I really liked Hot Wheels when I was growing up. They appeared at stores in (1968) and the cool futuristic designs were awesome. I remember my first car was the Silohuette with a bubble top and lime metallic green body. Awesome!... I later got another car, but this one came with a track. The race set came with just enough track to make a decent run of about 5 feet on an incline (usually from the back of a chair) It had a clamp that would hold the track in place and you positioned the car on top and zoom. Gravity did the rest. It wasn’t long before Mattel (the mfg of HW) Came up with a racing car track set, where two cars could race down their own track and set off the winning flag at the end… . Well by that time my friends and I put together all of our track and made a super long racing track.. With the extra track my friends added, it was long, duel tracks that extended about 30 feet !
It started with me trying to figure out which car was the fastest in my collection. I had a red Torero, that beat all my cars hands down...Man I thought I had the fastest car ever made...It was awesome. But, you know, for every Ying there is a Yang...and my friend down the block had a Hot wheel car also…. It was his only car.. And wouldn’t you know it was the Ford J Car… Pretty hard to find car. I mean absolutely not found anywhere. We set up the track carefully so it was straight and even and I watched all my cars get beaten by this Ford J Car. Even my beloved Torero which was the only car to come close lost by at least a track length.
And so it began, my search to buy any car on the chance it would beat that Ford J Car..Every contender went up in flames (lost).. I did get faster, newer cars, and my beloved Torrero soon was not quite up to being my fastest but it was still in the top 5. My search led to large collection of cars, I was up to almost 50 cars! Still no challenger… . My friend who owned the Ford J held on to being the fastest in the block for about a couple of years. That’s a lifetime. When you’re 11 years old.
