A quick little post here for midday Sunday with a fun little factoid about my exploding Hot Wheels collection. Anyone who ever reads this blog knows that the activities with my “Hot Wheels Hunter” over the last year have led to the addition of thousands of new Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars to my collection, and because I am so overwhelmed with them, it didn’t make sense to use anything else for the display at the base of my Christmas tree this year!
I put the tree up the night after the first snow of the season, which came abnormally late this year, but when it did come, it came heavy and cold! In many previous posts on this blog, I have explained the history of my little “Mr Christmas Insta-Shape Tree” and why this little artifact has such enormous sentimental value to me. Tragically, after 35 years, I fear it may be approaching the end of its lifespan: several of the branches are now broken and propped up by the cord of the lights wrapping them, and it’s not looking as good as it once did, despite the care I’m taking to preserve it…yet another reminder that nothing lasts forever…just in case we needed another such reminder, right?
Well, it so happens that in order to make room for the tree and some other Christmas decorations I had spent some time earlier that same day boxing up the hundreds of Hot Wheels cars that had been occupying my dining room table for the last several months, but in doing so knowing that the tree was going up that night, I selected a couple of dozen of them fairly randomly to take out of the packages that night to give them the honor of being part of the 2025 Christmas display in my living room. What I didn’t know was that one of these cars was more special than the others! A few of them were cars that Jason had found and bought for me, and once again, it was he who pointed this out to me, as he has ironically become more knowledgeable about Hot Wheels collecting than I have in the short time that we’ve known each other!
If you’re a Hot Wheels collector yourself, look carefully and you might notice that one of these cars is a little more “distinctive” than your average mainline! What’s funny is that I didn’t notice this at the time that I opened the package because I pulled all the blister cards apart in a Christmas tree-lit darkened room, and I wasn’t paying much attention to the packaging. As a result, I missed something fairly significant on the back of the card hiding behind this car!
Fast forward about 3 days and I get a text message from Jason while he’s at work telling me:
“Remember that purple Buick I got you at Target a while ago? I think that’s a Treasure Hunt!”
Fortunately I still had the torn-open package from that night, so I checked it…and there it was, the clever little light-gray sideways flame in a circle and that little line of text we all yearn to see when we hit the toy aisles at the big box stores on restocking day!
So there it is: the purple ‘87 Buick Regal GNX with pink interior (must be a cool chick car!), and if you look VERY closely you can see how they hid the tell-tale “treasure hunt” flame INSIDE the lower ring of the 8 on the racing number 87 painted on the side. Cool! I really like this model, since it pays homage both to one of my favorite car brands, and to “my era” with its tres-80s “zig-zag” stripe patterns, and of course it’s my favorite color besides! If I had designed it, I’d have gone with a gray interior instead of the bright pink, but hey, whatever; it “pops” under the tree and it looks great!
Other new arrivals to the collection that share the X-mas spotlight for 2025 are mostly average but cool mainlines acquired over the last year, including the black ‘66 Buick Riviera, the debut new casting of the Porsche 928 in red with tan interior, the latest release of the “Rrroadster” in a gorgeous dark metallic blue with gray interior – a casting I really like, basically a convertible version of the “Fast Felion”, a car obviously inspired by the Jaguar E-Type – and a newer “wild thing” called “Aristo-Rat” that’s also that same tasty shade of deep metallic purple I so love. There are a couple of more special ones in there too, though, such as one of the latest run of “Hot Ones,” the Fiat 500, also a gif from my “Hot Wheels Hunter”; the hard-to-find Porsche 935 racer in dark blue, courtesy of the fine folks @ Colorado Diecast; and an older “Flying Customs” release of the Chevy Vega V8, that last one being a gift from my brother for X-mas of 2022, finally opened this year! Thanks, bro!
And so the holiday season is in full swing! I’ll be with family again this year as we all should be, so y’all have yourself a good X-mas sneason, dear readers, and I shall return in the waning hours of the year for a 2025 recap and a look forward to what the new year holds for Drag City Raceway!
That little tree is a brave and strong survivor, just like you! It may be interesting to see what restoration work can be done on it. I mean you have become a master of restoring all the intricate of those slot cars! That’s amazing that you had one of the Treasure Hunt cars, that’s good news that he contacted you about it. It, like the others, looks great around tree in your display. I hope you can have safe travels, and I know you will have a wonderful time with your family!
Great to have you back, I wait all week to read your blog, Been reading about your slot cars, good and bad times in life, it’s nice to see there’s still some great people out there doing what they want and love. Been reading your blog for about 2 year’s. Please keep it up, Great reading. Thanks, John Owen from the dark blue state of New York. Hope your luck gets better in the future.
Thanks so much for the compliment! Always a blast to hear from fellow T-Jet fans out there: it’s good to know there are still some people who enjoy physical toys in “the age of screens!”