Latest / Ridiculous History / We Got Super Into Toy Cars, Part One: Matchbox versus Hot Wheels

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We Got Super Into Toy Cars, Part One: Matchbox versus Hot Wheels · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories the production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
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  Speaker 1: tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man, the Myth,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the Legend, Max two Computers, Williams. Let's hear it for
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  Speaker 1: the other miss men and Legends. We've got Noel Brown.
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  Speaker 1: I am Ben Bullen. Noel. This is one that's been
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  Speaker 1: a long time in our docket. We're talking about toy
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  Speaker 1: cars and did you ever have any of those like
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  Speaker 1: racetrack sets where they do the little loop de loop
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  Speaker 1: and so on.
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  Speaker 2: I had friends I think that had them, and I
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  Speaker 2: would you know, like I had a neighbor in my
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  Speaker 2: Neighborhoodhre I grew up whose parents were doctors, so they
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  Speaker 2: always had like the newest, coolest stuff, and they had
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  Speaker 2: like a whole upstairs that was just entirely this massive
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  Speaker 2: play room. So they had all that kind of stuff
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  Speaker 2: that I never really got. I was more of a
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  Speaker 2: he man Masters of the Universe and eventually Ninja Turtles
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  Speaker 2: kind of kid.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe so Joe's crept in there, Army crawled in there, but.
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  Speaker 1: Well, they had so many points of articulation. They were
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  Speaker 1: an excellent action figure.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean superior to he Man. He Man was
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  Speaker 2: just like weird stiff arms that you could just.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of I think shoulders and hips could move.
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  Speaker 2: I think the hips could swivel because it would let
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  Speaker 2: you do like kind of like punches.
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  Speaker 1: You known my seat, He's like turning around with the
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  Speaker 1: sword like uh huh, you almost got me.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there was definitely a figure where his mid section
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  Speaker 2: was like spring loaded and you could hit a button.
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  Speaker 2: You could like cock it and then hit a button
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  Speaker 2: in the back like swing and that was like its
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  Speaker 2: special bower. There were tons of those. I had the
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  Speaker 2: he Man figures. I had some she Raw figures because
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  Speaker 2: my parents wanted me to not think that the he
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  Speaker 2: Man universe was just dudes. And I never understood why
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  Speaker 2: she was she raw instead of like she woman. It's
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  Speaker 2: a good question. I would have loved to be a
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  Speaker 2: fly on the wall in that pitch meeting. But it's
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  Speaker 2: just funny. That was also the time of like highly
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  Speaker 2: gendered toys. Oh now for like I mean practically blue
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  Speaker 2: is for boys, pink as for girls. Kind of thinking
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  Speaker 2: behind the marketing of these things.
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  Speaker 1: So Matchbox versus hot wheels, that is h This is
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  Speaker 1: probably going to be a two parter. Folks, we have
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  Speaker 1: a heck of a story to tell you. If you
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  Speaker 1: ever loved playing with those toy cars, or if you,
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  Speaker 1: like Nol grew up with someone who had the the
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  Speaker 1: whole racetrack setup. It's a lot like another version of
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  Speaker 1: model trains, which are pal Max's an expert on. You know,
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  Speaker 1: some some kids had these entire racetracks set about a room.
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  Speaker 1: You know, they've got the loop de loops, they got
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  Speaker 1: the wall.
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  Speaker 2: That's like the room I was describing they had was
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  Speaker 2: all just hardwood floor as far as I could see,
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  Speaker 2: and you could set up an entire universe of tracks
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  Speaker 2: in that place, and they all linked together, and you
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  Speaker 2: could add the little kind of junction points that were
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  Speaker 2: different things.
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  Speaker 3: It's a whole vibe.
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  Speaker 1: So our story starts today with two veterans of the
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  Speaker 1: British Naval Forces, Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith. They are
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  Speaker 1: not related they I know, I know, I know, clear, I.
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  Speaker 3: Mean, there were the probably a lot of Smiths in
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  Speaker 3: the Yukas. Still aren't Smith popular, you know what I mean?
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  Speaker 3: The lastmist last time's actually Smith.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I could tell by the way you move.
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  Speaker 3: No, I'm just kidding. I like that.
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  Speaker 2: That's very mysterious, not to speaking for you with Smyth,
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  Speaker 2: you know, because you've got your Patti Smith, and then
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  Speaker 2: you've got your Patty Smyth and never the twain shall
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  Speaker 2: meet Smith does have a y in it, but you
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  Speaker 2: know that's probably more the old English spelling. But the
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  Speaker 2: two of these fellas, Leslie and Rodney, they met during
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  Speaker 2: their time in World War Two, when they, like you said,
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  Speaker 2: were in the Royal Navy. After the war concluded, decided
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  Speaker 2: to start a company which they very cleverly sort of portmanteau.
