Latest / Ridiculous History / We Got Super Into Toy Cars, Part Two: Rivalry and Nostalgia

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We Got Super Into Toy Cars, Part Two: Rivalry and Nostalgia · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories the production of iHeartRadio Skirt Skirt. Welcome back
0:28
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. This is part two of our
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Speaker 1: continuing series on toy cars, which we promise is uh
0:40
Speaker 1: is it much more interesting and involved than a lot
0:43
Speaker 1: of people might assume. Let's give it up for the
0:45
Speaker 1: referee of our race, super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: What so can't we argue that this is actually part
0:52
Speaker 2: four because you know we did two parts about the
0:56
Speaker 2: toy cars in Japan, so yes, this is of thing.
1:00
Speaker 2: I kind of think it's more than Zach got really
1:03
Speaker 2: into toy cars for a little bit.
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Speaker 1: Our research associate, doctor Ze Well not think.
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Speaker 3: If not complete us here in Ridiculous History. We do
1:10
Speaker 3: our best, and the spirit moves us. Yes, and your
1:14
Speaker 3: nol and I am Ben. And today we are picking
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Speaker 3: up on the rivalry we discussed on Tuesday, which we
1:22
Speaker 3: kind of teased in part one. Here's what you need
1:26
Speaker 3: to know. So there's Hot Wheels and their big rival
1:30
Speaker 3: is the Lesnie Corporation, which is responsible for matchbox cars.
1:35
Speaker 3: This really interesting story about how they came to be
1:38
Speaker 3: called matchbox cars tune in for Part one. We should
1:41
Speaker 3: also mention at the top another company that we we
1:45
Speaker 3: didn't we didn't give airtime to earlier this week, and
1:49
Speaker 3: that is Johnny Lightning, which might be familiar to some
1:52
Speaker 3: of our toy car enthusiasts, but it's a bit of
1:54
Speaker 3: a deep cut nowadays. I'd say, yeah, I looked them
1:57
Speaker 3: up a little bit, and it does seem like they
1:58
Speaker 3: had to tie in with speed Racer, which was a
2:01
Speaker 3: really obviously popular cartoon I believe in the sixties. So
2:04
Speaker 3: the early version or was called Clutch Cargo or that
2:07
Speaker 3: whole other speed Racer and Clutch Cargo, where they had
2:09
Speaker 3: very similar animation styles. But it seems like we were
2:12
Speaker 3: starting to get into the realm of like TV and
2:16
Speaker 3: film tie ins with these cars. But yeah, Johnny Lightning
2:20
Speaker 3: and Hot Wheels were kind of eating match Boxes lunch,
2:23
Speaker 3: match Box being sort of the legacy, first to market
2:27
Speaker 3: toy car company that was really focused more on accuracy
2:31
Speaker 3: in their you know, tiny recreations of classic cars, and then,
2:36
Speaker 3: as we talked about in Part one, Hot Wheels kind
2:38
Speaker 3: of entered the chat and was less concerned with that
2:42
Speaker 3: more into like little decals and creating cars that didn't exist,
2:47
Speaker 3: which proved to be the secret sauce, because you know,
2:51
Speaker 3: kids are a lot less interested as time goes on
2:54
Speaker 3: in period accurate recreations of Rolls, Royces or Porsche's or
2:58
Speaker 3: what have you, and a little more interested in and
3:00
Speaker 3: like things that sort of test the boundaries of the imagination.
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Speaker 1: You know, it reminds me of the evolution that Lego
3:07
Speaker 1: is undergone. And I'm a huge, huge Lego fan, as
3:10
Speaker 1: I believe you are as well, And a lot of
3:13
Speaker 1: Lego sets now are marketed toward adults, and I would
3:18
Speaker 1: argue that a lot of die cast models are also
3:20
Speaker 1: marketed toward adult nostalgia. But right now in our story,
3:26
Speaker 1: it's let's say it's kind of like the late sixties
3:30
Speaker 1: or so, and Lesnie is in trouble. They're in kind
3:35
Speaker 1: of a tough spot because their sales are plummeting. They've
3:40
Speaker 1: got more competition in the market, you know, hot Wheels,
3:42
Speaker 1: Johnny Lightning, et cetera. And then also over across the
3:46
Speaker 1: pond in the United Kingdom there are more competitors coming
3:50
Speaker 1: into the phrase. So Lesnie responds pretty quickly. They release
3:54
Speaker 1: a new kind of line of cars they call the
3:57
Speaker 1: super Fast line. They're called super Fast because they have
4:01
Speaker 1: these very low friction wheels. They have some new vivid colors,
4:05
Speaker 1: and initially collectors say it was kind of weird because
4:09
Speaker 1: the wheels were really narrow. They had to rework their
4:14
Speaker 1: dye their manufacturing processes to accommodate why tires. Remember they
4:19
Speaker 1: got into the game entirely because entirely because no, keep
4:25
Speaker 1: it entirely because they were already a manufacturing force for sure.
