Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day!

Ahoy yar survey bilge rats! Today is International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day and we’ve decided to celebrate here at Wheel Close with a Pirate-Themed Hot Wheels Anglia Panel. AVAST–we have another Hot Wheels mainline from 2003 but this time its from the Boulevard Buccaneers segment series. AYE, you guess it–featuring pirate-themed graphics. Go grab yer grog and tie up your dingy before you read the rest of ye ol’ blog.

Aye Aye! Welcome back ye scally-wag. What were you doing? Playing yar horn pipe in the bung hole? Blackbeard says, “Smartly, me lass, grab the rope and hold on”.

The Anglia Panel, a 2000 First Edition, was designed by Phil Riehlman. It seemed as though the Anglia Panel was designed for more mainline use than one of Phil’s other designs, the collector-favorite Volkswagen Drag Bus. Being in that is was smaller, lighter & still featured the panel for extreme graphics use, this made the Anglia very popular initially with the Hot Wheels Graphics Team and more importantly, collectors. Still, to this day, the Anglia Panel is used just about every year in a graphic-heavy segment. While not as popular as it first was in 2000, the Anglia Panel still has a group of collectors that love its drag-racing, graphic real estate toting, front-end flipping coolness. Unfortunately, the latter, the front-flipping hood no longer exists as part of a cost-cutting measure in 2011. Its always sad when a casting such as this loses a feature like that because the casting loses a little bit of its personality. Fortunately, the Anglia Panel had a lot to give.

This 2-seat drag racer has parachutes cast onto the closed back doors of the casting as well as a wheelie bar in back that is part of its base. You can see that HERE on the 2002 Halloween Highway Series version.

This gold Anglia Panel from the 2003 Boulevard Buccaneers Series shown above, features a sword-drawn pirate with a beard, bandana & earring–too bad there’s no eye-patch! There is also a rope-net behind him. Clearly, the most cool graphic on this version though, is the Treasure Map laid out on the roof of the vehicle. It features “The Isle of Hot Wheels” in the shape of the Hot Wheels Logo, along with a large “X” where we can only assume the Treasure Hunts are hidden–Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Now, you pilfering scum dog scally-wag, bilge rat, the tide is high so go hunting and let me know if you find the booty!

Rollin’ with The Fuzz

Every so often, the Hot Wheels “Graffix” Team is let loose and able to exercise some “artist discretion” & “creative freedom”. This Vairy 8 definitely represents that! Back in 2003, Hot Wheels Graphic Artists MiQ Willmott and Wayne Scott collaborated on this design featured in what was known as the open vamp in the mainline which in this case was an extension of the series cars. This casting represented the “Roll Patrol” series. The design features “vectorized” illustrations of MiQ & Wayne in ’70s garb (MiQ has the afro and Wayne has the Fu Man Shu) and also features the car itself, the Vairy 8, on the hood graphic. The “RP” Star on the back quarter-panel is the logo for the Roll Patrol series.

The Roll Patrol series itself consisted of a variety of vehicles all with some sort of police deco. The Vairy 8, a 2003 First Edition, has been released 13 times–it has 19 releases if you count all 6 variations.

Please enjoy the original e-sheet seen here:

In addition, this car is so cool, that it spawned the following poster:

Highway 35 & the Scorchers

10 years ago, we were graced with Hot Wheels “Highway 35 World Race” to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Hot Wheels. Highway 35 or World Race consisted of a full-length movie and a line of Hot Wheels vehicles. The were 5 teams of drivers featuring 7 vehicles/drivers per team, totaling 35 vehicles all together. Each team had a strength which equated to what their team name was. The 5 teams were: Wave Rippers, Street Breed, Roadbeasts, Dune Ratz & Scorchers. While this line is capable of a story of its own, we will look at it periodically as Wheel Close keeps the articles about your favorite vehicles coming.

Main character Vert Wheeler and his Deora II are faced with stiff competition in Taro Kitano and his team of Scorchers. Taro is the leader of the Scorchers and driver of the ’70 Plymouth Road Runner shown above. So needless to say, this car has a lot of screen time in this flick. But it wasn’t necessarily the screen time that caught my eye with this car.

The ’70 Plymouth Road Runner features matte black paint complete with “Fusion Graphics”. These fusion graphics are some of the best decals in all of diecast and have since been discontinued by Hot Wheels. Why? I’m not sure. But they are sure better than the decals currently being used in the Nostalgic Brands line. This line was also a pioneer for another Hot Wheels feature that have since disappeared–Co-Mold Wheels. Another, “I’m not sure why they were discontinued”, but they were widely popular! Even a few mainline cars ended up having co-mold wheels on them. Today it is believed that the Real Rider 5-Spoke Wheels are direct descendants of these wheels, though these are “rubber” Real Riders wheels while Co-Molds were all plastic (which were great for the track!).

The Scorchers team consisted of the following 7 cars:
• ’70 Plymouth Road Runner
• 1/4 Mile Coupe
• Red Baron
• ’57 T-Bird
• Dodge Charger R/T
• ’63 Corvette
• Muscle Tone

Most can be obtained fairly cheap on the secondary market for around the retail price of $3. However, the Dodger Charger R/T & Muscle Tone were in later releases and are a little harder to find and typically sell for around $10. Also, there are two variations on the ’70 Plymouth Road Runner. There is a “CHASE” version that came in a special video 2-Pack that had a ZAMAC roof, gloss body and Gold-Chrome Wheels. There is also a limited ZAMAC version that came as part of a set sold exclusively on hotwheelscollectors.com.

The “rat-rod” Scorchers were definitely a cool team to collect and I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere down the line they gain a tiny cult following. But for now, they are relatively easy to find and collect.

All lights are GREEN!

This gorgeous neon green Nissan Skyline R32 was released 10 years ago in the 2003 Hot Wheels 100% Preferred / Auto-Affinity Super Street Series. The casting itself is based off of the 1990 Nissan Skyline R32 and was originally released as a 2002 First Edition model. As of late, the R32 Skyline model has been highly sought after, driving secondary market values up. This particular model loose usually sells for $10-15, while the carded version ranges in the $15-$20 range–when you can find it!

While this car features Chrome Real Rider 5-Spoke Wheels with Black Tires, track performance can be expected to be hampered due to the resistance real riders tend to have on traditional Hot Wheels tracks. Aesthetics-wise, you can see that this car is very bright and its black interior/base & tinted windows only furthers the ability of that neon green to POP!

Check out a local Hot Wheels show or sites like TheToyPeddler.com or ebay.com to obtain one for yourself!