(upbeat music) - Every time I see a Hot Wheels car, I get excited. Even to this day, I can't leave the grocery
store without checking out the stack of Hot Wheels
at the end of the isle. I think if you look
around the Donut office, it's clear, it's just a
thing that all car people are still into. (percussion music) Mattel introduced the
brightly colored die-cast cars in 1968, and since then, they've become one of the most iconic toys in the entire world, with more than four billion cars produced. How do they decide which cars get made? And how did a failed guitar
design lead to literally the best selling toy in the world? Well we're about to find out. It's Hot Wheels time baby. Despite their success
with the Barbie doll, the toy that Mattel's
grandson loved the most was a car that wasn't even
made by their company. By the time Elliot and Ruth
Handler even considered making a toy car in the mid '60s, the market was already over saturated. One of the biggest names they would have to compete with was Matchbox. The British toy car company
had been around since 1953 and had a good foothold in the States making 1/64th scaled cars
like the Ford Zodiac, the Vauxhall Cresta,
and Variouz Volksvagenz. Matchbox cars sold very
well, and had many copycats, like Corgi, who made
really cool European cars, like Aston Martins and
Triumphs and Karmann Ghias. If Mattel wanted to compete
with cars like that, their cars needed to stand out. (smooth jazz music) One way that they did that was to paint their cars bright colors. The other toy cars at
the time were painted more realistic colors, so
flashy purples and pinks would make those cars
look drab in comparison. Mattel hired real car
designers, Chrysler, GM, and other car companies
to draw up their toy cars. The designers made Hot
Wheels cars wider and lower than the other toy cars of the time, and added sporty mag
wheels, which contributed to their hot rod look that
further separated them from the competition. But one of the most
significant innovations was the wheels. The wheels Mattel chose were fat and wide, and made out of plastic. Whereas Matchbox wheels were narrow, and often made out of metal. Matchbox also used bulky steel axles, which combined with the narrow wheels, made the cars roll slowly and
wonky, like a shopping cart. Mattel understood that kids
are inherently chaotic, and all they wanted out of a
toy car was to make it go fast. Not much changes when
you get older, right? (car revving) Get the (beep) off, dude (laughs). Well the plastic wheels
meant less friction, and thus more speed. Designers added a slight
tamper to the wheels to make the cars drive straight, which was where Matchbox
cars fell short as well. It was hard to race Matchbox
because they would go in different directions. But one of the biggest
factors that helped Hot Wheels become better than the competitors actually came from a failed
innovation over at Mattel. The company was experimenting
in the early '60s, attempting to design a guitar that would never go out of tune. The project was so expensive that they ended up scrapping it. With production now canceled, they had to look for other
ways to use this wire. It turned out that the mandolin strings made a much better axle
than the steel ones that they had been experimenting with. The string was lighter and
had smaller contact points, which meant Hot Wheels rolled much faster than cars with steel axles. So, they were better. But would the Hot Wheels sell? The first batch of Hot Wheels was released in May of 1968. The Sweet 16, as they're called. And they included many
real, albeit tweaked cars like the Camaro, Barracuda,
Volkswagon Beetle, and Cadillac El Dorado. They also featured concept cars, like the Dodge Deora Surf Van, and fully custom cars
cooked up by Hot Wheels. When the cars debuted, marketing at Mattel predicted five million cars
would sell their first year. When they brought Hot
Wheels into a meeting with a buyer from K-Mart
and compared their cars to Matchbox cars, the Matchbox car flew
wildly off the track, while their car stayed put. K-Mart ordered 50 million
Hot Wheels on the spot. This was a major success. But to get people coming
back and buying their cars, they needed to design more cars. So how do the designers come
up with ideas for Hot Wheels? Where do they even start? (upbeat music) Every Hot Wheels starts with a sketch, it's been that way ever since 1968. Hot Wheels gives their
design team of 17 graphic and automotive designers
free reign to create whatever they want. The automotive designers create the body, and the graphic designers
figure out what to paint and what to graphic. That's a technical term. The first part of the
process is all done by hand, so that ideas that come up during meetings or brainstorm sessions
can be integrated easily. After a concept has been solidified, a designer draws up the
silhouettes, or buckets, as they're called internally. Even if a concept has
nothing to do with the cars, like a cat, they have
to find a way to tie it back in the car culture and
make it look, in some way, like it's a hot rod. And that's how you get something
the Purrfect Speed Car. But all Hot Wheels cars are
always part of a series, so even the wild ones
make sense in the context of that series. The Purrfect Speed Car is a
part of the Street Beast series, which is animals. Once a Hot Wheels concept has been okayed, it gets brought into 3D
modeling software to be tweaked, and then it's sent to the modeling shop, where it's 3D printed,
using 35 different resins. Once assembled, the
prototype is then put through a bunch of different tests. There are nine tests a Hot
Wheels has to go through to make it through production, including various speed tests
on the classic orange tracks, and one test done, called
the side slam launcher, which tests vehicle stability. The most important test
is how much it hurts when you step on it in
the middle of the night. Everything has to be perfect, from the weight distribution
to the clearance. There's a minimum clearance
guideline for Hot Wheels to make sure no part of
the car is gonna scrape on a loop or any other track
component Hot Wheels makes. (metal bumping) So I guess that means they
won't be making low car anytime soon. If a car falls short on any of the tests, it is brought back to the
drawing board, so to speak, and the design is tweaked 'til
it passes all these tests. The track is almost as iconic
as the cars themselves, and they've been around
since the beginning. They've seen a lot of
