You’re waiting for your guy.
He’s supposed to be here soon.
Look for a grey pickup truck, his last text said.
Scope out the parking lot, see nothing, check your phone again. A few minutes go by. You’re sweating. And not just because you’ve rushed over here on your fixed-gear bike. Something about the brevity of this dude’s texts suggests that he doesn’t like to be kept waiting around.
That you will never really get along with anyone who drives a pickup truck is one of your strongest-held convictions. The only friend you had who drove a pickup truck ended up fucking your girlfriend at the time.
But you’re not here to make friends.
And you no longer have a girlfriend.
*
The truck pulls up at the other end of the parking lot. Your guy is already stepping down from his lifted Ford F-150 as you pedal up.
“Here’s the stuff,” he says, handing you the bag.
There’s no one else around. It’s a public holiday, and without the usual customers shopping for groceries, you two are alone. It’s less shameful this way.
“Check it out for yourself.”
You size up the merchandise.
Your guy has come through.
*
In your hands are five toy cars. Hot Wheels. They’re exactly as advertised on Kijiji earlier this week.
“Nice,” you tell your guy.
The packaging is in perfect condition. None of the plastic blisters containing the cars are cracked. Same goes for the cardboard cards that the blisters are glued to. There’s not a nick, crease, or tear anywhere.
For some, this is significant. Many serious collectors care about these details.
That’s just one of the things you’ve learned since you, a grown-ass man, started collecting dinky cars1This catch-all term for die-cast cars actually appears to be derived from Dinky Toys, a now-defunct toy-vehicle brand. a while back.
*
Packaging matters less to you than some.
In general, you open your toys. You’re just that kind of man.
California-based toy manufacturer Mattel produces so many Hot Wheels that any hit to value incurred from ripping one out of the package is usually marginal. The vast majority are virtually worthless due to the rule of supply and demand. According to a 2018 article in Car and Driver magazine, 519 million Hot Wheels roll off Mattel’s assembly line a year, which works out to a rate of 16.5 per second. In the time it took to read the previous sentence, 198 new Hot Wheels have come into the world.2Or, looked at another way, the first time you had sex with your ex-girlfriend, about 165 Hot Wheels were manufactured before you came.
So, yeah, there’s no reason to treat Hot Wheels like a rare and precious commodity.
Just ask David Tilley.3David Tilley is one half (the “ley”) of the Lamley Group, a die-cast enthusiast website and social-media endeavour which he co-founded with John Lambert.
*
David Tilley only collects cars from the Matchbox4Matchbox is a former competitor of Hot Wheels that Mattel purchased in 1997. brand, but his example is instructive.
He’s known in hobbyist circles for setting every single model free. Tilley calls it the Diecast Liberation Movement.
One time at a toy convention he cracked open something incredibly rare right in front of everyone. Then he gleefully raced it down an orange-plastic track as a bunch of middle-aged men looked on in horror.
You aspire to channel his energy.
Big Tilley Energy.
MAINLINE
Like anything, Hot Wheels has a language.
“Soup” is short for Super Treasure Hunt: a rare5You could open several 72-car cases of Hot Wheels and not find a single Super Treasure Hunt, depending on your luck. They sell on the aftermarket for upwards of $100. variation of a common model (or “mainline”). Super Treasure Hunts are differentiated by glossier “spectra-flame” paint, a small “TH” printed somewhere on the body, and rubber wheels called “Real Riders.”
(Soups are an exception to the opening rule. You’ll want to keep them in the package.6You’ve read that loose (out-of-the-package) Super Treasure Hunts retail for about 70 per cent of the value of their carded (unopened) cousins, but you can’t remember where.)
A regular Treasure Hunt is considerably less rare — although Mattel keeps specific production numbers under wraps — and lacks these upgrades. It’s distinguishable by a small, circular flame logo.
“Scalpers”7These dudes buy up every single example of a specific model — say, a Mercedes-Benz 500 E — to create artificial demand. That lets them sell what’s a $1 toy for $3 to $5, or even more. How those margins are worth anyone’s time, you can’t imagine. But if you hold out and don’t manage to find what you’re looking for off the shelves, you risk having to pay even more bidding on eBay later — plus shipping. are people like your guy who sell stuff on the secondary market.