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  Speaker 2: Their name favors one of them over the other a bit,
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  Speaker 2: but it was called Lesnie Products.
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  Speaker 1: Otherwise it would be rod Laie, Yeah right, rod Lee.
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  Speaker 2: Rod Less les Anyway, this is the folks who were
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  Speaker 2: walking through it.
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  Speaker 1: Leslie, first three letters of that, Rodney, last three letters
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  Speaker 1: of that, Lesnie.
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  Speaker 2: I guess I'm just saying that the les part is
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  Speaker 2: just a little more striking than the knee part. I
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  Speaker 2: actually had to do a retake because I initially just
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  Speaker 2: said it was named Leslie. When you look at it
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  Speaker 2: on paper, that favors that name. But they started this company.
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  Speaker 2: Whatever the providence of the name in Hackney, which is
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  Speaker 2: a burrow of London's of like Queens to New York
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  Speaker 2: and all of that. And it would specialize in fabricating, right,
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  Speaker 2: like die casting parts that could be used in various
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  Speaker 2: you know workmen like vehicular functions like agriculture or just cars.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they did a lot of stuff. It's interesting because
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  Speaker 1: if you study the evolution of most major automobile manufacturers,
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  Speaker 1: you see that they already typically have a background in
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  Speaker 1: manufacturing something like the people who make the bicycles say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: we know how to make tires. Let's do you know,
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  Speaker 1: let's do cars.
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  Speaker 3: How tough can it be? Machining or fabricating right? And
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  Speaker 3: it's also funny.
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  Speaker 2: We'll probably get to this in a bit, but a
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  Speaker 2: lot of companies that went on to become toy companies
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  Speaker 2: got their start and making parts for other stuff. Oh,
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  Speaker 2: it's all about having this setup, having the infrastructure, and
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  Speaker 2: then pivoting right.
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  Speaker 1: All praise due to nintend Do, which started I think
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  Speaker 1: manufacturing playing cards. So we want to give a big
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  Speaker 1: shout out to Matt Reigel over at grunge dot com
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  Speaker 1: with his work what happened to matchbox Cars? Before we
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  Speaker 1: get to that, we have to explain how Matchbox not
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  Speaker 1: Matchbook cars came to be. As we're saying, Lesnie Products
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  Speaker 1: is a machining interest, and they they do weird innovations
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  Speaker 1: that may not sound like a big deal now, Like
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  Speaker 1: they squish bread such that you can put it on
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  Speaker 1: a fish hook more easily, which I guess was a
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  Speaker 1: big deal.
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  Speaker 3: I guess that tiny divide.
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  Speaker 2: I don't understand this, Like gay, you just binch off
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  Speaker 2: a piece of bread and squish it and put it
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  Speaker 2: on the fish. What does this tiny device look like?
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  Speaker 2: I'm trying to We're so close to making lunchables, right.
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  Speaker 2: So this company, Lesnie Products, they rent out part of
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  Speaker 2: their facility to a guy named Jack O'Dell, an engineer.
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  Speaker 2: Eventually he joins the company. He started as a pop
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  Speaker 2: up and now he became part of the industry. Do
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  Speaker 2: you think it's neat though, that they had in these days?
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  Speaker 2: I guess there would be sometimes a little startup mentality,
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  Speaker 2: you know, to something because we've got all this stuff,
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  Speaker 2: we only need this much to meet to you know,
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  Speaker 2: meet our quota for our production. Let's rent out this part,
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  Speaker 2: you know too. I mean maybe this is like super
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  Speaker 2: common and I'm like romanticizing it. But it is kind
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  Speaker 2: of neat to think that like a company like this
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  Speaker 2: would ultimately end up being an incubator.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I think it's cool. Yeah, and that's a
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  Speaker 1: good word, incubator. Yeah. So soon after Lesnie is founded,
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  Speaker 1: they receive these orders, uh to machine parts for a
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  Speaker 1: small toy gun. They said, Okay, usually we're above it,
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  Speaker 1: but money is money. If we don't have a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of orders coming in from big industries, then we'll work
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  Speaker 1: on whatever kind of stuff we can get. We got
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  Speaker 1: to keep the lights on, We got to pay the
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  Speaker 1: people who work here. The pivot is coming right, The
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  Speaker 1: pivot is on the way, just like that guy who
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  Speaker 1: figured out chewing gum. So Lesnie looks into the toy
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  Speaker 1: market and in nineteen forty eight, that engineer we mentioned earlier,
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  Speaker 1: Jack O'Dell, he designs Lesnie's first Lesnie made toy. It's
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  Speaker 1: an Avelen Barford road roller. It's a direct copy of
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  Speaker 1: a toy car. Oh uh, do you guys know what
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  Speaker 1: an Avelen Barford is.
