Pine Wood and Hot Wheels!

Years ago, my daughter, Jessica, was involved in AWANAS at church. One of the yearly events was a pinewood derby race. Now, as you know, I am totally into Hot Wheels. What you don't know is that at the age of about nine, so was Jessica! (Hey, she's always been a cool kid!) Therefore, when it came to building a pinewood racer, you know where we went for inspiration...

Actually, I ended up buildind four cars with her over the years. Each one got a little closer to a real Hot Wheels car. This is the last in the series, when pinewood derby crashed head on into plastic model building and Hot Wheels collecting...I present to you, Jessica's Paddy Wagon!

The car uses plastic model parts on a pinewood chassis. 

The wheels are official pinewood derby wheels with painted hubs.

The plastic parts were glued directly to the wood base.

The bottom of the engine was cut so it would sit correctly on the wood slab.

The panel on the back can be opened so you can access and adjust the weights.

The inspiration- my mint 1970 Hot Wheels Paddy Wagon!

Jessica actually did a lot of the work on the car, although I helped. She took first place in the "Design" catagory! I think she may have won one race.

Now, Jessica is 27, so her pinewood derby days may be in the past. However, her kids (and my grandkids) Ayden and Kyrie are 7 and 5, so there may be racing yet to come!

Until next time keep searching for (and maybe building) treasure!

More Haunted Mansion Treasure....Plus One

Last week I shared a couple of items from my Haunted Mansion stash. However, as I said, those weren't my coolest items. Today, you get to see those!

It is no secret that there would not be a Haunted Mansion without the many creative Imagineers that willed it into being. The "big three" in my book would have to be Marc Davis, X. Atencio, and Rolly Crump. Granted, there were others who were just as, or even more important, but these three really set the tone for the attraction.

Of these three, I have items fron two. First, we have Rolly Crump.

Signed Rolly Crump artwork from the Museum of the Weird. The art in a print, the signature is real.

Rolly Crump worked on many Disney projects, but he was really allowed to go all out on the Museum of the Weird part of the Haunted Mansion. Even though the Museum didn't actually make it into the attraction, Mr. Crump's distinctive style is all over the architecture and furnishings.

Next, we have X. Atencio.

X is standing next to his HM tombstone which reads, Requiescat, Francies Xavier- No time off for good behavior- R.I.P.

You can read this one for yourself. 

X. Atencio actually wrote the script and words to the song for the Haunted Mansion! If you like Pirates better than ghosts, you might be interested to know that he did the same for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride!

All of these items hang in my office at work so they can inspire me during the day.

Now for the "plus one." Here is a signed album from Imagineer Ward Kimball to director George Pal that I just happen to have in my collection. Enjoy!

Quite a story here...but I already wrote about in in Shroudlines- the Blog!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

Welcome, Foolish Mortals....

My favorite attraction at Disneyland and Walt Disney World is probably the Haunted Mansion. I have been known to ride it six times in one trip. I just can't seem to get enough of its blend of creepy and funny that only Disney could pull off.

Of course, over the years I have collected various HM related items, ranging from posters to snow globes to watches to shirts...etc...etc... When I was wonderding what to show you from the Attic this week, a couple of things caught my eye...

First, we have a "Doom Buggy!" As you may know, Doom Buggies are the ride vehicles that take you on your tour of the mansion. In this die-cast version, Micky and Goofy are finding an unexpected Hitchhiking Ghost riding along!

This is buggy number "13" because....why wouldn't it be?

Boo!!!

The front of the buggy even opens like on the real ones!

 Next we have a die-cast model of something that sits in front of the WDW mansion...the Black Hearse with invisible horse!

The hearse in the original packaging.

...and out of it! It's hard to see the horse...of course...

So there you have it! To of my favorite HM items....but not my coolest. I think I'll show you those in a future post!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

When Tonka Went Tiny

Hello attic explorers! This week I'm featuring a toy that brings back fond childhood memories. In 1970 Tonka came out with a line of cars that were smaller than the typical Tonka truck. Instead of measuring in at the typical 8-12 inches (or more) these cars were closer to four inches long. The "Tiny Crazy A" line all featured the same body, with different paint, wheels, and tops. As a kid, I had this one...

The passenger side doesn't have a sticker...

 This is the Tiny Crazy A's Rat-A-Tat-Tat! It is obviously based on a 1930's gangster car, and as such is pretty much a black, straight stock 1930's Model A. Sometimes less is more, and that seems to be the case here. I just love the look of this car!

I can remember that mine had plenty of adventures holding up banks and escaping as imaginary machine guns blazed! Elliot Ness could never catch me!

Years later I found this in an antique mall...

Yep, it's the Crazy A's Tiny Taxi! As you can see, it's missing the roof (which is pretty typical) so I turned it into a touring car for my W.C. Fritos eraser....because....who wouldn't?

The car is identical to the Rat-A-Tat-Tat, except for the paint, stickers and rear wheels. The top would be the same if I had it.

These are really cool little cars that now sit proudly on my bookcase. I dust them every now and then and once in a great while, an imaginary bank may suddenly be short some deposits.... I think the eraser did it.

