Hot Wheels is releasing a Beast of Turin!

 

now THAT is cool! 

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1470394461752259&set=pcb.1470394545085584

https://hotwheels.fandom.com/wiki/Fiat_Beast_of_Turin

I love that I learned this trivia decades ago, and that it's still a trivia night question

 

Of course the right way to ask it is not to mention that it's a toy manufacturer. And I guess that makes this a rare post that I've posted twice. I bet it looked a lot different the first time I posted it though. These are scenes from a tv show or movie I was just watching the other day.  

John William "Jack" Ryan, was Mattel VP and chief designer until 1977, created Barbie, had about a 1,000 patents, and drove a 1935 Reo fire engine around Bel Air!

He built a bizarre faux castle with drawbridge and moat in Bel Air, where he had a dozen college students trading room and board for estate grounds upkeep/party waiters, etc - and so he installed 144 telephones throughout The Castle and grounds. 

The entire phone system was switched through a highly sophisticated communications system that he bought as surplus from a U.S. Navy destroyer and reengineered.

For a short while, he held 300 parties a year

He had a 18 car collection, and owned a vintage 1935 REO fire engine that he would load with party guests and drive around town, and to the Playboy Club where their respective social secretaries arranged a meet and greet, resulting in Hefner and Ryan teaming up for charity events around Hollywood/Beverly Hills/LA

Ryan went to Yale College, where he was active in the Pistol Club, and the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He served in the Pacific for a short time during World War II and in 1946 returned to Yale, where he was known as an “engineering genius.”

With a degree from Yale and having studied at Harvard, Jack worked for Raytheon during the early 50s / Cold War, helping to design the ground-to-air Hawk missile and the air-to-air Sparrow III missile, both of which were ordered by the Pentagon.

In 1955, Ryan joined Mattel, by getting a deal where he got 1.5% of the gross on all the toys he designed for them.

Even though he was never an employee of Mattel, he was their head of R&D. Not only did he do the mechanical design of the toys, he studied how children interacted with them. That’s because he was a real engineer, not just a tinkerer, and that means being systematic. He set up play areas with prototypes and had psychologists evaluate them. This became another reason for Mattel’s success.

Jack invented the Hot Wheels car suspension, the bearings, and the plastic wheels. Unlike Matchbox, Ryan put plastic wheels on the cars with a little give for traction and needle bearings for smooth motion

He also came out with the orange track system that let kids build raceways, and invented the battery-powered accelerator (the Supercharger) that would shove the cars along. Mattel sold six billion Hot Wheels cars in their first 50 years, from 1968 to 2018.

He devised a coffee cup that would keep beverages at a constant temperature (probably using a phase change of sodium acetate), and a camera that could develop its own film.

Ryan later engineered the voice mechanism for Chatty Cathy, the first mass-produced talking doll, revolutionizing interactive play for children. He invented the rocking horse with moving legs. He also helped create Hot Wheels, applying automotive and aerospace engineering to design miniature cars with unprecedented speed, style, and performance.

His ideas on blending technical precision with imaginative play were later preserved by Stanford University, where his "Design Philosophy" is archived.

Evidence of his "space-aged savvy" can be seen in the designs of many of the toys he created for the Mattel line. For instance, the V-RROOM! X-15 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/09/did-you-ever-hear-of-this-mattel-x-15.html which was named after the North American X-15 rocket-powered aircraft that were made for the USAF, the NASA, and the USN. 

His name also appears on the patent documents of the V-RROOM! bicycles of the 1960s as well as the V-RROOM! toy engines that simulated real motorcycle engine sounds.