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Speaker 3: And as we also mentioned in part one, Hot Wheels
4:35
Speaker 3: whole claim to fame or those Hot Wheels, Baby, they
4:39
Speaker 3: moved really quickly. They used this leftover what was it
4:42
Speaker 3: wires from the failed never Goes out of tune guitar
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Speaker 3: experiment that went awry, and it allowed them to just
4:51
Speaker 3: have incredibly low friction for the wheels to turn incredibly fast.
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Speaker 3: Not to mention, their other hallmark was bright colors. So
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Speaker 3: it seems that Matchbox definitely trying to become a little
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Speaker 3: bit more like Hot Wheels to keep up with the competition.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, that's a good observation. Matchbox continues expanding
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Speaker 1: their line. They have the King Size and Speed King models.
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Speaker 1: Those are cars and trucks in a larger scale, and
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Speaker 1: then they tapped into the nostalgia that we foreshadowed mirror
5:22
Speaker 1: minutes ago. They came out with the matchbox models of Yesteryear.
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Speaker 1: This eventually All Told became a series of sixty six
5:32
Speaker 1: historic vehicles that were considered significant in some way, and
5:36
Speaker 1: it ended with that coronation coach that kicked off their
5:40
Speaker 1: biggest I guess they're like biggest era of Glory days
5:44
Speaker 1: and we're getting a lot of this from best Ride
5:47
Speaker 1: dot com by Craig Fitzgerald. I think Craig would be
5:51
Speaker 1: a pal of ours. We haven't met, but a great article, Craig.
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Speaker 1: I mean it makes sense, you know, stick with what
5:56
Speaker 1: you're good at. This is kind of what their whole
5:58
Speaker 1: deal was, was making the classic cars and having them
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Speaker 1: look really accurate and having all the little parts die
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Speaker 1: cast correctly to appeal to more of a collector's market.
6:07
Speaker 1: So while maybe kids might not have been snatching these up,
6:11
Speaker 1: they were pricier. They were much more designed, like you said,
6:14
Speaker 1: with Lego for adults. So from around seventy two to
6:18
Speaker 1: seventy three, Hot Wheels kind of entered into a little
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Speaker 1: bit of a sales decline of their own. In seventy three.
6:26
Speaker 3: Specifically, Battel switched from their kind of brighter house style
6:32
Speaker 3: called Spectra Flame trademark, which sounds awesome, to something a
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Speaker 3: little bit maybe more realistic, a little bit more of
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Speaker 3: like a solid kind of matte enamel color. Because these
6:44
Speaker 3: were not very popular, the ones that were designed from
6:48
Speaker 3: seventeen to seventy three, and they weren't reused. These cars
6:52
Speaker 3: from this era are particularly collectible.
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Speaker 1: And in the nineteen seventies, mid nineteen seventy, let's say,
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Speaker 1: Johnny Lightning is already on the way out they go bust.
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Speaker 1: In seventy one, match Box is once again becoming a
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Speaker 1: force in the world market because it's modernizing its line.
7:12
Speaker 1: And I want to pause here, by the way, Noel
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Speaker 1: and give a big shout out to all three of
7:16
Speaker 1: us ridiculous historians. You know you're part of the family too.
7:20
Speaker 1: You deserve to be backstage. Both myself and NOL have
7:25
Speaker 1: continually struggled not to say, but what was it? Match book?
7:29
Speaker 1: Is that book? Match book? It's tough, it's tough. Well,
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Speaker 1: they're both things.
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Speaker 2: There's a match book and there's a match box, right,
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Speaker 2: they are real things. And I feel like the match
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Speaker 2: book is more common right.