“Peg warmers” are models that, for whatever reason, just don’t sell; they linger on the pegs (those hooks that the retailers use to display Hot Wheels) for months.
“Errors” are what happens when something goes wrong in the production phase and a damaged or otherwise flawed car makes it past quality control. It might be missing a windshield or have mismatched wheels.8Mattel has used more than 100 different types of wheels since the original Redline style in 1968. There is a market for this stuff.
Like any language you encounter, you want to make this one your own.
So you’ve coined a term for whenever you’re shopping for Hot Wheels. You say you’re going “pegging.”9“In case you missed it, or this is the first time you’re hearing about this empowering sex act, pegging is when a woman wears a strap-on dildo and penetrates her partner anally,” writes Karen Fratti for Zooey Deschanel’s HelloGiggles website. “Usually, pegging is often reserved to describe the act between heterosexual couples, so it’s a woman flipping the traditional gender dynamic and ‘banging’ the man”.
It’d be an inside joke if you knew anybody else who collects Hot Wheels.
GARBAGE DAY
When you were doing blow and drinking heavily, garbage day was a day of regret. The recycling bin overflowing with empty cans and bottles. Little coke baggies stuck to the boozy residue.
Though you’ve since found other ways to spend your time — and in this context, your new hobby almost seems healthy — the blue box remains a source of shame.
What does the garbage man think about all the discarded toy packages?
Maybe he thinks a very happy child lives in your apartment. A very happy child like you once were.
Or maybe he thinks it’s some kid’s birthday. Every week.
If he thinks anything, it’s probably less embarrassing than the truth.
He’d never guess the truth.
TURF
You decide to keep in touch with your guy. Maintain a correspondence.
Working as a team covers more territory. Keep him posted on which stores you visit and what they’ve got in stock, and he’ll do the same. To find your first Soup, you’ve got to establish your turf.
Partnerships among collectors are common. Some leave calling cards to signal that they’ve already hit a particular store: it could be a sticky note saying “first,” or a random toy from another display hung conspicuously with the cars.
Some dude in the States leaves a fresh pair of children’s underwear on the pegs.
He’s from Florida.
DOS AND DON’TS
Some advice:
- Do ask cashiers for a gift receipt to avoid unnecessary embarrassment at the register.
- Do use self-checkout whenever you can. Not only does this avert an encounter with a cashier, but it can cut costs. The average Hot Wheels toy weighs 36.25 grams,10Someone evidently used a baking scale to confirm this. light enough that you can scan two at once without triggering any alarm on the self-checkout console. Just don’t get greedy (if management is likely to press charges against anyone, it’ll be an adult Hot Wheels bandit).
- Do wait from a safe distance until any kids who happen to be around are done with the Hot Wheels display. (Parents might otherwise mistake you for a child predator (you may or may not know this from experience.))
- Do try to narrow your focus. As you’ll soon discover, these objects can pile up. Some collectors go so far as to limit their collection to a single auto manufacturer or make.
- Don’t — under any circumstances — bother seeking customer service.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
More on the point of customer service:
It’s a few months back. You’re at a Walmart in the east end scouting the toy aisle. Nothing new. But there’s a skid nearby, and a middle-aged woman in blue is working through the pile of boxes, stocking product to the shelves. She’s taking her time, and you can relate. The first decade of your adult life was spent toiling at minimum-wage jobs, too.
You want her to know that you get it.
A few cases are clearly marked with the Mattel logo. She hasn’t gotten to them yet, and the store closes in 10 minutes. So why not ingratiate yourself and politely ask if she’s got any new Hot Wheels coming out?
“Nope,” she replies.
She slices open a box of Barbies with startling precision.
The fine print on the Mattel boxes is close enough to read.
You’re getting pegged.
“THE WORST HOT WHEELS COLLECTORS IN THE WORLD”
A little later you come across a thread on the Walmart subreddit that explains what happened. It’s titled “The Worst Hot Wheels Collectors In The World.” In it, past and present Walmart employees list all the obnoxious things that collectors have done to them.
One said a collector called head office twice accusing employees of hoarding Soups for themselves.
Another saw a fistfight break out over what turned out to be an empty Mattel box.