updates through the years. One notable upgrade
being the Super Charger. These battery powered modules can be put in the middle of a long track section, and use two spinning
wheels to blast the car back up to speed. Once the tests are done,
the prototype is sent to the Hot Wheels plant in China, where they figure out how to produce it. It's broken down into four components, the chassis, the interior,
the body, and the windows. Each component is made
of different materials, which is part of what
makes Hot Wheels so cool, it feels like it's a real
model that's been put together, not just a piece of plastic. It takes anywhere from nine to 18 months from initial conception
to a Hot Wheels car hitting the shelf, going
straight into my grocery basket. Making a completely original
car that doesn't exist in real life is one thing, but how does the process
differ when they make cars that actually exist? When you make a car that no
one has ever seen before, as a designer, you
basically have no limits. You can make it as cool or
as goofy as you want to, no one's gonna check you. But when you work with established
brands with iconic cars that have a reputation to uphold, well things are a little different. You can't mess those cars up. If you were just to shrink
down a car to 1/64th its scale, it would look off. So the designers tweak
little things here and there to trick our brains into thinking the proportions look right. They make the wheels bigger
and the body wider and flatter. It's kinda like thumbnails on YouTube. I bet a lot of you don't know, but if you see a face on a thumbnail, chances are the person's eyes
and mouth have been enlarged. It looks weird if you zoom in, but when it's tiny, like
on your phone screen, it looks totally normal. It's the same with Hot Wheels. If you blew up a Hot Wheels car
to the size of a normal car, it would look really weird. But for the same reason, it
looks great when it's tiny. That's what she said. So the designers of cars
like this sick E36 M3 had to scale the car down
and accentuate the features, while also making it
look completely normal. Even though the proportions are different. That takes a skilled designer. And that's a major way Hot
Wheels differ from Matchbox cars, which keep the same proportions
when they're shrunk down. When compared side-by-side with a Matchbox car of the same model, it's easier to see how different they are. But nowadays, Matchbox
is no longer the enemy. Hot Wheels were so successful
that Mattel was able to buy out their competition. In 1997, Mattel bought Matchbox
from then owners Tyco Toys, and now the company produces both cars. (upbeat music) So after 50 years, how
does Hot Wheels continue to stay relevant? Especially as toy technologies
continue to progress? How do they compete with video games? (upbeat music) Well, they've been making their
own Hot Wheels video games for years now, I'm sure you've
played them if you're my age. Starting in 1985 with
the release of Hot Wheels on the Commodore 64, they
were ahead of many other car racing games by years. Since then, they've made
14 different Hot Wheels video games on countless
different platforms. There's that one Hot Wheels
that had the Metallica song. (singing Metallica) (laughs) When they're not makin' their own games, Hot Wheels cars can be
found in other racing games, like Gran Turismo, and more recently Forza Horizon,
as downloadable content. Video games aren't the only thing keeping the company relevant, though. Hot Wheels recently did a
collab with rapper Travis Scott. If you haven't seen the
video for Gang Gang, that sounded very white. Our boys, Chris Forsberg and Dylan Hughes are doin' donuts in it. In the belle of the ball, this 1988 E30 with a Cactus Jack livery. It's a beautiful car and
Hot Wheels immortalized it by giving it a limited run of
three cars to be given away to some lucky fans, not gonna
lie, I'm a little jealous. Travis Scott isn't the only
high profile collaboration Hot Wheels has done though. They made a custom BMW M1 with
the Anti-Social Social Club. A truck for Supreme. And a collab with shoe company, Puma, who used some classic
Hot Wheels to release custom colorways of their RSX shoe, which sadly does not have anything to do with the actor RSX. Huge missed opportunity. (upbeat music) And if that wasn't enough hashtag thicc boy stuff to collect, Hot Wheels has a premium line of cars that has details that
normal cars don't have, like big wings, license plates, and more nuanced designs. These things are super sick. And they even have some moving parts, like trunks or hoods that open. Some premium lines from last year included a Fast & Furious line, the Car Culture line
that has a few Gulf cars. My favorite, the Silhouettes. I've got an R31 and
RWB Porsche, it's sick. And the Entertainment line,
with cars like the Batmobile and a frickin' Star Wars van. You know, the van from Star Wars. In addition to mainstream collabs, the company has announced a
full length Hot Wheels movie, question mark? What? Things have come full circle, and now some Hot Wheels
originals are being made into full scale working cars. There's a car that looks
like Darth Vader's helmet. Even the orange track got
the full size treatment. Hot Wheels had a tour
where drivers would race, do jumps, and even do a
full size loop-de-loop. Our friend, Tanner Foust
smashed the world record for jump distance in a Hot
Wheels truck at the Indy 500. 332 feet. You're crazy. (upbeat music) I think there's something
really fun about the fact that they make wild concept cars that would never exist in the real world, but also real cars that you
see driving down the road. Sure, these concept cars might look crazy. But maybe there's one or
two design elements on them that will make it to a production car. And maybe on a microscopic level, these Hot Wheels drive innovation. My girlfriend's like, "Why are you always "in the Hot Wheels section? "You're a 26-year-old man. "Why do you keep buying Hot Wheels?" I dunno, I love these freaking things. What's your favorite
Hot Wheels that you had when you were a kid? I think really my fourth
or fifth birthday, where it all started, was
I got a pack of five cars. Track that had, it was just a loop and then a jump at the end. You could clamp the very top
of it onto a table or whatever. Be kind, see you next time.
I came here to see if someone already posted it or I was going to 😂. It's an awesome video!!
such a good video!!
Good thing he didn’t talk about treasure hunts