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  Speaker 2: It's really but it's very barfee sounding. That's hard, that
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  Speaker 2: does not roll right off the time, but.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds like a specifically it sounds like a British
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  Speaker 1: euphemism for a specific type of fart.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, well, or it just it makes me think of,
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  Speaker 2: you know, having won too many pints at the pub
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  Speaker 2: and then you have to barford. But this does your
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  Speaker 2: right though, all that aside, it sounds like an intensely
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  Speaker 2: British vehicle.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. They were an engineering company, so they made the
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  Speaker 1: kind of stuff you would see in road traffic construction,
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  Speaker 1: big trucks, basically the big orange yellow construction trucks. And
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  Speaker 1: this other toy manufacturer, Dinky Toy, was the leader in
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  Speaker 1: manufacturing toy cars at the time, and Lesnie, if we're
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  Speaker 1: being honest, kind of plagiarized them.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, I just occurred to me that this,
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  Speaker 2: I think is kind of a parallel story to the
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  Speaker 2: story we recently did on Japanese toys, and again kind
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  Speaker 2: of companies that were making things for the war effort
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  Speaker 2: pivoting to making copies of popular war vehicles and then
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  Speaker 2: you know, going on from there and using I believe
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  Speaker 2: tin cans and things like that that were left over
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  Speaker 2: from the war effort to make those.
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  Speaker 1: And they grow with great success. It's nineteen fifty one
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  Speaker 1: and one of the founders decides to leave the company.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe you're onto something nold because the knee of Lesnie
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  Speaker 1: Rodney Smith is the one who leaves. The Lesnie Corporation
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  Speaker 1: keeps the name. They continue with their work. Their next
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  Speaker 1: toy is the Coronation Coach, a mini tour model celebrating
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  Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth's coronation as Queen of England in June of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three. That's so crazy because all of the
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  Speaker 1: three of us listening were just Americans while the queen
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  Speaker 1: was the Queen of England.
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  Speaker 3: She's always kind of been the queen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, It's just always there. He just always knew that
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  Speaker 1: one fact about that country, and now it's changed.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean for even for us though, it
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  Speaker 2: never even occurred to me that there was like an event,
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  Speaker 2: just you know, since she was just always the queen.
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  Speaker 1: She was there since the island form.
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  Speaker 4: Precisely, I have to be completely honest. I don't know
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  Speaker 4: the name of the king, the guy who the coronation
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  Speaker 4: just happens.
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  Speaker 2: Charles is Charles, Okay, I was gonna say Philip famous
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  Speaker 2: Charles with the ears, you know, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: You know, but I'm sitting here like light right now
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  Speaker 3: doing it live, and I'm like, it's not Philip, that
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  Speaker 3: was her husband.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, no, it's not Harry.
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  Speaker 3: That's the one who's Carson Wentz in disguise.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well Knowle's right, it's Charles. He goes by snake
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  Speaker 1: bite with his friends. Obviously, Okay, cool, he's a tough customer.
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  Speaker 2: But you know it's crazy, Like think about like selling
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  Speaker 2: merch and an event like that. You know, you've ever
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  Speaker 2: been to a giant concert and there's like people selling
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  Speaker 2: like bootleg T shirts outside and stuff. I mean, there
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  Speaker 2: is money to be made around events like this. So
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  Speaker 2: Leslie essentially just totally keys into this exact thing and
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  Speaker 2: hits pay dirt by having the coronation coach like coming
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  Speaker 2: out in sync with this event. It's like feeding frenzy
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  Speaker 2: of an event. Just think about how crazy Americans go
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  Speaker 2: for royal stuff, you know, around either a coronation or
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  Speaker 2: a royal wedding or what have you.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, in the country. This is an absolute feeding frenzy.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a beautiful idea and they do a
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  Speaker 1: tremendous job with it. If we look at how these
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  Speaker 1: cars begin, then we're going to need to jump around
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  Speaker 1: a little bit hashtag no criss cross. That is an
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  Speaker 1: old school hip hop joke. All right, Fie missed the bus,
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  Speaker 1: Yeah right. And so the world's first mass market tiny
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  Speaker 1: toy cars date back to nineteen fifty two, which is
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  Speaker 1: kind of weird because we of course know that the
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  Speaker 1: automobile was around way before that. The idea for mass
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  Speaker 1: market tiny cars comes from exploiting a loophole. If you
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  Speaker 1: were a school kid back in the early nineteen fifties,
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  Speaker 1: you could only go to school with toys that were
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  Speaker 1: small enough to fit inside a matchbox. So LESNI keeping
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  Speaker 1: their eye on this, they say, hey, we already have
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  Speaker 1: economy of scale. We can make a car that can
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  Speaker 1: fit inside a match box.
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  Speaker 3: Oh totally.
