use of "liquidity" that I've seen in awhile

Having played with many matchbox, corgi and hot wheels cars last century I was surprised that nowhere was rolling resistance mentioned in the article. Matchbox, who made superb diecast replicas of real vehicles under license didn't roll very well as they were heavy with thick wire axles and a broad tire contact point. The whole point of the cheaply made HotWheels cars was that they had fine wire axles and rolled on a very narrow lip on the plastic wheel/tire, which meant their lack of rolling resistance made them much nimbler. Matchbox cars would barely roll on the plastic track Mattel sold, where the hotwheels cars could loop the loop etc. The hotwheels styling paid homage but rarely royalties to Ed Roth, Gene Winfield, Ed Barris and particularly Bill Cushenberry bubble top creations.

By the 90s they were just cheap poorly designed diecast toys after the huge trend for innovative full size custom show cars waned in the 80's.

Can't say the same about LEGOs. The LEGO company just raised prices 10-25% across the board. Glad to see Hot Wheels resisting the temptation to gouge customers and stay timeless.

Top-selling LEGO sets (those between $20 - $70) got hit the hardest with inflation this year. Looking at the newly released sets coming out Jan 1st, there are several new sets priced at $30 that would have previously been $20, so you could argue a 50% inflation on those sets.

The UCS sets fared the best behind the $10 sets. The UCS's averaged less than 5-7.5% increase. But these sets are usually $500 - $800, so it still accounts for $35-50 increase per set.

I'm here to remind everyone the plural of Lego is Lego. That aside yes, Lego is ruinously expensive and appears to increase above inflation since it stopped being about blocks (the 60s)

If you want to get pedantic, LEGO is a brand name and used as an adjective. The things the LEGO group sells are not Lego or Legos; they’re LEGO bricks or LEGO sets.

Only really makes sense to resort to such pedantry if you’re LEGO’s marketing department and concerned about genericization of your trademark, though. Everyone knows what you’re talking about if you say “legos”.

As a non USA-ian I can't say I ever heard a single person talk about "legos" until I joined predominately US forums.

Hearing people talk about Lego as "Legos" still sounds weird AF.

I'd love to know if any non European language pluralises Legos the way American English speakers do. It's possible their linguistic constructs don't invite it. I have no particular issue with either English changing under use, or neologism becoming normalised. In 50 years Legos may be the predominant form.

After all, "dove" replaced dived. Linguistically maybe it made more sense?

But for now, the Queens English being understood, it's like sheep. It pluralises itself. A piece of lego, a box of Lego, a lego set, a bridge made of lego. It's a lego bridge.

You step on one Lego, you step on two Legos.

It’s like Kleenex and kleenecies.

Two bits of lego.

Eight bits of Lego is a legobyte.

Checked the danish wikipedia for Lego, for fun, and it seems that in Denmark they use "Legoklods" which is literally translated to lego bricks.

"LEg GOdt" means play well and play is good.

I don’t want to minimize the work of engineering the product design of Lego sets, but my goodness Lego sets are shockingly expensive for what they are. It feels to me like they should be 50% or less the price they tend to retail at - it’s not hard to understand why the Chinese knock-off sets were so popular.

The knockoff brands have issues fitting together due to lower tolerances and QA issues. [1] [2]

LEGO bricks are built to a completely insane tolerance for a children's toy. 10 micrometers, according to the company.

Have you ever found a single LEGO piece that was defective and didn't fit into another one snugly? I've been playing with them for 25 years and I don't think I've found a single one.

IMO, LEGO is expensive but so is a lot of other stuff. We're in a period of high inflation, and most of us aren't used to that with very low inflation being the norm for the past ~10 years. Chipotle wasn't selling $15 burritos 20 years ago. [3]

On top of that, LEGO exploded in popularity after their licensing deals with names like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Disney, Batman, Mario, Minecraft, and the list goes on and on. LEGO used to be somewhat of a nerdy toy, only for boys, with a very small adult market compared to today. They're just charging what people are more than willing to pay.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/2orjay/why_are_mega_b...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/2aj3un/are_legos_real...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Chipotle/comments/t905uc/those_of_u...

Good points about tolerance. LEGO wasn't a nerdy toy though; it had the same mass-appeal that minecraft did/does. Also this LEGO ad from 1981:

https://imgur.com/xwAsW56

This ad was the subject of a debate a few years back about what's happened to LEGO in general - it's large scale shift to licensed properties, and specifically the introduction of specific girl-targeted LEGO sets.

This seems like the best article I could find on it: https://mashable.com/archive/girl-1981-lego-ad-found

Also, there is this really great monologue on LEGO from Community, delivered by Michael K. Williams that is delightful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVCOAFKjaoY

The tolerances are impressive. Not perfect. I had electric Lego parts as a kid, bought new in the late 80s, that had trouble fitting together. It was annoying at the time.

My kids have a lot of old Duplo. Unlike the Lego it has not aged well. The fit between parts is all over the place.

Duplo is designed with less “clutch” so tiny hands can take it apart successfully. That and the size of the pieces leads to flex that you don’t get much with Lego.

Primo (rare) and Quattro (super rare) are even bigger and have more flex.

I have Lidl model of police station, roughly 1000 pieces and they fit perfectly exactly same as original Lego for like 1/5th of price in discount

so some insane tolerance at Lego sounds to me only like someone trying to justify their purchase

though I recently bought Lego classic sets for my kids and those don't seem to be that overpriced

LEGO can charge this much because it’s one of the rare toys you could actually pass down for many generations. They also have a growing market of adults that are willing to spend a lot more for sets they buy for themselves rather than for some kid.

There is no reason for them to not optimize their prices.

I think we’ve seen this across a number of Toy lines. For instance, I’m quite interested in Hasbros Masterpiece line of Transformers, which sell in the for hundreds of dollars a piece, and are massively more complex than the child-focused toys.

LEGO sets have always been expensive. I remember saving forever for a $60 set with ~360 pieces (6975 Alien Avenger) about 25 years ago.

For a spaceship set today, the same $60 can buy a 412 piece set (75325 Mandalorian Starfighter). And that one has to pay Disney’s license fees.

I absolutely want Lego to raise the prices if that means they don’t compromise on quality.

This analysis is now a decade old, but as of 2013, the claims that Lego was increasingly expensive just didn't pan out. Sets were getting larger, and there were more sets, but average price per set, and the cost per-brick and by mass, were all flat over the decade preceding the report.

https://therealityprose.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/what_happen...

Hot Wheels: Little cars are big business - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33655937 - Nov 2022 (15 comments)

The Hot Wheels Design Studio: How a Real Car Gets Turned into a 1:64 Toy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550264 - Sept 2021 (39 comments)

I had such an insane amount of hot wheels. I totally forgot about this.

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