Hot Wheels: Sizzle or Fizzle?
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Remember the Hot Wheels Sizzlers? Mattel’s self-powered and rechargeable 1/64 scale racers broke new ground in 1968 for being rechargeable instead of carrying batteries on board. Steve loads the Sizzlers Juice Machine with four fresh D-cell batteries and plugs it in to see if a vintage Sizzler still sizzles.
I was born in 1962, so I was in the crosshairs of Hot Wheels marketing demographic, and boy did it work! I can tell you, you weren’t cool at school unless you had a Hot Wheels car in your pocket lol! Then they dropped the big bomb, the Mongoose and Snake drag racing set. Heaven.
I had all if the Mongoose/Snake cars: the "real" red Mongoose Duster and yellow Snake 'Cuda funny cars, the red and yellow rail Top Fuel cars, and the blue Spectraflame "Mongoose II" Duster and white "Snake II" 'cuda. Good times.
I remember the Christmas my dad bought me my first Sizzlers set. It came with one car- a blue Lola, and he bought a separate '69 Boss 302. The original set used the standard Hot Wheels track, so side by side racing was not an option. Later, the "Fat Track" came out, but I didn't get that one- until 2007, when I found a reissue set at a Target in Miami. Once again, I sat on the floor with my setup, charging my Sizzlers with the Juice Machine and letting them go around and around. I still have that set, although I haven't set it up since 2008. I should get it out and relive my childhood one more time.
Really brings back memories, All that orange track, and loops
Steve! You're giving me flashbacks! I love it! I'm 62 and just bought another Badman! Saw it,had to grab it! You're keeping all of us boomers entertained. Don't stop!
I’m almost 60, still have the powerhouse, and tracks, haven’t touched in 25 years, went thru my son, heading to the grandsons, they already love to come over and get into the matchboxes, also have all the tonkas, even some obscure die cast tractors, and ertl trucks….grandsons love this stuff!
MAN!!! I had all of that and more!! Loved my Hot Wheels!
Born in '59, and in late '67 or so - suddenly the local Ben Franklin store had a huge Hot Wheels display in their toy section that immediately ignited an an addiction to anything car related
Also around the same time, I started getting a $1/week allowance and the cars were $.97cents. Guess where all my allowance money went?
I was 7 when hot wheels hit the market - it was a slam dunk for Mattel - I was hooked instantly starting with the two lane drag action set I got as a birthday present. Woot ! One car was the Deora the other a Silhouette. I still have at least 20 of the cars I had back then , including the first I got which was a white Ford J-Car. ...the Deora got a restoration with repro surfboards a few years back. My rich friends used to bring back very cool hot wheels during trips to the US ( I’m in Canada ) which I drooled over. The best times were when we’d get together in someone’s back yard and put all of our track sets together to make one ginormous layout when like 200 feet of track. The challenge then was getting the cars back to the start - but then the superchargers and rod runner booster units came along. Thanks for the memories!
I was born in 1963 and I was big into Hot Wheels!
Hey Steve, love hot wheels and matchbox, still collect certain ones!
As a kid I had the Sizzlers California 500 set with the fat track and lap counter. One of the best things I remember about my childhood
That's the Mighty Maverick Steve, the Mad Maverick was a Johnny Lightning casting.great show! Keep them coming.
There were also some Mighty Mavericks made by Hot Wheels that were originally named Mad Maverick.....super valuable in ANY condition!!!!
Great memories, I remember my brother ran our turtle threw the hot wheel house , I was so mad , love the snake and mongoose sets , still have one
OMG! I forgot about the Sizzler cars! I got this for Christmas around 1974. I do remember a first gen Camaro and a pickup. Great memories 👌.
Mattell had a battery made to their specifications for the Sizzlers. I liked them better than Hot Hot Wheels actually. Unfortunately the battery corrosion (cheese) and failure led to the paint being damaged. Generally speaking, us kids got hip to the battery thing and how to open the car. Motor, battery and chassis swaps were the norm. Anything to go faster, longer. Real racing! Cool video.
Guys that kept Sizzlers in the same case as Hot Wheels found out the acid would attack the bare bases of the other cars!
Actually, the story goes that Mattel commissioned the NiCad battery for Sizzlers. It was the NiCad's first application.
I loved my sizzlers had the Ontario track set and it was the greatest. I think there were at least 3 layouts. I thought they were the greatest toys ever.
I had a Sizzlers racing set as a kid. Me and my friends were also into HO racing. I also was given a Cox gas powered dune buggy for my birthday. Ah, good times.
