ot: Hot Wheels Sizzlers

I was at Target and found a remake of a toy I loved when I was 4-6 years old.

http://www.hotwheelscollectors.com/news/news.aspx?news_id=539

Any one else have one? You had a gas pump that had batteries in it that had an electric "pump handle". You put the handle in the side of the car and pressed the top of the pump to charge up the car. The track was a high banked oval.

I got it for my 8 year old for Christmas.

 

Still have my originals, also the Juice Machine and plug in charger
[ I forget the name ] but I doubt if they still work. Maybe I'll have
to buy new ones. I also still have the Sizzlers train [ Hotline ] and
catapillar tractor [ Earthshakers? ] Maybe now I can get the Fattrack
I always wanted. Never too late to have a happy childhood ya know!

 

My young brother had one. I loved it. One of the cars was a neat Z28 Camaro.

 

excuse me while I go to target and stock up for the mad ebay christmas rush.........

 

Wow thats cool. I had one of those in the late 60's. I musta ran a thousand miles on my knees. I had enough track to run from my bedroom to the family room and back...

 

Those ruled......I had a big track set up in the garage when I was a kid.

 

just got me a cuda. gonna go back and get some track later. they had some other funky ones... but I'm going to hold out and get the mach 1.

 

We had em in UK. I had three trans ams , The sureal thing about this layout is that if you charge all the cars ,send them off around the track they will slipstream and pass each other completly at their own will its spooky but amazing...gonna get me another set.

 

I seen those at Target last Saturday also. The box even looks like the original and they have yellowed the picture a little it seems and it even looks old. It looks like they have made a complete remake of all the available cars also.

 

I need to call my mom. Somewhere she has a polaroid of me age 4 or 5 circa 1972 sitting in the middle going to town with those cars. I vaguely remember burying the cars in the flower bed for some reason and don't know what came of the track.

 

Oh, man! I had plenty of orange track and then 3 sets of the wide, black oval stuff. Had some monster races with my brothers, cousins, and friends.

Later on when the batteries croaked, I converted a couple into slot cars by adding brushes!

I heard a rumor that Johnny Lightning or another diecast company was bringing out something similar to Sizzlers - it would be hard to beat the originals.

 

When I was working at Mattel in '69, I saw tests of the car that lead to the Sizzzlers -- it was a gas-engined die-cast Mustang (standard Hot Wheels body) with a .008 c.i. displacement engine, made by Mattel's first model maker, the late Les Stormon. He made the chassis, fuel tank and crankcase out of a single block of Delrin, and the only part of the motor that he didn't make was a Cox glow plug. It was so compact that you could look in one side window of the car and see out the other.

He subsequently built a 1/43 scale Ferrari powered by a Cox .010 engine, in an attempt to build a car that used existing tooled parts. I saw this one run on FatTrack, and this is how fast it was: A production Sizzzler running on FatTrack went 11 feet/second. Les' 1/43 gas car ran 30 fps(!!), and made a noise that would wake the dead -- well, it sounded like a chainsaw.

Regrettably Mattel's management felt that the heat/smoke/noise/toxicity of a 2-stroke motor was too uncivilized for a mass market toy, and the Sizzzlers were the eventual solution. Even when they launched a hobby division (that included Monogram models and some RC stuff), they still thought the hazards and liability were too great.

I made an unsuccessful attempt to acquire one or both of these models from Les' widow. I understand that she did finally part with them, and I think Mattel has them in their archive.

 

I remember those, I had one when I was a kid. I don't have one today but I have over 2500 Hot Wheels and about 500 Jonny Lightning.

 

Spent hours playing with sizzlers and hotwheels. I had the "California 500" fat track with the sizzlers. Still have some of em left.

 

When I was younger I had them. I remember being in the Hospital havng my tonsils removed and getting one as a gift with the charger. Went out into the hallway and let it rip.. it went screaming up the hallway, nurses jumping out of the way.. those things were pretty fast..

I am a recovering Hot Wheelt collector/ addict..

 

Mattel also had a nother similar version to the Sizzler. It was a larger scale 1:16 or so and the car looked kind of like a Pantera. Mine was blue, had sponge rubber tires, chrome wheels, working suspension and steering and ran off of a large lantern battery (I think).

Anybody remember these?????

 

I wanted those when I was a kid and didn't get them. I see that they are only available from Target.

 

You're talking about Superstar. They made a car, a plane, and (I think) a motorcycle. The car and plane were mechanically programmable with interchangeable cams that controlled the steering. Woulda been the early '70s.

 

2500 HOT WHEELS!!! MAN, YOU MUST BE SICK!!!!!!

I only have about 1500 or so. PeRFfecLty sAne Am i Stu