Yet another claimed that a collector figured out that his wife worked in the electronics department. The collector then tried to get chummy with her just to get closer to him, now that he was heading up the toy section.
Same guy also witnessed men purchasing hundreds of dinkies just to trigger the automated-inventory system into ordering new cases from the distributor.11Mattel staggers releases throughout the year by releasing cases labeled A through Q. If a store doesn’t continually place new orders, it may not get a certain case and the Hot Wheels exclusive to it. When the fresh merchandise arrived, they’d pick over what they wanted and return a shopping cart full of old product, creating an overstock nightmare.
“I’m having flashbacks,” one reply to the thread reads. “Those fucks would rip open the boxes off the pallets looking for cars at my store they had no shame.”
(That, you know, is called “pallet raiding.”)
The comments go on and on.
Reading the thread, it occurs to you that the woman in the east-end Walmart must’ve thought you were one of those guys.
*
It’s not all freaks in the scene. Just mostly.
Some are well-meaning, if not exactly what you’d call normal.
There are random acts of kindness. Like sometimes it’s obvious someone’s already been to the pegs, yet a regular Treasure Hunt is hanging right at the front. Most likely it’s a collector trying to “give back to the community.”
Sometimes you witness things like this first-hand.
One afternoon you’re at the Gerrard Square Walmart. A little kid, maybe nine years old, stands beside you, starts browsing. You look around for his parents. Consider putting some distance between the two of you.
Before you have the opportunity, he turns to you, holds out a Hot Wheels package, and asks “Super?”
A Soup?
Does a child understand the value of a Super Treasure Hunt? Is it possible? And, if not, shouldn’t it be in the hands of someone who can appreciate its true worth? Either way, is it wrong to snatch it from him?
You didn’t think your first Super Treasure Hunt would be like this. Not that you’re complaining. You’ve sunk too many hours in pursuit of one to take an arbitrary moral stance. You’re about to grab the package from the kid when you recognize what it is.
It’s just a mainline Toyota.
“Ah, I’ve already got a Supra,” you tell him. “Doubles, actually.”
*
The kid’s still standing here. Why haven’t the breeders responsible for him come back? The already-surgical store lighting seems brighter than normal.
Next he produces a baggie.
“How about a DeLorean?” he says.
The baggie is from the Mystery Models series: a collection of Hot Wheels that come wrapped in opaque plastic. The contents are supposed to be a surprise. It’s loot-bag filler. Cars shaped like dinosaurs, that sort of thing. How this kid knows what’s inside, you’ve got no idea — but he seems certain it’s a DeLorean, the only good one in the batch.
You picture him sneaking up past his bedtime, practicing how to discern the shape of the DeLorean without the aid of sight. It’s like something you would’ve done before learning how to jerk off.
“Thanks,” you say.
You grab the baggie and walk away.
A few minutes later, in a stall in the men’s room, you tear it open.
The kid was right.12Later on, you’ll learn from the Hot Wheels subreddit that there is, in fact, a way to identify a Mystery Model.
THE WEATHERMAN
You start keeping a spreadsheet of Walmart shipping routines. They’re not that hard to figure out. Return enough times, on enough different days, at enough different hours, and patterns emerge.
It being a Thursday evening, you’re headed for the Dufferin Mall.
Locals have a few names for it.
Sufferin’ Mall.
The Dirty D’.
Or the Dirty Duff.
Management recently tried to shake the mall’s sketchy reputation through a rebranding campaign. They put up a bunch of ads with the tagline: “The Dufferin Mall. Really.”
You’re supposed to be shocked that you’re inside the same Dufferin Mall as before, even though the signage is the only discernible upgrade.
You’re confident that the same cadre of old dudes is in the food court, eating canned soup. They get the soup from the discount grocery store. They take spoons from the fast-food counters.
You can see them jabbing plastic cutlery into their Campbell’s® Chunky® soups, though you’re still 10 kilometres away. In fact, you’re crossing the bridge over the train tracks that run right by your place. The railway corridor bisects Toronto, from Pickering in the east to Union Station downtown. The overpass offers a cutaway view of the core to the west.
The skyline resembles a microchip that exploded.
Dark clouds are a rug on the city.
Are the formations altocumulus? Nimbostratus? You’ve become an amateur meteorologist since your guy informed you that bad weather makes for good Hot Wheels hunting. Fewer scalpers are willing to head out in inclement weather.