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Speaker 3: It's more common in the in the usage of matches
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Speaker 3: to this day.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, match boxes for the discriminating voluminist. Voluminist is the
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Speaker 1: fancy word for someone who collects matchboxes and match books,
7:54
Speaker 1: So big shout out to my girlfriend Brandy, who taught
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Speaker 1: me that word and knows way more about matches than
8:04
Speaker 1: I dare say either any of us.
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Speaker 3: Can I also point out something maybe we didn't quite
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Speaker 3: discuss the original match box cars, you know, in their
8:13
Speaker 3: first you know, kind of mass marketed line, which, as
8:16
Speaker 3: we mentioned before, they weren't making them insane numbers at first.
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Speaker 3: They're packaging actually resembled match boxes. You can even see, like,
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Speaker 3: you know, the side where you would strike a match.
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Speaker 3: It's sort of like a brown, kind of brownish black
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Speaker 3: color what it looks like to have some sort of
8:31
Speaker 3: fake grit on it. So they really were leaning into
8:34
Speaker 3: that whole match box thing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were leaning into it pretty well, you know. Okay,
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Speaker 1: So match box is amid a lot of different kind
8:53
Speaker 1: of corporate wars and initiatives. Right around the nineteen seventies,
8:57
Speaker 1: Leslie begins to con tact different collectors and they send
9:03
Speaker 1: Lesnie reps to these meetings and events. They're doing market research,
9:07
Speaker 1: which is very smart because now they have people who
9:10
Speaker 1: have bought in to the idea of these die cast cars,
9:15
Speaker 1: and they want to figure out what their audience desires.
9:18
Speaker 1: And this leads them to introduce commercial vehicles in their
9:23
Speaker 1: models of yesteryear series. Obviously a Model T you got
9:27
Speaker 1: to start with that. They also have a talbot. They
9:30
Speaker 1: also put these period accurate advertisements on these lippt in
9:35
Speaker 1: tea Coca Cola. You're transported back in time when you're
9:39
Speaker 1: playing with one of these vehicles. It's pretty smart move,
9:42
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah.
9:43
Speaker 3: And there's a really cool article on a website that
9:45
Speaker 3: is devoted to the history of die cast miniature cars
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Speaker 3: called Tutomini dot com dot br and in the article
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Speaker 3: Matchbox History by Alison Barrows, there's some excellent images of
9:59
Speaker 3: what we're talking talking about, you know, including the original
10:01
Speaker 3: designs that really do look a little bit kind of
10:04
Speaker 3: you know, like old timey and antiquated. And they sort
10:07
Speaker 3: of leaned back into their history with these Model TS,
10:10
Speaker 3: kind of sporting the classic Coca Cola logo and Liptin's
10:13
Speaker 3: and all of that. So this whole product tie in
10:15
Speaker 3: thing was really starting to kind of hit the zeitgeist
10:19
Speaker 3: and they were leaning into that pretty hard and it
10:22
Speaker 3: was it proved to be successful for.
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Speaker 1: Them one hundred percent did and they didn't stop there.
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Speaker 1: They also started doing something that was fairly prescient. They
10:32
Speaker 1: would make bespoke limited addition models for different markets or
10:39
Speaker 1: in collaboration with different companies like Nestle or the famous
10:43
Speaker 1: department store Herod's. And these items were again because they
10:48
Speaker 1: were exclusive and they were limited, they were super desirable
10:52
Speaker 1: for both the companies that sponsored it and for you know,
10:56
Speaker 1: civilian collectors. So imagine it's a cool flex, right. If
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Speaker 1: you go to meet the corporate heads over at Herod's
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Speaker 1: and one of the things in the swag bag is
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Speaker 1: the custom Herod's car toy, that's a flex and I
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Speaker 1: think it's pretty cool. They also Matchbox makes a lot
11:13
Speaker 1: of money from this, which that's like a department store. Right.
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Speaker 1: He's still the famous to this day, and I've been
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Speaker 1: it's huge, the one in London that I went to. Huge.
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Speaker 3: I've heard I've heard tell I've never step foot of
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Speaker 3: one of my stuff.