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

A Sizzling Chase!

Sizzlers were Hot Wheels' "next generation" vehicles. With the help of tiny nicad batteries, these Hot Wheel sized cars could zoom around a track without the aid of a hill or a Super Charger. They were blisteringly fast, and just a whole lot of fun!

One problem with their speed was that they tended to fly off of the typical orange strip Hot Wheels track. They sold Sizzlers sets with "brake sections" so slow them down before they hit the turns, but these were only partly successful. Then they came out with the wide, black Fat Track, which featured big banked turns. These sets were probably the most successful.

Still, there was another catagory of set that was pretty cool. It was made of vacuum formed plastic that allowed for mountains and lakes to be featured, which added a measure of realism not seen with the orange or Fat Tracks. In 1973 they released the Road Chase Set based on this format. I happen to have one, so I'll share some pictures with you!

The overall set is pretty big! Interestingly, they also sold a "Road Spint Set" that just featured the left and right ends with no middle piece.

This was a jump ramp that would drop you from the hill to the valley rather quickly! If you adjusted the lever correctly, you could also take off down the dirt road!

The other end also features a switch (which I couldn't find for the picture, but I have). These switches allowed players at either end of the set to control both their car and the other player's car. The idea was to catch the other car...

The middle section, featuring The Mustang Hoss and the Hot Head. Criss-crosses are always good for a thrill!

The Hot Head zooming down a plastic country road...

The Mustang Hoss shows how the sections were engineered. They fit together nicely so that the cars don't get hung up going from one to another.

All in all this seems like a very fun set. I say "seems like" because I've never run live cars over it. The reason is simple. The vacu-formed plastic is FRAGILE, and in 44 years has only gotten more so!  I get nervous just setting it up. Still, I might have to try out a few laps some day.... It just looks too fun not to!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

Wipe-Outs Can Be Fun!

This week we are going to look at a Hot Wheel related item from 1968 that isn't a car (we already looked at all of those!) It's the Hot Wheels Wipe-Out Race Game! It looks something like this:

The box. I love the Indy graphics...

I got this game years ago at a local toy show. I didn't pay much for it at the time, mainly because the guy manning the booth had been ditched by the owner for a few hours and he got his revenge by selling me this game for something like ten bucks. Moral: take care of your employees!

Anyway, even though I bought it because it was a nice vintage tie-in piece, as it turns out, it's actually a pretty cool game. Let's pop the lid off and look inside, shall we?

Here are the instructions. I like having instructions on the box lid because it's hard to lose them....unless you lose the whole game....and there can't be too many of them!

Here is the game board. Dig those groovy '60s graphics, man! The game pieces are little plastic Toreros. That"s a 1969 car, which makes me think this game came out in late 1968.

This is one part of the idea that makes this game so cool. Each player has a shifter that they can adjust to make their car go faster. Of course, just like in real life, the faster you go, the greater the risks! 

And this is the wheel that controls your fate! Also, note the little wheel shaped cards on the track. You want to avoid those...just sayin'!

The game is simple enough; just be the first to get around the track! There is a good combination of strategy and luck, though, so it can actually be an entertaining game! All in all, not a bad find for ten bucks!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

The Summer of '69 Hot Wheels....The Final Chapter...

Well, as the year winds down, so does my series on the new Hot Wheels for 1969. In this edition we will look at the final eight cars, which probably include the most popular cars from that year. So hang on, here we go!

First, we have the Mercedes-Benz 280SL. Some of these have a black roof, but mine doesn't. Still, it's a fun car.

Who doesn't like a Rolls? This is the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. This car usually came in gray enamel (about twice as common as any other color), but I like the spectra-flame green. By the way, the mass of this car makes it pretty darn fast...

You might not know the name "Shelby Turbine," but you probably do know "Mario Andretti." This car is based on his turbine powered vehicle. 

One car that is surely in the Hot Wheels Hall of Fame is the Spittin' Image. This car strikes just the right balance between fantasy and muscle. It's also fairly heavy, which makes for a fast runner!

The Torero is reminds me a little bit of an Opal. This is one of the fantasy cars released that year. Purple is one of the more sought after colors for this car.

The Turbofire is another fantasy car. Red is a very common color for it, and it never caught on like some of the other cars, so the value is pretty reasonable.

Here we have another Hall of Famer. The car takes the Splittin' Image idea and reverses it. Instead of two cockpits and one engine, we get one cockpit and two engines! In the '90s, Hot Wheels built a real car based on this one... Very cool.

Finally, we have the Volkswagen Beach Bomb. This car would be worth tens of thousands of dollars (no kidding!) if it didn't have the side pods and the surf boards were sticking out of the back window. Alas, my example ain't that one. Still, it books in the triple digits, which isn't bad for a one inch long toy that originally retailed for under a buck...

So there you have it! By the way, I actually saw the most valuable Hot Wheel; the pink Rear Loader Beach Bomb, in person. It was at a toy show in Arlington. The car would later sell for over $125,000.00. I didn't pay that much for my house. Just sayin'...

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!