Hotwheels-News

Here is a picture of the Super Tuned I am missing. According to the companion website, this truck was included in the 2002 Deluxe Auto Chase playset. Any leads on finding this set (or even just the truck loose) would be much appreciated.

Over the past year or so, I've been relying on ebay as the primary way to expand my HotWheels collection. Doing so permits me the luxury of being able to target particular items to add, meaning that I can complete various subsection or model type collections.

And I've managed to do it without getting (too) ripped off.

Here are my methods for using ebay with a minimum of risk.

Read More:Always More.

A couple more updates... obviously my acquisition speed has significantly slowed, seeing as how there are many more important things to buy than toys. But there are a couple of cool items on the way from eBay.

And props to Mr. Jason Biffis who caught that I'd mislabeled a couple of cars and sent me an email to let me know -- feel free to drop me a line whenever you see me making a mistake.

Well, as soon as I catch up, I find I'm not caught up at all.

This round of updates includes two cars which should have completed a collection each. The K-mart Exclusive CocaCola Race Team includes a rare Pikes Peak Celica; and I discovered and purchased a Super Tuned which came from an AutoZone promotion (it wears the Duralast logos).

However, I now discover that there is a 2004 Pikes Peak Celica (part of the Roll Patrol segment series); and that a playset sold in 2001 (or so) included a black and white Super Tuned wearing 'DC Police' logos. The PPC will be easy to collect in the next year, but somehow I doubt that I will ever see the Super Tuned.

Add this to the fact that there is a 2004 Fandango out there, and my hunting is cut out for me.

Noticed all the cars which have gone up since the new year?

A couple of finds that I wanted to gloat about:

• the deep color variation of 2002-160 Pikes Peak Celica. Of course, having spent all the time and effort (and accumulating 3 of the light color variations in the process) getting the thing, I prefer the look of the more common color. Seems somehow more... more. Somehow.

• Ferrari 348 (part 4348). This is one I got in my mega-box back in February. This one I purchased is on a nice blister (the older one is yellowed) so I kept this new one and opened the older one. Nice color.

• Fandango (Part 65687, part of playset part B1365). Nothing particularly special about it, except that it is a somewhat rarer Fandango.

• the Bat City Collector's Club Fandango. I don't know anything further about this "Bat City" club, except that they do a custom car once per year in a limited number. This limited number for this car is allegedly 50, and after I bought mine on eBay the seller listed three more. (Since no one bid up the one I bought, I somehow think he won't move all three of them.) The car looks to be based on the 2001-048 First Edition Fandango, although this car has a subtly redder paint color than the First Edition.

• the open wing variation of 2001-017 Super Tuned First Edition. This car doesn't come up on eBay very often and I was honestly surprised to end up with it.

Well I always sound like a bit of a tool when I ramble on about these toys so that's it for now.

Couple of updates, and I've discovered eBay.

Read More:eBay? Oh no!

An update, at long last.

• 2003-24: 24/Seven
• 2003-153: Tow Jam
• 2002-110: '70 Plymouth Roadrunner
• 2003-141: Pikes Peak Tacoma
• (unknown): Tow Jam
• (unknown): Dodge Charger Daytona 1970
• (unknown): Plymouth Baracuda

...plus the photos for 2002-177 and 2002-052 are finally included in the website.

Why such a long delay before showing new cars? It was partially psychological.

Oh, and this:

Read More:lots more to come

Here is the last update for 2002. Since more than nine cars went up, this article has a list of the most recent additions. Read on for some changes to the way the Hot Wheels are presented.

Read More:Photo Sizes Change!

Well, I've spent some time hacking at the four scripts used to generate these pages, and I've pared that down to two. This has the side effect of making things slightly faster, and much less confusing for me when I go back to it in eleven months. (Actually, I lie, there were six scripts involved, now there are merely four. I make things incredibly complicated.)

The old "gallery" style photo pages are still there, you just can't get at them directly. You have to select a list of cars with the year or category you are interested in, and then click on the category link in the title of one of those cars. (Yes, I know it is less than intuitive. And I describe it badly. Anyways.) This is a shame because the category list style shows the cars in order of aquisition, while the gallery list shows them in numerical order. I don't know how I am going to fix this because the current way lets me just add new categories and have them automatically appear instead of having to manually edit the templates for the index pages. Which I hate doing.

But the lists and photos are up to date now, and that should do it until after Christmas.

Shrewd viewers will note a complete lack of 2003 series cars thus far.

Alright, I've definitely broken something somewhere... I'll have a quick whack at fixing it but if it doesn't look easy or obvious I'm just going to continue the rewrite of the HotWheels processor that is currently in process.

There are a whole metric buttload of cars ready to go up, but I'm changing how I organize these pages a bit and obviously the new control file format isn't entirely compatable with the old scripts.

One of the things I've received recently is the 2002 Guide. Like last year, this book details the Treasure Hunt, First Edition, and Segment Series cars on offer.

Read More

It occurs to me that I've been describing some of the cars here as "good on the track" or "not good for the track". Perhaps I should take a minute to talk in more detail about my criteria.

Read More:way to suck the fun out of playing with toys, dave!

Of course, as soon as I start whining about the lack of 2002s I come into a store with tonnes of them. And of course, with the new 2002s come the last of the 2001s I have not seen yet. So for today, two of each -- and maybe later something special.

Happy Valentine's Day! I finally fixed a couple of bugs with the layout engine and now things look a lot better. I also finally figured out why the master lists were not getting sorted in numerical order and fixed that. Car wise, I have added five new cars plus an old on we've had around for a while, not really sure why the old one has not been added until today. But it's here, and I think that I am finally up to date... at least until I go shopping again.

One thing I have noticed in my touring around is that the 2002 cars made a brief appearance just before Christmas, and now are hardly to be seen (with the exception of the Nomadder What and second one the name of which escapes me). Pity, since I was looking forward to the new cars -- especially the Nissan Skyline. I'm sure that they will show up eventually...

My friends and family were good to me through the holidays, so there are a whole bunch of cars waiting to be added to the lists. However, I'm changing the format of these pages so that the entire thing can be automatically generated much more easilly -- look for that to happen soon -- but as motivation, I'm not letting myself open any of the new cars until the script to generate these pages is done. It's killing me!

OK, this is the last batch before Christmas, I promise. Six new cars, all from 2001: #090 Corvette 1963, #159 Cabbin' Fever, #213 MS-T Suzuka, #214 Porche 911 GT3, #224 Shadow Mk IIa, and #237 Fire Eater. #213, #214 and #224 are color and decal variations on previous cars, of which I like the Porche the best. Fire Eater is a more modern yellow which does the day-glo effect that previous yellow cars have done. Also interesting is the fact that Fire Eater's base has been re-engineered -- both of the old Fire Eaters rescued from our childhoods had broken axel mounts, while this one has improved protection for the mounts.

A couple of new 2001 cars: #166 Ferrari 456M and #201 Super Tuned. Check out the "electric yellow" in the Super Tuned pic -- it isn't how the car really looks (the actual yellow is much flatter), but it sure is a neat effect. Also, my wife found some of her childhood toys, they have been added to the Unknown section and the 1988 section (the only car we have positively identified thus far).