A funny thing happened the other day when I finally found the I-Candy: I didn't buy it. Here was a First Edition I didn't have and I put it back on the pegs. I held it for several seconds waiting for the acquisition juices to start flowing and nothing happened. I think the clincher was the fact that I knew this would, in a few weeks become so common as to be background scenery on the pegs. It's one I'll be able to pick up any time over the next year, and I suppose some time next spring, when the finds dry up, I'll pull one of these, dog-eared and worn, from a bin-o-death, just to be buying something. I expect that, when i do, it will have been in that bin since Christmas. Of course it will have plenty of company in that bin. There will be a plethora of looked-over and left-over pegwarmers overflowing the bin. And in most cases, these will be the fantasy castings that Mattel thinks are the signature of Hot Wheels.

Fantasy castings have been in the Hot Wheels line almost from the beginning. They have a couple of appealing attractions for Mattel. First, little boys have always had a taste for wild and far out designs. Second, Mattel doesn't have to pay any licensing fees for the cars they design themselves each time they use them. Over the years fantasy castings have ranged from the sublime to the merely silly. And as long as Mattel's market was restricted to six year olds, most of their fantasy casts were solid winners. The creations of Ira Gilford, Paul Tam, and of course Larry Wood filled up many a toy box and provided hours of fun. It's when you throw the collector's market into the mix that fantasy castings become more problematic.

I think it is safe to say that most of our fellow collectors are unabashed gearheads with a deep affection for all things automotive. I myself got into diecast because I wanted to collect 1:1s but didn't have Bill Gate's income. So the little toys became surrogates for all the hot cars I would never own. And as gearheads, most collector's preferences run first to renditions of real cars, primarily muscle cars and hot rods, but also sports cars, tuners, racers and trucks. Collectors like accuracy in detailed replicas, and usually don't mind paying a little extra for upscale versions of the castings they like. The fantasy cars are bought to complete the set, but the repaints don't sell as well. It's just harder to imagine oneself going cruising in a car that looks like a shark on wheels, or a robot, or a rolling eyeball.

Naturally, the rule isn't absolute. There have been fantasy castings that caught the eye of the collecting community. I believe, however, that the closer the fantasy car was related to a real car, the better it has sold. Castings like the Way2Fast and the Evil Twin illustrate this. Also there have been real car castings that dogged the pegs, some of the recent Ferraris and Sports racers for instance. (I think the problem with the Ferraris and the racers stems from their basic similarity to each other. A red 456GT looks a lot like a red 550 Maranello. Likewise the rules of aerodynamics means a Riley & Scott looks a lot like a Caddy northstar, which strongly resembles a 333SP. But I digress.) When basing a fantasy car on a real car, however, one must be careful not to stretch the connection to the breaking point, or the result will be a pegwarming clunker like the Nomadder What.

An even more difficult trick is moving fantasy castings up-market. Right now, all the stores I know are filled with the CD-rom energy cars they got in weeks ago. These cars, mostly fantasy castings, just haven't moved. Similarly, the Target Originals sold a lot of Evil Twins, and Passions, but not much else. Apparently, collectors who weren't eager to pay a dollar for fantasy repaints have been unwilling to pay three dollars for more expensive fantasy repaints. and since most of these have regular line wheels, they won't even be purchased as wheel diners when they inevitably go on clearance.

But could there be a hidden plum for Mattel in collectors' aversion to fantasy castings? Well if they concentrate the more realistic cars in the upscale lines and reserve the fantasy cars for the regular line for kids, perhaps we would see less childish behavior in the toy aisles by adults who should know better. Put the adult cars on a separate aisle where the kids don't have to see us. Then maybe the kids could get on with doing what they do best; having fun with their wild, cool cars.

Contact the Gent directly at ramckee@mindspring.com