Is that a raindrop?
*
Not far from your destination, you wipe out. You don’t know how it happens. The storm never materialized, and you’ve barely had anything to drink.
Medical attention is required.
*
It’s a quiet night in the E.R. at St. Joe’s, so it doesn’t take long to see a doctor. He asks what happened, and you overshare. You provide an inventory of everything you’ve imbibed today (again, really not much). You’re honest with medical professionals to a fault, like you fear their anatomical knowledge gives them X-ray vision.
As the doctor sews up your face, he asks what you do for a living.
You tell him that you write for VICE magazine.
“Makes sense,” he says.
*
You can’t believe you’ve never thought to check a hospital gift shop for Hot Wheels before.
PAVED PARADISE
Parking lots are beautiful sometimes.
Sure, they’re bad for the planet. The watershed damage. The carbon footprint. The urban heat-island effect. They should all be repurposed for social housing. A trade publication once commissioned you to write a 2,500-word feature on this topic, and as research, you read the bible of parking lots: The High Cost of Free Parking, by Donald Shoup. In it, the UCLA professor argues against all the ways in which we subsidize the convenience of motorists to the detriment of society.
It’s 750 pages long.
And you don’t even have a license.
But when you’re in a parking lot, especially the kind endemic to the big-box stores in the city’s former boroughs, the sky stretches unimpeded over perfect symmetry. Curbs and parallel lines. Solid boundaries and clear directions. A universal and unambiguous order.
Every time you pull up to a Walmart, the anticipation is visceral. You could be on the verge of your first Soup. It’s all upside. Like when you were edging with your ex-girlfriend for hours at a Howard Johnson the weekend before she became your ex-girlfriend. Except this time, no girlfriend is required. (In fact, your single status is all but guaranteed!)
An empty can rattles past in the wind.
You’ve been waiting for a storm to blow over before biking home.
It’s finally clearing up.
Spilled oil makes rainbows in the puddles.
Parking lots are beautiful sometimes.
IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF A VOLVO S60
The passenger seat of a first-generation Volvo S60. That’s where you got the best blowjob of your life. That’s also what your ex-girlfriend drove. Hot Wheels hasn’t made a Volvo S60 yet, but you did find a Volvo 850 Estate. You buy them whenever you see them on the pegs. You must have dozens.
Serious collectors tend to focus on the more realistic-looking castings.
So it is with your collection.
An ’86 Monte Carlo SS like the one your great-grandmother used to run errands in with you as a kid is parked on your desk.
There are exotics, American muscle, and Japanese imports stowed in the plastic storage containers that are slowly taking over the apartment. Your favourites are the utterly mundane: the mid-size sedans, station wagons, and crossover SUVs.
Think of some child playing with a miniature one-dollar Toyota Prius. Is there a better metaphor for Late Capitalism?
Basically, the only things that you don’t fuck with are military vehicles and cop cars.
Oh, and pickup trucks.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
This obsession becomes a family affair. After mentioning it to your mom, she begins texting you pictures of the Hot Wheels displays she finds at grocery stores.
She’s been having a hard time since your sister started abusing painkillers again, dropped out of school, and moved in with a guy named Griffin who organizes drum circles and keeps reptiles.
At your mom’s place for dinner one night — not long after she finds out about Lizard Man — she says, “I may have lost my little girl, but it looks like I’ve got my little boy back.”
MOVING ON…
It would make sense for a romance to develop and not just for the purposes of a conventional narrative arc. Immersion in a subculture often leads to deeper connections. Shared interests are an obvious starting point for new relationships.
Unfortunately, the demographics of this particular subculture don’t foster heteronormative relationships.
Not that Mattel, which also owns the Barbie brand, isn’t trying to diversify dinkies.
In 1962, Ewy Rosqvist becomes the first woman to win — let alone compete in — the Argentine Turismo Standard Grand Prix. In 2020, Mattel releases a Matchbox replica of the silver Mercedes 220 SE that she, alongside co-driver Ursula Wirth, claimed the prestigious rally title with.
Not everyone is impressed.