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  Speaker 2: And they sold over a million of those Coronation coaches
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  Speaker 2: so they were rare and to go. So essentially, just
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  Speaker 2: like you know, I don't know if this is a
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  Speaker 2: national policy, Like it seems like the kind of thing
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  Speaker 2: that would be, you know, a specific principles idea, you know,
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  Speaker 2: things like in certain school districts where the length of
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  Speaker 2: a skirt is regulated. But I guess this whole matchbox
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  Speaker 2: thing was nationwide and they kind of like caught wind
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  Speaker 2: of it. And we're like, okay, dude, there's a super
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  Speaker 2: creepy story about it. So we introduced Jack O'Dell. Jack
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  Speaker 2: Odell the engineer who started working in a pop up
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  Speaker 2: at the space and then joined the company.
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  Speaker 1: Right. He has a daughter, and his daughter has a
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  Speaker 1: thing that she loves to do at school, and she
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  Speaker 1: gets in trouble for it. She takes the matchbox rule
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  Speaker 1: for toys and instead of bringing toys to school, she
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  Speaker 1: brings spiders to what.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's an amazing is she like a Wednesday Adams
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  Speaker 2: type figure.
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  Speaker 1: I dream of that.
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  Speaker 3: She's wearing like black lace.
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  Speaker 2: Dresses like every Oh my goodness, this is the Gothis
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  Speaker 2: thing I've ever heard go on.
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  Speaker 1: So little goth Odell is bringing spiders to school. The
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  Speaker 1: school marm, we can imagine, does not love this, and
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  Speaker 1: so jack Odell, her father says, Okay, I'm gonna make
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  Speaker 1: you a little car, and he makes her a little
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  Speaker 1: a tiny replica of a steamroller like you would see
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  Speaker 1: on construction site right, paving roads. And the steamroller is
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  Speaker 1: made of brass, it's painted red and green, and his daughter,
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  Speaker 1: he likes it, and she shows it off to her friends,
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  Speaker 1: assuming she still had friends despite her clear track record
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  Speaker 1: of throwing spiders at children. She had some friends who
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  Speaker 1: I guess were happy that it was a steamroller instead
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  Speaker 1: of a spider. They were also impressed. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: if you can get a kid doing something that impresses
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  Speaker 1: other children, I have it, like.
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  Speaker 2: I have to have the thing, you know. That's how
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  Speaker 2: Pokemon works. I love though. There's this New York Times
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  Speaker 2: article by Douglas Martin, and there's an amazing kind of
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  Speaker 2: characterization of what Odell's thinking was behind this, that it
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  Speaker 2: was just right for a child's hand, but hard to swallow,
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  Speaker 2: no batteries, violence, free, quiet, and costing just pennies to make.
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  Speaker 2: These are all winners. These are all checking the box
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  Speaker 2: of capitalism right here, my friends. Yeah, hard to swallow,
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  Speaker 2: that's the most important.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not like they cannot swallow it, but it's
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  Speaker 4: they would really, you know, yeah, it would exist.
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  Speaker 1: It's like water resistant or fire resistant. So in just
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  Speaker 1: the space of one year, the steamroller and various iterations
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  Speaker 1: of this vehicle are selling like hotcakes. Lesnie had set
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  Speaker 1: up a small factory inside an abandoned bar in London,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: inside an abandoned London pub called The Riflemen, and after
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  Speaker 1: they made the steamroller and that caught on, they made
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  Speaker 1: a land rover. Then they made one of those iconic
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: London buses. They made a bulldozer, they made a fire truck.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty four, they already had made nineteen different vehicles,
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  Speaker 1: and their ninth teenth one was a MGTD roadster. This
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  Speaker 1: is considered the first match Box car, and they looked good.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought up the earlier example of
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  Speaker 1: the Japanese toy manufacturing industry.
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  Speaker 2: It's really interesting how like the name of a legacy
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  Speaker 2: company that we just accept as having like always been
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  Speaker 2: around can spring from something so random, you know, like
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  Speaker 2: Matchbox cars. We think of that as you know, we
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: see the logo with the like the racing stripe and
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: the little kind of flaming out thing like that. It's
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: like a ribbon, and you picture the tiny cars, and
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  Speaker 2: it just makes sense, you know, Oh, it's match Box
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  Speaker 2: like like it's small.
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  Speaker 3: I get it.
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  Speaker 2: But that kind of branding often isn't just like it
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  Speaker 2: comes from some weird occurrence, and I think.
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  Speaker 3: That this is a perfect example of that.
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  Speaker 1: Agreed. Agreed, I mean they were also pretty well made.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it comes from machining. I mean, these are
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  Speaker 2: made of metal. These things are like damn near indestructible.
