Mattel celebrated 80 years of toymaking recently with a lovely addition to one of its all time best lines, Hot Wheels.
The Mattel Dream Mobile was originally produced as a large scale tin motor car as part of Mattels general toy line up. Since then, its added the Dream Mobile to its Hot Whhels line, in several colour variations. The deep crimson metallic finish, with commemorative decal is the most recent version.
As this is a special edition, its hard to find in the UK and was very kindly presented to me by Terranova, who has the pleasure of living in New York!
I managed to pick up a pair of those models in New Zealand, on both the long and short backing cards, but it was a case of grab it now, or you will not see another.
ReplyDeleteThe model is actually part of the 2025 Mainline, and is number 167 of 250 models for this year. In addition to the Mattel 80 logo, the date 1945 appears on the rear fins.
A really nice model. I am sure collectors snapped these up.
Thats a great find Paul, I am really lucky to have been given this one, as like so many rarer models, finding them on any card is a bonus. I wonder if they will produce the gloss black version, like the original four toys?
DeleteCool stuff Wote! And a great gift from Terran. What a car!
DeleteI don't know that I would call it a pleasure to live in New York? I found this 'Dream' in Ithaca, New York in a supermarket. I have yet to see the color shifter version anywhere except the duty free shop at Heathrow Airport at a price that was appropriately sky high!
DeleteOur illustrious leader's tarriff's have added 25% to Hot Wheel prices of the basic range of Mainline models, other ranges have souring prices.
Mattel was founded in 1945, and the Dream Car toy was released in 1953. It was plastic, and had a friction motor. There were six colours - red, blue, black, and light green initially. Two of the original colours were later dropped, and replaced by yellow and ivory.
ReplyDeleteThe re-named Dream Mobile appeared in the Hot Wheels line in 2020, for the 75th Birthday of Mattel. So far, there have been red, blue, and light green versions. I have not seen any of the Hot Wheels Color Shifters cars in NZ for several years, so missed out on that model.
Now we have the 80th Anniversary model. Most shops in NZ carry the long card version, but one chain of supermarkets carry the short card versions instead. If I am lucky, I can find the same car on both styles of card, which have rearranged artwork.
The colour shifter version was a little bit more expensive than a standard, but I found mine in Paphos, Cyprus, so doing the math for a Euro conversion stumped me anyway! Bill
ReplyDelete