He married Zsa Zsa Gabor for a year, 75-76, but near the divorce, disassembled her Rolls-Royce in attempt to make her a custom limousine and, according to court records, refused to put it back together again.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/04/barbie-creator-jack-ryan-once-held-his-own-daughters-hostage/
https://www.facebook.com/DreamHouseJackRyan/posts/i-asked-chatgpt-for-help-what-do-you-think/1074045853936982/

https://babelniche.com/2024/06/05/obscure-creators-of-the-world-3-jack-ryan/

https://medium.com/@solidi/jack-ryan-and-ruth-handler-of-mattel-the-power-ballad-of-american-coffee-2c19994e6732

https://timenote.info/en/Jack-Ryan-12.11.1926#google_vignette

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ryan-john-william-jack

https://catalogimages.wiley.com/images/db/pdf/9780470371268.excerpt.pdf

This post took 3 hours just to track down every lead online to find the make and model of the fire engine, all the rest of the information was found only as a side effect of looking for the fire engine

Paweł Czarnecki’s small but mighty, mid-engine rally-inspired custom FIAT 126B is the 2025 Hot Wheels Legends International Tour winner!

Celebrating car builders worldwide, the 2025 Hot Wheels Legends Tour visited 16 countries, including 11 regional stops across the US. New Tour stops this year included Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), Peru, and Turkey. Over the course of the Tour, Hot Wheels designers and local automotive experts evaluated thousands of vehicle entries, with millions of fans attending events across the globe.

Czarnecki said he put in more than 2,500 hours building and an additional 800 hours of 3D printing of components to make a car that perfectly embodies the “Garage Spirit” mentality that the Hot Wheels judges look for in every submission, Mattel said.

“Powered by a Fiat Uno 1.4 Turbo producing 200 horsepower, paired with a Nissan 200SX GT28 turbocharger and a built Fiat Punto GT gearbox, it delivers rally-ready performance. The car features a custom coil over suspension, a body widened by 18.5 inches, period-correct HTN Motorsport three-piece wheels, Fiat Uno brakes, a flip-forward hood for rapid repairs and adjustments, and a full roll cage—blending historical inspiration with modern fabrication to bring this Polish rally vision to life.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2025-hot-wheels-legends-tour-220000131.html

https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/a69451437/hot-wheels-legends-coolest-car-in-the-world/

reminder, the Hot Wheels Legends Tour, Grand Finale, happens on 11/15

https://www.facebook.com/hotwheels

https://www.facebook.com/events/1382246926866495

https://www.youtube.com/@HotWheelsGarageOfficial/videos

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLykIyIb52QYbSFlBojmUhKUChxyQOyGKQ

I find cool stuff is nearly everywhere

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=25954050200861867&set=pcb.936411328943941

oh wow, this is COOL and what great ingenious idea for a Hot Wheels display case! A tool box shaped carry case!! Thank you Larry!

the Hot Wheels Super Treasure Hunt Set Tool Box, 2500 made, and I bet more than half were simply bought to flip on Ebay, where you can buy them for about 60 dollars https://www.ebay.com/itm/276959642549 but some flippers are hoping for more like 250

 https://www.motortrend.com/features/how-do-they-make-a-new-hot-wheels-car/photos

a legend in comic book illustration, Alex Toth, (his TV work included Super Friends, Space Ghost, The Herculoids ) was Hot Wheels choice for their comic books, and here's a cool excerpt of top fuelers drag racing

https://hotwheelsracetracks.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/hot-wheels-art-by-alex-toth/

Isky (co founder of SEMA) visited the Hot Wheels design studio. He signed a few Hot Wheels cars and toured the model shop. Look for that 1:43 ‘55 Chevy gasser EP signed by Ed at a future charity auction (Why doesn't Hot Wheels have a news outlet that tells us media these news stuff?)

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPo91x_EpPi/

I just looked through everything I've posted on Hot Wheels, to see if I'd ever posted the "rrRumblers" and I had no idea I'd posted so much, and it reminds me how much that Hot Wheels needs a museum, and an encyclopedia

the carry case looked like a lunch box according to one commentor on the facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1239550554872394&set=a.342550132513530

they had a clip on attachment so they could race on the orange track, named the Track Rack

https://hotwheelsracetracks.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/rrr5.jpg

OMG, do you remember collecting wrappers from cans of whatever to get stuff via mail in coupons?