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  Speaker 2: They're the bane of the existence of parents because if
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  Speaker 2: you step on one of those, like heel down, not
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  Speaker 2: only is it gonna hurt, but you might slip and
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  Speaker 2: fall down the stairs to your death.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a rolling lado. Yeah, so Odell, if we
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  Speaker 1: could talk about some of the production quality. Jack Odell
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  Speaker 1: has designed machines at this point entirely created to make
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  Speaker 1: these tiny toy cars. There's one machine. All it does
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  Speaker 1: it spray paints tiny silver headlights on the models. There's
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  Speaker 1: another one. All it does is bang out the mold
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  Speaker 1: for the interiors. There are dashboard dials. This stuff is
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  Speaker 1: like scale model accurate. Some cars have more than one
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  Speaker 1: hundred parts. We're talking tiny, tiny, like not just tiny
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  Speaker 1: tiny windshield fibers, but little you know, ceiling hooks where
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  Speaker 1: you would hang uh oh yeah, like uh hang out,
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  Speaker 1: hang some laundry.
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  Speaker 2: And of course all this got dumbed down over time,
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  Speaker 2: you know. But I mean, can you imagine exactly the
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  Speaker 2: precision of this one hundred It's like watchmaker like level
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  Speaker 2: kind of precision.
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  Speaker 1: To Philip Petique of uh of tiny car toys. I
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: love it, man, I love it, and I can see
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Nola can crpl max here kind of maybe thinking about
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: model trains, no fence backs. I'm just in your head
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Well.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: And again not to jump too far ahead, but you know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: obviously this level of quality uh isn't going to last forever.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: But then it becomes part of this kind of bespoke
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: culture of like buying the perfectly you know, machined, exact
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: replica of like this particular train engine or whatever.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: So this is still a European phenomenon at this point.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Right until the very end of the nineteen fifties, there's
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: an up and coming guy in the York is very
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: madman in my head. His name's Fred Bonner, and he
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: takes over sales of the Lesnie Corporation in the United States,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and he says, I can sell them a car.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I see a market here, yeah, And so it hits
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: the American market around the end of the fifties, Like
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: you said, around sixty two, Matchbox is knocking a million
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: units out per week. And again, Douglas Martin, in this
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: New York Times article we cited points out that's more
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: than like real cars by a factor of a lot.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and can you imagine the social dynamics there too.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I think Odell in that nineteen sixty two period, which
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: again quoted by the New York Times article, he said,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: we produce more Rolls Royces in a single day than
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the Rolls Royce company is made in its entire history. Okay,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: it's apples, the l apples orange. It's a good it's good.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: It's a good quote though, it's it's great, it's very
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: it's very impressive.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I hope he was talking with the person interviewing him,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and I hope when he said that he picked up
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: a little toy car and made room room and just
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: sort of sailed it andross the table.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: And then the interviewer is like, what's your point, sir?
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly?
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: So I want to jump in here. No.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: I remember when we were doing the uh kind of
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: like the parallel story about the Japanese car toy industry.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: You you talked like they I guess they made like
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: a Lexus or something, and you're like, you know, there's
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: some guys like, hey, baby, you want to go see
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: my a Lexus?
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: You know, somebody did with one of these Rolls Royces
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: also like I got a Rolls Royce at home.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly at the time of the y. You know what,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: you never know, it could have still been impressive enough,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: you know, to seal the deal. It's like, because there
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: weren't that many of these, These were kind of remarkable
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: to behold.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: This was a new phenomenon.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: So like for someone to have this, they would have
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: had the kind of the hottest thing on the market
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: at the time.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, think of die Cast rocket and Space Shuttle
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: models during the Space Race. It's the same thing. You know,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you're a kid, dream big. So in nineteen sixty four,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Lesnie contacts our boy Fred Brauner and he has this
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: stack of matchbox cars that he's been selling, and they say, okay,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: we're going to buy those all back from you. Great
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: job Fred. Also, we think you're cool. Do you want
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: to work with us? Do you want to lead the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: US division of Lesnie products? And Fred says absolutely yes,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: And then they probably both take a little car and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: go in front of each other. And just to clarify
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: we were talking about this off air when we say
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: they bought stacks of matchbox cars back from Fred Brauner,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: he didn't have stock in the company. Remember these were
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: not available in the United States.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: He just got a.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Hold of a ton of them.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: He got a lot of products and yea product a
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: commodity for them. Hey, so now we have a market here,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: let's have those back that you fulfills our agreement, and
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: now we're gonna you know, move these units as it were.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And so with that in mind, we're being as objective
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: as possible. We are going to introduce you to the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: origins of hot wheels as well. There's a guy named
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Elliott Handler. He's one of the co founders of this