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Speaker 1: I was, oh, oh, let me tell you this is funny,
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Speaker 1: though you'll like this. The only reason I was there
11:29
Speaker 1: is because my suitcase broke in London and I had
11:32
Speaker 1: to buy I had to buy a suitcase, and I
11:36
Speaker 1: just asked someone, Hey, do you know where I could
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Speaker 1: buy a suitcase? And this guy literally pointed in the
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Speaker 1: direction of Herod's and said, if they don't have it,
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Speaker 1: London doesn't have it.
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Speaker 3: That should be their tag line. Another prescient thing that
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Speaker 3: LESNIE did was they, you know, they really were trying
11:53
Speaker 3: to modernize their whole operation. So a guy named David
11:57
Speaker 3: Ya came in and he renamed the company you got
12:02
Speaker 3: rid of Lesnie, renamed it match Box International Limited, and
12:07
Speaker 3: they actually decided to send their manufacturing overseas. You know
12:11
Speaker 3: that we always think of made in China, and like,
12:14
Speaker 3: you know, outsourcing manufacturing for stuff like this and toys
12:17
Speaker 3: in particular places like China and Japan. They actually started
12:21
Speaker 3: with Hong Kong and Macau. But because there wasn't enough
12:26
Speaker 3: you know, this was still stuff that required some amount
12:28
Speaker 3: of machining skill, you know, or fabricating skill, they could
12:34
Speaker 3: not find a pool of skilled enough workers in those countries,
12:38
Speaker 3: so they decided to outsource their foundry operations to China,
12:43
Speaker 3: and this created the very first toy company joint venture
12:48
Speaker 3: between Hong Kong and Shanghai. It was called Shanghai Universal
12:52
Speaker 3: Toys Co.
12:53
Speaker 1: Limited. So let's get back to match Box. They expand
12:57
Speaker 1: further and now they're all about merchandizing. They realize that
13:02
Speaker 1: they have become what you would call nimble, right, they
13:05
Speaker 1: can expand across different platforms. They've made their deals with companies,
13:11
Speaker 1: they've heard what the audience wants, so now they're getting
13:14
Speaker 1: into other kinds of toys, dolls, games, action figures. The
13:19
Speaker 1: cars also get increasingly complex as manufacturing processes improve. You know,
13:25
Speaker 1: you see cars that have have mechanisms that the older
13:30
Speaker 1: cars didn't, like a lug on one of the wheels
13:33
Speaker 1: that can move parts like spinning fans or things like
13:36
Speaker 1: moving engines. Pretty cool stuff. They also have military vehicles
13:40
Speaker 1: that was the Battle King's Line. They have model ships
13:44
Speaker 1: and I've seen some of those, and those are pretty cool.
13:46
Speaker 1: If you want to look at those, go over to
13:49
Speaker 1: the Autopian th g A U T O Pia in
13:54
Speaker 1: the Autopian dot com and check out the article Matchbox
13:58
Speaker 1: celebrates seventy years of making tidy cars with these special
14:02
Speaker 1: zinc models by Mercedes Streeter. They're really well done and
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Speaker 1: if you are remotely into toy cars or know someone
14:09
Speaker 1: who is, this would be the fun part for you.
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Speaker 3: And I got a little ahead of myself earlier when
14:14
Speaker 3: I was talking about shipping the operations overseas, because that
14:16
Speaker 3: came as a result of some financial trouble that Matchbox
14:20
Speaker 3: or the Lesnie, the Lesnie corporation was having because the
14:23
Speaker 3: UK economically speaking, was not doing well in the mid
14:26
Speaker 3: to late seventies. The Matchbox cars were selling just fine,
14:30
Speaker 3: but Lesnie as a company was not doing well, and
14:32
Speaker 3: they ultimately went bankrupt. And this is in the early
14:36
Speaker 3: eighties and nineteen eighty two, so they actually sold their
14:39
Speaker 3: whole operation, or most of their production line, some of
14:42
Speaker 3: their molds, other properties. They had two universal toys and
14:46
Speaker 3: that gentleman David Ya. And that's when things start getting
14:49
Speaker 3: shipped overseas, and that whole Shanghai operation starts kicking.
