“Unspun Heroes:” One of the COOLEST Hot Wheels in History Arrives From Overseas…And Does NOT Disappoint!

Well Dear Readers, I, your humble blogger, beg your forgiveness for another stretch of unintentional silence. My iron-clad immune system is strong, but not infallible, and last Thursday, it failed me again! I had actually hoped to blog about my January 30^th return to the awesome 80’s themed bar The Delorean where a friend and I went to see a screening of the timeless classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with a crowd of other enthusiastic “RADwood” fans, but alas, the night was marred by what started off that morning as a very light cough becoming more persistent and nagging as the day went on. By bedtime that night I knew I had a problem, so I hi-tailed to my doctor’s ofc the next morning for a physical. My doc did give me anti-biotics, but although he drew vials of blood to run tests on everything, he laughably diagnosed my condition as “bronchitis.” Well, I don’t know what it was, but it was no ordinary bronchitis, I can tell you that!

I doubt anyone here remembers this post from December of 2022 where I actually went into some detail about a rip-roaring illness I had back then. That incident-I still believe-was likely a case of food poisoning, and I believe it may have been about the sickest I had ever been in my life, which is why I wrote about it in such detail. Well, this latest bout gave that one a run for its money, but this time it was no food poisoning; Friday and Saturday were a deep dark-red HELL of fever, delirium, and full body pain! I spent most of Friday night and much of Saturday babbling outloud to people who weren’t actually there. One of my friends who dropped by briefly to check on me on Friday night-although he didn’t stay long, because he was scared, and I don’t blame him!-said “Dude, I’m taking you to the hospital!” Well, I can’t remember that conversation, so I can’t say why that hospital trip didn’t happen, but the important point is: I made it through the maelstrom and now, on Monday evening after taking a paid sick day from work, I’m on way to recovery. Give me this, at least: on those rare occasions that I do get sick, I do it big!

Incidentally, following up on some of the topic of the 12/22 post linked above, this superb pounding industrial track from 1988 got some major rotation during the few moments I was conscious to work the stereo! Anyone else remember this little gem?

And the point of even mentioning all this?

Well, during my long convelscence, the postal service kept running, and packages began to stack up in my parcel vault! So now, I have a big box of goodies to open, and decided that this evening, for the first time since Friday morning, I felt well enough to start digging into them…and the first one I tore into was one I’ve been waiting on for months, since it came all the way from the other side of the world! And what was in the package, frankly, left me damn near speechless!

Thus is the very first so-called “unspun” Hot Wheels I’ve ever bought. Coming from Malaysia, I’m making an assumption that these are coming from someone who works at one of the HW factories in that nation, which to me seems like it would be a “terminable offense” for them to be selling these, but, hey, that’s not my problem.

Now of course, you probably already know that this is the “Super Treasure Hunt” version of the last year’s casting of the Aston Martin DB4 “High Speed Edition,” which I already gushed about here, and led to my doing this quick little retrospective on the history of some of the more notable Hot Wheels “Fantasy Cars.” What’s different about this one, however, are the wheels, and I like the ones on this car much more than the “full moon” discs used on the actual STH release. Now, its possible that whomever plucked this unspun model off the production line and sold it on ebay just grabbed a pair of whatever wheels fell to hand and threw them on, but I think its also possible that this was a “test shot” and that these are the original style of wheels that were being considered for this release.

I am floored by every aspect of this car! From the general concept to the overall shape to the gorgeous SpectraFlame paint to the scallops and the graphics to those wheels, there ain’t nuthin’ here not to love! And BTW, that’s real SpectraFlame paint, in the sense that the body is polished and then coated with a translucent color just like the original cars from 1968-1972! It isn’t just a really cool kandy-colored paint like the “SpectraFrost” thing they did about a decade ago…which was still not bad, but nothing like this! This is the real look: this is what the finish on one of those original Hot Wheels would have looked like if you had bought one back in the day! It is, in a word, “breathtaking!”

Regardless, what I know is that, IMHO, this just may qualify as being about the coolest HW “Fantasy Car” in all history! When you consider the 50 year history of them, that’s saying a lot, and I know plenty of HW fans will argue the case with me that this can’t be as cool as classics like the “Twin Mill” or the “S’Cool Bus” or the “Super Fine Turbine,” but I’ll tell ya; as much as I love those classics, none of those cars are getting a place on my diorama…but this one is!

As if all this weren’t enough, the very next package I opened was another awesome one! A much more mainstream version which was widely released a few years ago and is still fairly easy to find, this version of the ever-awesome ‘55 Chevy gasser with a satin light purple finish with a white roof and deep purple windows may be about the coolest of the mainline releases of this car yet! You can say there’s nothing special about it, but I love it, and so much so that I’ll be buying another one as soon as I can! I can remember seeing these in grocery stores several years ago and for some stupid reason I guess I was in some phase where my interest in my lifelong hobby was on the wane and I never bought one, so now I have to pay triple for what I could have had them for then, and its totally worth it!

And so, there you have it, dear readers: you know why your HB has been quiet lately and you know that soon I’ll have a whole boxful of new acquisitions to share with you, and you know that that will mean upcoming new diorama details as well, so, stay tuned; we have to take occasional breaks, but there’s almost always some new excitement here at DRAG CITY!