Spectraflame in Blue

I recently picked up a book, Hotwheels - The Redline Era, which devoted its many pages to the glory days of die cast car production, the Hot Wheels Redlines. Hot Wheels were one the staple toys of my childhood, everyone had them and everyone wanted them. The 'redline' referred to the thin red stripe on the wheels which accentuated the colourful cars. This would be eventually phased out in later years, but another crucial aspect of the cars production would also be discontinued, this was the glorious paint job.

As a child, I was immediately drawn to the bright yellow packaging, with red swash across the top and the exquisitely colourful car in the pack. What I didn't know at the time, was this was a concious decision by the clever marketing team at Mattel, rival companies Tootsie and Matchbox had the cars hidden in opaque packaging with an illustration to sell the car, Mattel took the decision to use packaging which would stand alone and display the wares to excited children. Besides the cool shapes of the car, the paint really set them off. The finish was called 'spectraflame' and unlike other diecast manufacturers, was not a straightforward (and generally dull) enamel. Each car was left in the natural highly reflective zinc alloy base metal and then the bright, candy colours were sprayed directly onto the car, letting rhe paint and colour really sing.

The deep, metallic finish of the spectraflame colours persisted until 1973, when sales began to slow and production was cut back. Up until that point, designers like Harry bentley Bradley, Larry Wood and Ira Gilford made some of the most memorable car designs ever, such as Swingin' Wing, Splitting Image and the cool muscle car series such as TNT Bird, Curstom Firebid and Mighty Maverick.

Super modern designs such as the Whip Creamer and Rocket Bye Baby reflected exotic means of proulsions such as turbines and ramjets, while the actual cars themselves almost always outstripped their competitor ranges such as Matchbox Superfast or Corgi Rockets, due to the heavier castings and the finely balanced suspension and nylon bearings in the wheels.