With the loss of most prime toy hunting grounds, going on toy runs isn't merely exhausting - it's just not rewarding. To make things interesting, I've been peeking at new and old Hot Wheels and Matchbox. I joked that this is toy collecting methadone - something to do that's not as consuming as action figures - and roughly once a week my very patient spouse humors me at an antique mall with a massive booth that constantly restocks with new and old cars, most of which are quite cheap. I'm not looking to make money or find a diamond in the pile of old junk, I am very specifically looking for weird stuff to show my friends and you guys. In early August I stumbled on a Hyper Mite. It looks sort of like a bug or an alien, with a motorcycle engine crammed in a smaller car chassis with bicycle handlebars inside. Sure, why not? This looks like it would be fun and dangerous.
I would say "it's unusual because..." but just looking at it, everything about it is weird. Mattel was trying a lot of new stuff in the early 2000s and as a result we got some pretty ridiculous designs - nothing as awesome as the Speed Demons of the 1980s, but still, charming. Thanks to overproduction and speculation in the market, hundreds of thousands of worthless cars can be had for a dollar or two. This one cost me $2.54, and despite being half the length of a normal car, I'd say it's worth it for something over two decades old. The gold engine and headlights look great, and the gold... er... deflector dish on the front is pretty solid. The design choices really make it light up in a dark room, and you can see vestiges of the chrome shine through the clear red windows too. There's even a bicycle seat in there.
The buggy has a nice metallic purple with sparkles in it, plus some racing stuff - there's a white Hot Wheels logo on the right side as well as orange checkers and a big #2. The left side has "Neesy" written in cursive over a black painted panel, the significance of which is unknown to me.
There's not a ton of extraneous detail here, but everything looks good - even the wheels are simple, but give it a sense of mutated scale. The back wheels are larger than typical tires, while the ones in the front are some of the smallest I've seen to feature gold trim. I don't think anybody is going to win races with one of these, and my feeling is most serious car collectors are allergic to whimsy, but I couldn't say no to this one. Or more precisely, I liked it so much I just had to show it to you. There's a gleeful amount of weirdness here that we see a lot less of today. Hot Wheels is still pulling off great ideas with new and exciting licenses, plus new toy features like being able to slap LEGO or MEGA blok studs on a car. We're not seeing as many things that defy the natural order of things, or what it means to be a "car." Stuff like the Tiny Mite feel like they belong in an old Choro-Q line, or as enemies in some obscure Kart racing game. But no, they're mainline releases in one of the most successful toy series ever to see production. You can't walk in a store and find them anymore, but they're plentiful online and as I've seen, you can luck into these things if you look around your city.
I saw this one first, so I bought it - but there are also Easter and Halloween versions, plus recolors galore. Given the literal thousands of cars you can collect - possibly just at the grocery store down the street, right now - I can't necessarily say that it's worth pounding the pavement for comic shops or antique malls, or resorting to eBay, just because you can buy so much stuff if you just want a fun car right now. Few play around with the core concept as much as a vehicle like this, which dares to ask "is this a car?" More or less! It's unlike anything else you're likely to see in stores today and bike parts make me smile. If you happen to stumble on one in your travels, I'd recommend it. There aren't many 20 year old toys I wouldn't recommend for $2-$3.
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