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: huge company, Mattel.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Again one of these legacy companies that just sort of
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: starts early, gets to the market first, and then becomes
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: so ubiquitous and associated with like everything big in the
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: toy world, including Barbie. They have spun off Fisher Price
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: at some point. They had connections with all of the
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: biggest like movie studios and tie ins you could possibly imagine,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: and I think pretty much contind you with that level
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: of you know, ownership of the marketplace to this day.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Mattel was a new kid on the block as well.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: They were founded in January of nineteen forty five out
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: on the West coast, and they were super into they
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: were super into multiple toy lines, so of course they
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: would get their spider sense about this Elliott Handler. He's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: running Mattel, he's a co founder, and he says, we're
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: going to make to your point about gender toys. He says,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: we're gonna make die cast toy cars for boys. And
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: he says, we've got a huge market for small car
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: models and it's dominated by these jokers across the Atlantic,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: these Matchbox people, and everybody else in the boardroom. To
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: be clear, everybody else in the Mattel boardroom is saying, Elliott, buddy,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we love you, you know we love you, but you're
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: being a schmuck. This is never gonna work. And he said,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: believe me when I co founded Mattel. YadA, YadA, YadA.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Whatever he said. It convinced them, and it turned out
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that Elliott Handler was right. The cars that Mattel created
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: were a huge success. They came out strong in nineteen
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: sixty eight with sixteen different models. And maybe we talked
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: about Handler. Maybe we talked about Elliott a little bit
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: because he he had a bit of a personal grudge,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I think because his grandson loved Matchbox cars.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: But like we were kind of hinting at earlier, Matchbox
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: at this point already was starting to get this reputation,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you know, rightfully so for being that kind of bespoke
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: collector's kind of old world sensibility of craft. You know,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: like precision tooled German toys, you know that kind of stuff,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Like they are very when you're mass marketing something, and
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: especially when the United States are concerned, things like that
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: tend to go out the window. It's more about like,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: how can we, you know, get rid of the human element,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: how can we make these things as reproducible on the
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: largest scale possible, Because let's remember, I mean, when you
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: know the Matchbox deal happened and we're talking about trading
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: stacks of cars, we're talking about a relatively finite supply.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Matchbox is. Matchbox is the og, the original gangster here,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and match Box is basing all of their stuff on
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: vehicles that already exist. Right These are two scale reproductions
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: of very important vehicles, singular cars, construction equipment, hot wheels.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Goes a little off the rails. They say, we're gonna
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: make these things that could be vehicles even if they
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: don't exist, we're gonna make one. They get brighter colors,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: put stickers on everything. They do, fantasy designs that are
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: kind of based on wild imaginings of hot rod culture.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Of course, and why wouldn't you, you know, but it
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: is really funny. It was just a difference in sort
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: of thinking around you know, those early matchbook cars, And
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: when we were talking about that, I was thinking, man
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: and a hot wheels car what I was used to,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: and I was a kid that would be a sticker,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: that wouldn't be like a machine tooled little engraving or
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: like an actual piece of thing that had to be made.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Hot wheels kind of essentially, like we said, sort of
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: dumbed down the idea, figured out how to make it
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: much more scalable, and also, you know, broke the box
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: of kind of creativity. It's like, how do we just
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: make this whatever we want.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: It to be?
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: And that's pretty attractive for a mass market for kids
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: who aren't necessarily interested in like a perfect Rolls Royce replica.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: But Noel, they were cool. They're so cool.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, Nerd Okay, you guys are both cool.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: You're both very cool. Uh, Benjamin, thank you Maxigaman. So
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: the thing is by saving costs, this is around the
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: time plastic is a big deal right in manufacturing. By
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: saving cost Hot Wheels also made a toy that was
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: more fun arguably, and it all goes back to the
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: tiny replicas of wheels. They used wider wheels manufactured of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: plastic versus the narrow metal wheels of the old school matchbox.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: This means that if you buy a Hot Wheels car,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: it's a kid's idea of a hot rod car. And
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: those plastic wheels right allow it to roll pretty freely,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Because plastic weighs less, there's less friction, it
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: picks up more speed. Also, they purposely design the wheel
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: with what's called a tamper, which allow like it makes
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: an angle such that a toy car, if you just
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: throw it roll it across a floor, it can glide
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in clean straight lines. And Mattel just kept all respect
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to you, guys, Mattel. Mattel just kept kind of failing
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: their way to the top of the toy car game.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: No, and that's the thing, Like it sounds like we're
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: nagging on the idea of like making something more accessible,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: and like sure, if you're someone who really appreciates collectors' items,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: and you know, the kinds of craftsmanship that goes into
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: stuff that's its own thing. But to make something that
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: like kind of capitalizes on the zeitgeist and like figured out,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: like what do kids really want?