Canadian automotive magazine Driving says Mattel’s “attempt at female empowerment is shameful.”13https://driving.ca/features/feature-story/mercedes-benz-and-matchboxs-attempt-at-female-empowerment-is-shameful
Renita Naraine, the author, who identifies as a woman, suggests it’s an empty, tokenizing gesture. She points to the segregation of gendered toy aisles. That’s true, you think. Although you already have enough trouble dealing with parents who are uncomfortable with you pegging near their little boys.
It’s for the best that there aren’t a bunch of little girls running around, too.
In any case, the hobby remains male-dominated.
*
The closest you come to meeting a woman through Hot Wheels is online, through the dating app Tinder.
Madeline, 24.
Her profile on the dating app says that she likes advanced greens and has “just started collecting hot wheels. lol.”
(You’re not making this up.)
You swipe right.
She doesn’t.
Putting something about Hot Wheels in your profile might’ve helped.
It might’ve also kept you from matching with anyone else.
*
Hot Wheels do turn out to be a conduit for meeting one woman — sort of.
It’s a Monday evening, and as usual at that time of week, you’re at the Walmart on the Golden Mile. The pegs are rammed. You’re straining to see what’s displayed on the highest rows. As you check the last card, you sense someone’s eyes on your back.
You turn around.
A stunner.
Her eyes are a deep “spectra-flame” blue.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” you say.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
Then she laughs to herself.
“Oh,” she says. “I’m such an idiot. I should’ve checked to see if you work here first.”
PURITY
One collector you follow online insists that his collection is a form of colour therapy. Desperate for an excuse to explain your own behaviour, you at least partly subscribe to this view.
Something from Stephanie LaCava’s novel The Superrationals also resonates. The objects are not important, she writes. In context, they are the urge to pin down a messy world.
Truthfully, you can’t say what holds your interest, what compels you.
You suspect it has to do with scale, of reducing something to its purest form.
Few know more about that than Ryu Asada.
RYU ASADA
The Key Lead Product Designer with Hot Wheels is known for his uncanny mastery of proportion.
Like a writer, though, he can’t help but put himself into his meticulously constructed interpretations of reality. Take the ’89 Porsche 944 Turbo that he designed for 2020.
There’s a stethoscope visible in the rear hatch.
It’s a nod to his doctor, who owns the same car in real life.
EASTER EGGS
Ryu Asada often puts Easter eggs in his work, obscure little coded references to his full-scale life.
The first release of the Honda Prelude that he tooled shares the silver-and-red colour scheme and license plate of his mom’s.
True, other Hot Wheels designers include personal touches. But they don’t hit the same.
The ‘75 Datsun Sunny Truck, released in the third instalment of the Japan Historics series, has an easel in the cargo bed. Designer Mark Jones put it there because, well, he likes to paint outside.
That’s ironic, you think, since he clearly lacks Asada’s artistic vision.
You consider what Easter egg you’d include if Mattel asked you to design a Volvo S60. Parents were upset when Matchbox released a hearse,14David Tilley notes that Mattel goes so far as to remove the “Hellcat” from the Hot Wheels interpretation of the Dodge Charger Hellcat, so the hearse didn’t stand much of a chance. so you’re certain they’d disapprove of your plans for the passenger seat of the Volvo.
CONDOLENCES
On March 23, 2021, Hot Wheels designer Ryu Asada dies at age 42.15According to an April 2, 2021, obituary in Road & Track magazine, Asada was unlike any of his colleagues. He designed everything on the computer, didn’t need the help of a sculptor. “He could simply see things differently from other people.”
Cancer.
The doctor who owned the Porsche was an oncologist.
You text a couple of your friends with the news.
Pat offers a one-word response: “designer.”
He writes it in quotes.
GARBAGE DAY, AGAIN
The blue box is filling fast.
Start stowing excess recycling beneath your sink.
Use black garbage bags to evade the garbage man’s prying eyes.
This is getting out of hand.
THE UNDESIRABLES
You’re feeling overwhelmed and decide to cull the collection.
There are dinkies on your dresser and on your shelves. They’re parked on windowsills and end tables, hidden away in drawers and closets. Tucked behind speakers, plants, and your computer monitor. The Monte Carlo is still on your desk, but it’s now part of a miniature motorcade.
In the beginning, you’d buy anything you hadn’t seen before. Over time, you’ve become more discerning.