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Speaker 1: And I want to stay on two to many for
14:58
Speaker 1: a bit because I re like this source. It's it's comprehensive,
15:03
Speaker 1: it's a really cool website. They also explore how hot
15:08
Speaker 1: wheels had their own kind of ups and downs during
15:11
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. The hot ones wheels were introduced in
15:16
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, they had painted hubs and they had
15:21
Speaker 1: thinner axles all to the thinner axles primarily to give
15:25
Speaker 1: them more speed. In nineteen eighty three they released another line,
15:29
Speaker 1: the Real Riders, and I love how dramatic their toy
15:32
Speaker 1: line names are. These were the first Hot Wheels toys
15:36
Speaker 1: with rubber tires, and people liked them. People really liked them.
15:42
Speaker 1: But the problem was this is a business and they
15:44
Speaker 1: weren't making enough money. So the line was halted in
15:48
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven because it just costs so much to
15:51
Speaker 1: make those toys.
15:53
Speaker 3: And here we see kind of some drama in the
15:57
Speaker 3: big car industry, you know, the regular size ones, kind
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Speaker 3: of bleeding into problems with the miniature car world. General
16:04
Speaker 3: Motors is about to release their new Corvette, but are
16:08
Speaker 3: experiencing some technical issues on the production line, so the
16:13
Speaker 3: release of the Corvette is actually delayed. But Hot Wheels
16:17
Speaker 3: at this point was already designing the miniature version of it,
16:21
Speaker 3: and it actually ended up getting released before the GM
16:25
Speaker 3: car was officially released. This did not sit well with
16:29
Speaker 3: General Motors. You think they would have discussed this, but
16:32
Speaker 3: it maybe was an issue of production and they needed
16:34
Speaker 3: to get it out to recoup on you know, the
16:36
Speaker 3: production costs. They were ready to go so General Motors actually,
16:40
Speaker 3: But then again how they canceled their whole contract with
16:43
Speaker 3: Mattel for them to license, you know, because these are
16:45
Speaker 3: these kinds of recreations are licensed, if they're having official
16:48
Speaker 3: branding and all of that. You think that somebody at
16:51
Speaker 3: the toy company would have realized this was a bad move,
16:54
Speaker 3: big picture, right.
16:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And let's go back to Matchbox is Exodus
17:01
Speaker 1: from the UK. The first batch of Matchbox vehicles made
17:06
Speaker 1: in China comes out in nineteen eighty five. They're created
17:08
Speaker 1: in Macau, which is also famous for gambling. You could
17:12
Speaker 1: say Matchbox took a gamble, I suppose. And they do
17:15
Speaker 1: this for five years until nineteen ninety and then between
17:19
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety and nineteen ninety two they're produced under license
17:23
Speaker 1: by different company, Yong Thai Toys Company, and then they
17:26
Speaker 1: get bought by Tycho. And might date myself a bit here, folks,
17:32
Speaker 1: but I remember Tycho Toys growing up as the less
17:36
Speaker 1: expensive also ran toys in the Lego aisle. They made
17:40
Speaker 1: told a lot of stuff, but they also had the
17:42
Speaker 1: not quite Lego a lot of dump trucks and things, right,
17:45
Speaker 1: a lot of military stuff as well. Maybe we talked
17:48
Speaker 1: about Tycho for a little bit. Absolutely.
17:51
Speaker 3: Ticho was based in New Jersey, in a little city
17:55
Speaker 3: called Mount Laurel. They were originally focused on electric model trains,
18:02
Speaker 3: but as a lot of these companies ended up having
18:04
Speaker 3: to do, decided to pivot to other offerings, which was
18:09
Speaker 3: really crucial. And they're finding them finding success, you know, diversifying,
18:14
Speaker 3: which included their purchase of the Matchbox brand. But in
18:18
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven, Tycho Toys itself was acquired by guess who, Mattel.
18:25
Speaker 1: Ah Web, Yeah, well at time. And this means that
18:31
Speaker 1: Matchbox and Hot Wheels, who are once bitter rivals, are
18:35
Speaker 1: now in the same family together and strange bedfellows, right.
18:40
Speaker 1: It happens all the time at the heights of the
18:42
Speaker 1: corporate world, which is why so many things that appear
18:45
Speaker 1: to be different brands in your local grocery store are
18:48
Speaker 1: in fact owned by the same parent company. Mattel does
18:51
Speaker 1: something pretty brutal, pretty shark like. They start to strip
18:56
Speaker 1: the brand of assets, they sell off the kit division,
19:01
Speaker 1: and then they start downgrading the quality of the toys.
