Harry Bradley’s Hot Wheels….

In 1968 Mattel’s Hot Wheels premiered, and became an instant hit. Of the 16 initial cars launched, 11 of them were designed by none other than Harry Bentley Bradley. Although Bradley came from the car industry (GM), he only designed one of the full sized vehicles his Hot Wheels were created from: The famous Deora concept, which had been built by Mike and Larry Alexander. “I don’t think many people knew the Deora was a real vehicle”, Harry mused. I’m a personal fan of the Hot Heap, created from Don Tognotti’s real-life show car, the King-T, which took AMBR in 1964. Silhouette was of course the famous Bill Cushenbery creation, and one of the great bubbletop custom’s of all time. Many people forget that Harry did Beatnik Bandit in that first batch of Hot Wheels, too. I think the crazy colors threw people off a bit from the actual Roth car it was based on. Another of his notable designs was the Custom Fleetside, which was based on his own heavily-customized ’64 El Camino. The only other “Custom” of the first 16 Hot Wheels was based on another Bill Cushenbery creation, “Python”, but the Hot Wheel was designed by Dean Jeffries, interestingly enough…