I'll be damned, even Hot Wheels had one! 

from That 70s Page on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1249256240568492&set=a.342550132513530

But if you want to see some arguing get started, post something like this

and guys lost their minds trying to out trivia expert each other on the damn things... wow. There's no trophy for knowing the most about these, but you can't tell that from social media

I love the vintage displays. But, everyone is out there collecting and raising the prices to way out of my range. A display like this? Would be awesome. But I'm guess this one, would be a thousand bucks or more, for these exact cars, in like new condition

If you get a kick out of the vintage displays, be sure to click on this https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2023/05/hot-wheels-diorama-displays-used-in.html  for the store diorama displays.. .. incredible stuff

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1239702088190574&set=a.342550132513530

and as long as I'm soaking up Hot Wheels, I'll post this, which I became fascinated by, but adjust the speed setting to 1.25. This guy is either slowing down his video by 25%, for some reason you tubers probably know about, or, he talks really slow

https://hotwheelsracetracks.wordpress.com/

Hasbro’s Monopoly – celebrating its 90th anniversary this year – is teaming up with Mattel’s Hot Wheels to launch the Hot Wheels Pass ‘N Go 1:64 die-cast collectible.

Available globally beginning 1st November, the collectible is modeled after the game’s iconic Race Car token, designed to look just as at home on the game board as it does speeding around a Hot Wheels track, and ideal for long-time collectors and casual fans.

https://toyworldmag.co.uk/monopoly-celebrates-90-years-with-hot-wheels-first-ever-collaboration/

I hope I see a Deora II or III cruising on a freeway someday... that would be cool

dang this is about a real world as a Hot Wheels car gets

I hope everyone gets as much satisfaction looking around on Facebook as I do... there's so much wonderful stuff that people are sharing on it, like this "lending library" of Hot Wheels

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10231023065182636&set=gm.885770394008035&idorvanity=242922141626200

Making it look like the store hook, and Hot Wheels packaging, is just superb! 

The Hot Wheels Legends tour is coming to San Diego!

https://creations.mattel.com/pages/hw-legends-tour

Mattel's newest anniversary set, to celebrate the 80th anniversary, the Hot Wheels Original 16 Rally Case set. one hell of a good looking collectors item

Hot Wheels will release 4,120 sets, each with a $550 price tag. 

All the collectibles inside use the same Spectraflame Ruby Red finish and Redline Neo-Classics wheels.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/mattel-80th-anniversary-hot-wheels-original-16-rally-case-set-won-t-come-easy-or-cheap-256382.html#

pretty cool way to promo the Back to the Future van and DeLorean toy they now sell, lifesize real van ramp and DeLorean tail

I posted it a month ago  https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2025/06/coolest-thing-i-saw-today-thanks-to-my.html

But I didn't see any of these at Comic Con

yet another update on a Hot Wheels movie... maybe one of these updates will be legit AND prove out

The news is that John Chu will be directing https://deadline.com/2025/07/jon-m-chu-hot-wheels-movie-warner-bros-1236450531/ based on the money made on Wicked part 1

back in 2022, the news was that JJ Abrams was going to make a Hot Wheels movie https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2022/04/a-hot-wheels-movie-thanks-kim.html

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2024/09/based-on-success-of-movie-barbie-mattel.html  was the news in 2024 that Mattel was going to make a Matchbox movie, with John Cena

WHOA! This is terrific! I found another Hot Wheels designer's work (in addition to Larry and Brendon) when by surprise I come across a cool hot rod (spotted at Rømø!) has it's own Hot Wheels! Old Red Racing Team (Denmark chapter) !

 

I wonder if this is a timing tag?!?! But damn instagram doesn't have the large screen format that You Tube has, doesn't have the setting change ability to get high def, see the video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLLSvuIBWsd/ 

Or see the hot rod at Rømø!

https://www.instagram.com/cforcraig/