19:06
Speaker 1: These are known for being die cast metal vehicles, and
19:11
Speaker 1: now they're being replaced by plastic models, and they're making
19:15
Speaker 1: these non realistic vehicles that are generic brands so that
19:19
Speaker 1: they don't have to pay any kind of fee to
19:22
Speaker 1: a producer of a car. So they it's like in
19:26
Speaker 1: that awesome show thirty Rock where they have Janis Jorplin
19:29
Speaker 1: or whatever because j yeah, Jackie, that's the one. Because
19:33
Speaker 1: they can't afford the rights to Janice Joplin's story. So
19:37
Speaker 1: these guys are cutting costs by making stuff that's kind
19:40
Speaker 1: of like but not really a copy of a genuine car.
19:51
Speaker 1: Oh the collectors hate this, by the way. They are
19:53
Speaker 1: absolutely agast. Mattel says, oh, no, we hear you. We're
19:58
Speaker 1: going to make a few special releases. They only make
20:01
Speaker 1: a few and they only go out to the United States.
20:03
Speaker 1: So this is not enough for the Matchbox collectors.
20:06
Speaker 3: No, but this is certainly probably one of the things
20:09
Speaker 3: that led to an uptick in the you know, value
20:14
Speaker 3: of classic Matchbox cars, because I mean, they're you know, obviously,
20:18
Speaker 3: the original ones are going to retain their value no
20:20
Speaker 3: matter what. But this is a sea change for match Box,
20:23
Speaker 3: a dilution of the brand. They essentially bought it for
20:27
Speaker 3: the label and not for any of the actual you know,
20:30
Speaker 3: quality or skill that went into making those cars and
20:34
Speaker 3: sort of the care and attention to detail m M.
20:36
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. We also see that the collector said,
20:41
Speaker 1: this Hot Wheels line, what's happened into Hot Wheels. It's
20:44
Speaker 1: a crying shame. They're inferior, They're less attractive. And if
20:48
Speaker 1: you know any serious collectors of anything, you know, they
20:52
Speaker 1: have profound feelings about this sort of stuff. And they said,
20:56
Speaker 1: what if Mattel is going to do to match But
21:00
Speaker 1: they did the Hot Wheels, and Mittel says, look, everybody,
21:04
Speaker 1: calmed down, We hear you. These lines are going to
21:08
Speaker 1: produce their stuff independently. Matchbox is going to make more
21:12
Speaker 1: realistic vehicles, and the fantasy vehicles, the more anime stuff
21:17
Speaker 1: that's gonna always go to Hot Wheels. Yeah, it makes sense.
21:21
Speaker 3: I mean again, like focus on what the brands individually
21:24
Speaker 3: were known for in the first place. But as you know,
21:29
Speaker 3: corporations are wont to do. In two thousand and three,
21:32
Speaker 3: Mattel essentially went back on their word here or you know,
21:36
Speaker 3: did a little bit of pivoting of their own and
21:39
Speaker 3: created an entire line of Matchbox fantasy vehicles that did
21:44
Speaker 3: not go over well once again, and they did not
21:47
Speaker 3: sell well. There was a backlash and the line was
21:50
Speaker 3: very quickly canceled and pulled from Shells.
21:53
Speaker 1: Oh and the name wasn't that great? We got to
21:55
Speaker 1: say the name. These fantasy vehicles were called Ultra Heroes. Okay,
22:00
Speaker 1: sounds kind of like lazy writing, it does it does?
22:03
Speaker 1: I'm just yeah.
22:05
Speaker 3: But then you know, they got the message again again
22:08
Speaker 3: Mattel and decided to stick to what they had said
22:11
Speaker 3: and bring match Box back to their heyday of specifically
22:15
Speaker 3: you know, producing realistic, uh and more highly detailed you know,
22:21
Speaker 3: recreations of classic cars.