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: There's something impressive about that, even if it is kind
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: of like evil.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Corporate, you know, marketing kind of stuff. I gotta give
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: them props. They figured out how to make a car
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: that truly did go zoom zoom, and then they started
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: to kind of go from there, and then they could
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: introduce all of these accessories and all of these other
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: things and all of these tie ins because they could
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: make their car whatever they wanted it to be.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: And speaking and failing up, like I was saying earlier,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Mattel had a bunch of stuff in the workshop, you know,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: things that never really got to the public, or maybe
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: even didn't get past drawing board phase. Earlier, pre late
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, Mattel had thought about creating a guitar, and
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the whole purpose of their mission with their guitar project
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: was to make a guitar that never went out of tune.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: They lost a ton of money on this.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: It's so funny.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: It never came out. It never came out.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: As a musician, like you know who always like how
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: would you? And also who cares? Just tune it, make
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a tuner instead of you're designing the wrong thing, Mattel,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: like it's never gonna happen, and like it's just again,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: how would you? How you made you and the weird
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: thing to glom onto and like make your whole like crusade.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: I'm just thinking, it's like how bad would those strings sound?
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: Like all your points is like completely correct, like that
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: just that's just not gonna happen.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: But let's play this.
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: You know, one in a billion they actually pulled this off,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: they'll probably be like the crappiest sounding strings. Very yes,
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: it sounds like a project made by somebody who's.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Not who doesn't understand music or any like just doesn't
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: get it, you know, Like.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's it's big producer energy. It's big executive producer energy. Right,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Someone's like, well, I love the ventures, but I hate
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: having to keep tuning my guitar.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And everything, big director energy.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: There we go. So here's the thing. Mattel absolutely craps
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the bed on this. The guitar never comes out and
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: they get far enough into this ideation process that they've
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: made a ton of this magical mystery guitar string wire
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: and they don't have anything to do with it. So
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: they decide, Hey, we're going to use these wires as
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the axles for our hot wheels, and that makes them
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: lighter than the matchbox toys, and it also allows the cars,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the toy cars to go much faster because there's less
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: weight involved. They've failed upwards yet again.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Ben, I know the answer for you. Max. Did you
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: ever do the Pinewood Derby? Oh? Yeah, absolutely, it did
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: a four or five years I think. Yeah. Did you
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: elementary school?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I didn't stick around after elementary school though I didn't.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I knew boy Scouts. I didn't Cub scouts you were
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: too cool.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Well, but I believe you made it all through the
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: ranks of we below boy Scout, Cup Scout, et cetera,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: and whatever order that happens. I didn't make a past
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Cub Scout, but I did have the privilege of competing
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: in the Pinewood Derby. And for those that don't know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: it's you know, a race down a you know, a
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: standardized kind of hill track with this like car kit
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: that you make, and I just remember and want to
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: get y'all's opinion. Was it cheating to put coins on
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: the bottom.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: It was cheating. It is cheating. Yeah, to weight the
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: front of the vehicle is cheating.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: So the way you get speed is by whittling it
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: in a certain way or like carving it down making
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: it as aerodynamic as possible.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, the ethical way to cheat with the distribution of
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: weight would it would all depend on the type of
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: wood that you use to create the vehicle. I'm sorry,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the ethical way to cheat, the ethical way to Jeez
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: derby fair enough? Okay, well, but again that's all kind
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: of as a result of this type of energy, you know,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: like the idea of let's make a small thing that
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: we can make go really fast and then we can
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: like have you know, kids like racing each other. Yeah,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: And so imagine you are a department store of the time, right,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: You're a Sears, Roebuck or whatever. In this case, Kmart,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: which used to be a fairly like popular department store.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't know how many are around today,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: but Kmart decide Oh, Max says there are three. Max
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: is nodding, okay, oh right, you're gonna stay on mute.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: There are not many kmarts. They are an endangered corporate
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: species at the very least. But back in the day,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Kmart was one of the big US distributors that choose
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: between the p seeing coke of Matchbox versus Hot Wheels.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: They chose Hot Wheels, and they did it because they
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: watched versions of both toys on a plastic track and
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: they said, Wow, the Hot Wheels car performs better than
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the Matchbox car. That thing just kind of does and
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: then yeah, and then steers the wrong way, et cetera.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And after this meeting, actually before they leave the meeting,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: they have a handshake deal that says Mattel will sell
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: fifty million Hot Wheels cars to Kmart.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Also, I want to jump in here. I actually went
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: and looked it up.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: There twenty Kmart retail stores last the United States, four
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: of which are in the US Virgin Islands. Twenty percent
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: of the k Marts in America are in the US
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: virgini Isles.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Let's do the sound, cue the phone backs and peacefull
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: in log it's just for you right now with.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: The fat which one is that?
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Back to the backs?