But it’s impossible to maintain the dignity befitting a connoisseur with these playthings scattered everywhere.
You can’t count how many times someone has messaged you a picture of a race-car-shaped bed, suggesting it would go with your décor.
It’s time to take back your life.
*
You sort through your collection. Some decisions are harder than others. You collect most Mazda RX-3 colour variations but determine that the one with the gold-and-green paint job is ugly.
Pass.
Other choices are easy.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party Wagon joins the Standard Kart from Mario Kart in the donate pile.
Why would you keep that fantasy crap?
Do you look like a nerd?16The only reason you even had entertainment-themed Hot Wheels was for potential resale value. Gamers and other dorks will pay a premium, even for mainlines. But you’ve realized that you’re not an e-store.
You plan to drop the Undesirables off at Value Village.
Then you see a Facebook post in a local community group.
*
Someone in the neighbourhood is advertising that they’re in need of toy cars. Their friend teaches autistic kids, apparently, and could use them in the classroom.
Well, this is better than giving the junk to a thrift store, you think.
You never know when your character may be called into question. A charitable donation to a bunch of autists is just the sort of thing to shore up a reputation, should the need arise.
And the need can always arise.
So you respond to the Facebook post and make arrangements for your philanthropic contribution to autism.
*
That same week you walk over to the teacher’s place.
“Wonderful Person” by Black Masses blares in your headphones.
You are, you are, a wonderful, wonderful person.
You are the gift of life…
Looks like the teacher lives in a modernist new build. Stucco, wood accents, big windows. Not a cheap job. You start to think maybe this teacher could have given you something for your trouble.
Stroll up the sparsely landscaped front walk, stand before the door, ring the bell.
A man answers after peering through the blinds.
You don’t know why you assumed the teacher of autistic children was a woman, but you did.
(Maybe it’s her husband.)
“Hi,” the man of indeterminate pedagogical status says.
“Amber from Facebook told me you’re taking toy donations,” you say with the inflection of someone asking a question.
“That’s right,” he says.
You motion to the bundle you’ve brought along.
“Thank you,” he says.
He takes what you consider to be a very generous contribution.17From now on, you’re going to tell cashiers who question you about buying toys that you’re donating them to charity — a children’s hospital, to be precise.
You remain standing there, facing each other.
Dude could show a little more appreciation, you think.
After a pause, he says, “Really, the children — they’re going to love these.”
You nod and put your headphones back in, turning up the Dmitri from Paris mixtape again.
You are the burning flame, the fire within you that makes you glow
You are, you are that wonderful, wonderful person
THE DAY AFTER YOU CURE AUTISM
Something’s wrong.
The next morning, you’re reorganizing your collection and find one of your Treasure Hunts missing.
It must’ve gotten mixed in with the junk you donated.
There’s still time to reach out to the person who made the Facebook post, to try and get it back before the autistic children ruin everything.
No, that would be crazy.
It’s not like it’s a Super Treasure Hunt.
REDEMPTION
Your phone buzzes, and it’s your guy. He tells you to get over to the Walmart at Golden Mile. He had to leave, but there are a bunch of unopened cases on the sales floor.
Another shot at a Soup.
A chance to redeem yourself after getting duped by the autistic children.
But considering what happened outside the Dufferin Mall a while back, is it a good idea?
You probably shouldn’t be getting on your bike right now.
MEDIA REQUEST
There will be other opportunities.
It’s all just a numbers game.
More than 130 new Hot Wheels designs make their debut annually. Some of those will inevitably become Soups.
Soups to be harvested from the pegs.
To try and get some insider intel, you use your press credentials and email Mattel, ostensibly for an article about supply chains. You ask how many retailers they distributed Hot Wheels to in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 2020. What were the peak shipping times? Does the data drill down to the level of postal codes and hours?
“I realize this is a rather specific request,” you write.
The comms person for Mattel never gets back to you.
(Maybe you shouldn’t have told them that you write for VICE.)
WHAT YOU KNOW SO FAR
At this point, you know enough to write a book about collecting Hot Wheels — even if Mattel has proven uncooperative.
There’s still something crucial that you haven’t learned about the subject, though.
These toys aren’t going to save you.
You’re just emptying the recycling bin more often.