22:23
Speaker 1: And as we move on, we see that Mattel has
22:26
Speaker 1: controlled both brands on the market and they've tried to
22:31
Speaker 1: you know, differentiate them so that they can still make
22:34
Speaker 1: money off either consumer preference. And there are people who
22:39
Speaker 1: are consider themselves specifically Matchbox collectors, some who say I'm
22:44
Speaker 1: solely a hot wheelers person, and then there are a
22:47
Speaker 1: lot of people who like both of them, or like
22:50
Speaker 1: particular cars from both lines. And then because it's collecting
22:55
Speaker 1: and because there's some kind of rivalry, there are people
22:59
Speaker 1: who get at each other, you know, sometimes a fan
23:04
Speaker 1: of Matchbox will look down their nose at a fan
23:10
Speaker 1: of Hot Wheels and they will have intense conversations about
23:14
Speaker 1: how one is the superior die Cast toy car. Weird hill.
23:19
Speaker 1: It's a weird hill, but you know they are passionate,
23:23
Speaker 1: and I do respect passion. Yeah, for sure. Me.
23:25
Speaker 3: Collectors are always gonna, you know, have certain beefs about
23:29
Speaker 3: these sorts of things. Ben, there is another player in
23:34
Speaker 3: this game that we kind of haven't talked about that
23:36
Speaker 3: I think, both of us being late eighty early nineties
23:40
Speaker 3: kids micro machines.
23:43
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Maxim, we're talking about this off air.
23:48
Speaker 1: I love the micromachine guy because the main thing is
23:50
Speaker 1: how quickly he talks, and it seems off the cuff,
23:52
Speaker 1: but I know it's carefully scripted. It even faster than
23:54
Speaker 1: this I do.
23:56
Speaker 3: That does kind of bring about what I remember specifically though,
23:59
Speaker 3: was the way they were featured in Home Alone. In
24:04
Speaker 3: like I believe, nineteen ninety, he used all of his
24:07
Speaker 3: his micromachines to create like a trap, one of those
24:11
Speaker 3: really sadistic traps. Let's be honest that that kid, who
24:15
Speaker 3: is definitely a little psychopath lays for the.
24:17
Speaker 1: Wet Bandits who are bad people. Don't get me wrong,
24:20
Speaker 1: but that kid is like, you know, Damien from The Omen.
24:24
Speaker 1: I mean, that is a troubled child. Who knew that
24:27
Speaker 1: the Kulkin brothers would make such a career out of
24:32
Speaker 1: portraying troubled children. Shout out to you, Roman Roy. Did
24:36
Speaker 1: you watch the latest episode? Ben? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
24:39
Speaker 1: I've got it on the background. I tune in and
24:42
Speaker 1: tune out to my favorite plotlines.
24:44
Speaker 3: Well, I mean there's a Roman Roy moment in this
24:48
Speaker 3: most recent penultimate episode of Succession.
24:50
Speaker 1: That got me real good. How are they going to
24:54
Speaker 1: rapid performance? So that thing?
24:56
Speaker 3: That and it really feels like it's heading in a direction.
24:58
Speaker 3: I mean it's very Shakespearean stuff. Oh yeah, I mean
25:01
Speaker 3: good Lord. You know, I think McCauley's doing his thing,
25:04
Speaker 3: playing in the Pizza underground.
25:06
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if he's doing that anymore, but.
25:07
Speaker 3: For a while he had a band and played Velvet
25:10
Speaker 3: Underground kind of parody songs with pizza fide lyrics. Wasn't
25:13
Speaker 3: very good, but I hope he's happy. He seems like
25:15
Speaker 3: he's kicking around. But man, Rory's a great actor. And yeah, definitely,
25:22
Speaker 3: Kieran is absolutely killing it in succession. But micro machines
25:27
Speaker 3: were in fact the top selling cars during the tail
25:30
Speaker 3: end of the eighties and into the beginning of the nineties.
25:33
Speaker 1: But then they kind of went.
25:34
Speaker 3: Away themselves and left the old school players to duke
25:38
Speaker 3: it out.
25:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were cheap if you think look at the
25:43
Speaker 1: per unit cost if you're a parent who wants to
25:45
Speaker 1: get your kid a toy. But there are also a
25:47
Speaker 1: lot of them. They're very collectible, and that meant that
25:51
Speaker 1: kids were asking their parents to buy them a lot
25:54
Speaker 1: of micro machines, not just one. The manufacturers knew it.
25:58
Speaker 1: You could fit hundreds of these into a toy box.
26:01
Speaker 1: And the I want to shout out the ads John Moshita,
26:05
Speaker 1: he is the he at the time in the late eighties,
26:09
Speaker 1: very beginning of the nineties. He is the fastest talking
26:14
Speaker 1: man in the world. Get congratulations to John.
