If inflation is getting you down, you can collect old toys. It isn't necessarily an expensive hobby. Thanks to hoarding and speculation in the 1990s collectors market, millions of mint-on-card toys are sitting unloved at antique malls, in comic shops, and in storage units, just waiting to be discovered at prices that, adjusted for inflation, are frequently the same as you may have paid at Kay-Bee Toys or even Kmart in 1999.
The vastness of Hot Wheels as a toy brand, with thousands of cars spanning several decades, makes it one of the most successful action toy brands of all time - although Matchbox really has the edge for longevity. The good news is that there's so much stuff, a lot of it isn't scarce or in demand. This means you can still find good things for cheap, like the 1990s recolors of the 1980s Radar Ranger. It doesn't sell for much on eBay, but what will get you is shipping - so when you find it in a collector shop, it may not be worth the asking price. For example, I saw it for $4 - but a gallon of gas, or shipping, would set me back about that so why not just grab it at the rando collector shop I was at that day? It wasn't the version I was the most excited to find, but it had the benefit of being right in front of me and meeting the chief criteria of being there when I wanted it.
I love retro sci-fi, and this one looked like a bit of a throwback when it was new - but it also looks a lot like some of its toy contemporaries like G.I. Joe and its Battleforce 2000 sub-line. 1988 had a lot of toys with really big wheels - and extra wheels, as well as big angled cockpits. (See also, Construx space sets from that era.) What's interesting is to see how these things influenced Hot Wheels in an era where fantastical vehicles weren't entirely out of fashion, even when it adds cost to a toy. This one had six wheels, plus an articulated (but stiff) radar dish. It has more play value bang for the buck, and it's hefty with a lot more metal given it came from an era before Mattel added in more plastic to these things to combat inflation.
It rolls well and it looks great. It has a big atom drawing on it, the name Radar Ranger Mission Control, the number 6 over Recon Vehicle, plus some nicely sculpted vents and the obligator Hot Wheels logo, this time in black. The gold metalflake paint looks nice, but admittedly not as nice as some of the oddball circuit patterns and other markings we saw on the other releases. It's by no means bad - they're all pretty cool - and it's a bit more fanciful than the plain silver "Action Command" debut. Just be sure to take a look at some of the other ones and you'll see all of them are, at worst, pretty gosh darned interesting.
Presumably we'll never see more, as it was in the "final run" series we got around the turn of the century where Mattel boasted destroying the molds. This was also when the concept of Treasure Hunts were relatively new (and arguably a negative force on the perception of toy collectors unless you were flipping stuff on the secondary market.) It's a shame, I would have loved to see one in pink to match the Moon Patrol arcade game. You can get a hot dog car, or a rubber duck, or even shark and fish cars - but made-up radar moon buggies? I feel like that ship has sailed. I would recommend getting one of these if you see one for a fair price, or as part of a collection whose price-per-piece makes you feel good about making a purchase. If the new cars on the pegs aren't interesting, there's decent supply of really good (and weird) stuff from the 1980s and 1990s waiting to be discovered.
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