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Of course, I thought you met like corporate mouthfeasans we
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: need a sound cue for that as well, And I'm sorry,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: I just want to backtrack to my Pinewood Derby aside.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: One second.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Nineteen fifty three was when that first race took place,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: so that would have been parallel to kind of what
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: was going on with.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: It's in the zeitgeist exactly. Can you imagine being a
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: kid in the nineteen fifties or nineteen sixties and you say,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I've been so good, all I want for my birthday
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: is a matchbox or a Hot Wheels car, and your
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: parents say, we got you a pocket knife, here's a stick.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Do your best. Yeah, take that with you to school
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: on a show until day.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Honestly, you'd probably be better off with the pocket
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: knife because you could learn to fend yourself.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: And they can do all sorts of the impending apocalypse.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: But you know, messbox cars and hot wheels were fun,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: and we're into now like nineteen sixty eight. I think
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: they made sixteen different releases, right.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. Yeah. The first hot wheels car to hit
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the market was the custom Camaro. And then if you
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: are a collector of hot wheels vehicles or toys, I
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: should say then you know those first sixteen releases as
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the quote unquote Sweet sixteen. They are identified by the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: red stripe on the tires. There were also you know,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: various accoutrement in paraphernalia that came out tracks, different sets.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: You could you know, you could like race them around
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: and so on. They became a massive success to your
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: earlier point, Noel, and this success, the gravity of it,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't all trumpets and angel farts for everybody. There
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: was one guy who worked at Mattel named Harry Bentley Bradley,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: who came from the actual car industry, and he said, okay, Mattel,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: good game, good game. I'm going back to work on
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: actual cars. And when the company asked him to rejoin
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Mattel and they said, hey, we've got something really special
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: going on with these hot wheels, he said, not me,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: but I know a guy. Here's my friend, Ira Guilford.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: He can help you design hot wheels cars.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Because he had just left Chrysler, an actual facts auto manufacturer,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: and he shout out Laura and vogelahm Baker him at
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: the top of the Chrysler building. What do you mean
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: actual facts, Oh, actual facts? Sorry, I thought it was
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: anti reference. I don't know why I think of a
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: musical theater when in the conversation no reason whatsoever. We
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: love you, Lauren, But yeah, I mean this. The guy
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: understands design in the first place, so I would think
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: maybe though coming from Chrysler, he might be more of
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: that kind of matchbox mind of like you know, making
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: like you know, replicas of actual cars, or he might
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: have that more philosophy in mind. But you know, if
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: you pay someone the right amount of money, they can
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: like pivot as well.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: M sure. Yeah, and the the aesthetics apply equally, as
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: I would argue, right. So, so our buddy Ira takes
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the job of designing the next generation of Hot Wheels models.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Some of the coolest cars that Hot Wheels comes out with,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: at least according to collectors, are from Ira Guilford's mind.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: He makes the twin Mill, he makes the Splitten image.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: He's great names.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: They are great names, right, and they're gathering Mattella's gathering
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: a cadre of designers, right. And the more familiar you
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: are with the world of actual automotive design, the more
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: important your input becomes. And it's kind of an alluring
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: thing too. If you are coming from the world of
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: automobile design. Now you just make whatever you think looks cool.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about engine performance the way
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about intake or how the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: transmission works.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a concept cars. You know, like people that
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: like design stuff for auto manufacturers that maybe, well it's
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: their job just to design kind of the aesthetic and
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: they don't have to worry about any of that stuff.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: And then a lot of times those don't go anywhere
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: because they just don't make logistical sense to manufacture. But
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: if you're one of those people, and that's where your
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: passion is, worry for a company like this is a
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: dream come true because that's all you do. You just
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: churn these.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Out and you just dream. You know, that's that's kind
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: of good. And so there's much more to the story.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Of course, Hot Wheels and Mattel continue gathering more people,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: legends like Larry Wood join the Hot Wheels team. It
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: goes on and on. But now you are perhaps thinking
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. You're saying, Noel Max Ben, You've set up
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: these two juggernauts of a very weird specific industry. What
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: happens when worlds collide. That's what we will answer in
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: part two of this week special series. Big big thanks,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: of course to our research associate, doctor z the legend
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: doctor Z who you know, Noel. I think I think
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Zach probably has some hot wheels.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: He probably does.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I think I might have a few. Well.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: You know, my very dear friend Harry, you know very well,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: is a collector, a big record collector. But also some
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: of the matchbox and wheels cars that he has in
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: this collection are quite valuable. You mentioned the red stripes
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: on those tires for the what was it, the Sweet sixteen. Yeah,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: those are worth you know, I mean two hundred, two
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty bucks a pop.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: And if you have some of those toys kicking around,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: save them, you know what I mean, Save them for
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: someone that you think will really enjoy them. Right, Just
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: don't just throw them out when you're moving, is what
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: we're saying. We're also saying that we're going to start
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: to amp things up in part two when we learn
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: a little bit about the conflict between matchbox and hot wheels.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: It's a bit of a pepsiv coke kind of Highland
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: moment or four versus Ferrari just so and big big thanks,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: of course to Max Williams, big thanks to Alex Williams
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: who composed this slamming track, Big big thanks to Jonathan Strickland,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: who I from what I understand, he's the type of
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: dude who just took the wheels off the toy cars.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: He just wants to watch the world burn. We'll see
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: you next time, folks.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.