26:19
Speaker 3: He could do all those like disclaimers at the end
26:21
Speaker 3: of like pharmaceutical ads today.
26:23
Speaker 1: That's maybe that's very fun.
26:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, but before the advent of digital editing where you
26:28
Speaker 3: could speed everything up. But micro machines were also really
26:32
Speaker 3: really small. They were smaller than matchbox cars or hot wheels.
26:37
Speaker 3: Hence the you know, using them as a death trap
26:41
Speaker 3: for the Wet Bandits.
26:42
Speaker 1: They also had playsets. There was even a line. I
26:45
Speaker 1: never had these, but there was a line of micromachines
26:48
Speaker 1: that had smaller cars inside of them, like that Decepticon
26:52
Speaker 1: in the Transformers toys. Who is a boombox and he's
26:56
Speaker 1: got a little bad guy inside of him. That's a
26:57
Speaker 1: cassette tape. I always thought that was cool.
27:00
Speaker 3: By the way, the company that created micro machines had
27:04
Speaker 3: the best name in the whole story, Glube.
27:07
Speaker 1: I remember Galube, and I remember Glube because of micro
27:10
Speaker 1: machines and another big Glube. I don't know why this
27:13
Speaker 1: sounds like weird soprano mobster lives, but another big Galute.
27:17
Speaker 1: Another another Big Glube was the infamous game Genie and
27:23
Speaker 1: video game Hacks deserve an episode all their own. Perhaps
27:27
Speaker 1: that's for future tale.
27:29
Speaker 3: I never actually got it, but I always I subscribed
27:31
Speaker 3: to Nintendo Power for a while when I was a kid,
27:33
Speaker 3: and I remember that being commercial on TV a lot,
27:35
Speaker 3: and they always had full page ads in Nintendo Power.
27:39
Speaker 3: But I never actually messed up. It was like a
27:40
Speaker 3: cartridge that you'd stick into the system, and then you'd
27:43
Speaker 3: stick the other cartridge into that cartridge, yes, and it
27:46
Speaker 3: would hack the game or give you sheets and stuff.
27:49
Speaker 3: I'm sure that the game companies didn't care for it particularly.
27:51
Speaker 1: The coolest part was it was also kind of glitchy,
27:55
Speaker 1: so sometimes you would find yourself in weird, weird parts
27:59
Speaker 1: of the game that weren't supposed to happen, and the
28:01
Speaker 1: malfunctions were one of the most fun parts. Hasbro buys
28:06
Speaker 1: Glube in nineteen ninety eight, and Glub still exists today,
28:10
Speaker 1: but it's under the pairing company Hasbro, and like.
28:13
Speaker 3: We said, Hot Wheels then kind of regain its place
28:17
Speaker 3: at the top of the market with Matchbox sort of
28:20
Speaker 3: just tucked in there, you know, for the collectors. But
28:24
Speaker 3: I think the modern Matchbox cars don't have nearly the
28:28
Speaker 3: same cachet as the classic ones to collectors out there.
28:31
Speaker 1: So that's kind of a story, man. That is the story.
28:35
Speaker 1: And if we want a moral, if moral there shall be,
28:39
Speaker 1: then the moral of this story is the following. I
28:42
Speaker 1: want everyone to hear this in all caps italics, you know,
28:46
Speaker 1: comic sans font Save your toys. Save your toys. You
28:52
Speaker 1: never know how much they're going to be worth or whatever,
28:55
Speaker 1: and more importantly, save them so that your kids can
28:59
Speaker 1: play with them in the future. It's a truly cool thing.
29:03
Speaker 1: Thanks pay for their college or pay for their college.
29:05
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to super producer mister Max Williams. Thanks
29:09
Speaker 1: to Alex Williams who composed this bang in track. Thanks
29:12
Speaker 1: to our research associate, doctor Zach can't wait to see
29:15
Speaker 1: what is toy car collection looks like, and you know
29:17
Speaker 1: I've been thanks to you as well.
29:20
Speaker 3: This has been an interesting ride on the loop d
29:23
Speaker 3: loop course of the ridiculous history life.
29:28
Speaker 1: And thanks to you know, we'll see you next time, folks.
29:37
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
29:41
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.