Frank Marino And Mahogany Rush - What's Next! OMG. Too cool. You do know what's worth knowing about.
I had all this hot wheels stuff! I had track running all over our house for days on end. Moved the furniture to set up track running from room to room. I see the red bull can on the table and Oreos on sofa………Now it’s all making sense!
I loved them so much that I started charging them up with my Game of Operation
I had the Juice Machine along with a green metallic car that I don’t remember enough to know what it was at that age. I remember finding a chrome Sizzler van in a blister pack like a Hot Wheels car at a K-Mart, and I think I was about 12 then, 1978 possibly.
I remember taking apart the car when I got the track and charger back out, to find the car battery had a white corrosion around it, and seepage from it.
I got a wild hair and decided to run the Sizzler van for 1000 laps around the simple oval track that was about 5 foot long for each straight. I marked the track with a pen and a lap number for each time the car battery ran low, then hit it again, and I may have accidentally overcharged it a few times with youthful enthusiasm.
For some reason, the battery was never the same, the car and motor didn’t ever go as fast, and the toy set went back to the cobwebs in favor of operating tractors and equipment, and riding and repairing the motorcycle, plus manual farm labor.
Thanks Steve just what I needed while sitting in my hospital bed with Covid
I been collecting Hot Wheels since 1968 along with Matchbox, Lesney & many other brands! My collection is about 5000 strong with lots of complete sets & series & 80% still in their original boxes, blister packs & packages! I was a big muscle car fan so I have lots of them mostly Trans Ams! About half of my collection is VW bugs & buses since I was born near Wolfsburg Germany! PEACE LOVE n HIPPYNESS ✌☮
The best part about the set was the high bank turns. We used them for the gravity fed to be able to handle the extra speed of the cars from the four foot drop. Of course that lead to the jump...
Well Steve, whether its full size or miniature cars I learned something new again. Never heard of these before, slick.
I still have most of my original Sizzlers track from when i was a kid. My cars and Juice Machine vanished so i bought some cars and the JM at a swap meet in mid 90's. Sizzlers were re issued around 1996 and i bought another track with multiple cars. Yes. I played with it ! 😎🏁
awesome. i had that little house with the orange roof when i was a kid. thanks for showing. i'm pretty sure I have a GI Joe Army Jeep somewhere here in my house too - you should show that - it fits into your car theme.
I had the double decker Superchargers so I could build figure 8 tracks. Remember when a car would lift and jam inside the supercharger.
I loved my Sizzlers but you have to have the Fat Track to really see their true potential. There is a CZcams video of a guy speed clocking his Sizzlers and he clocked just a little over a thousand mph on a Fat Track oval. So mattel brought back the Sizzlers about 20 years ago same packaging and all, so I bought some and broke out the track and had some fun. Just like being a kid again!
Awsome Steve!!!! Had no idea about these!!!
I’m loving these indoor videos where I feel like I’m hangin’ out in Steve’s house with him. Never knew about these types of hot wheels before. And, love the makeshift cat food can rack/warmer!
The batteries can be replaced. If you have sizzlers which still have their chrome, remove the battery carefully before it leaks like Steve's have.
I took the motor armature from a sizzlers (or was it a mini-motorific?) and put it inside my TycoPro Slot car. It drew so much current that at the higher voltage from the slot car transformer, the windings would unsolder themselves from the commutator if I raced it too hard. I always liked the tinkering more than actual racing, and hot wheels didn't excite me beyond their appearances.
I remember saving up my pennies to buy the first Hot Wheels when I was 8 years old. If I remember right they were about a Dollar or less. I remember getting whipped with the track too. It was a different time and it was more scary than painful. (Much better than the belt).
Man, I'm with you there!
Mother's little helper.
We had sizzlers and the fat track. Loved those.
I had thouse , the rubber band on the tires broke in no time. Then the "stomper" came out . Much better.
I was heavily into Hot Wheels (and Matchbox) cars when I was a kid in the 1970's, and had most of the "sweet 16" (the first 16 models offered by Hot wheels in 1968). My collection grew over the years until I was old enough to drive. Of course, "real" cars took precedence over toy cars, and my collection sat in a big shoebox until, not knowing what some of them were worth, I let my kids play with them. Bad mistake. One day, my son got upset with me and proceeded to flatten them, one by one, with a brick out on the sidewalk. I was only able to rescue about a dozen of them that he hadn't gotten to yet. The final one to go under the brick was one of my favorites, a purple 1970-vintage Olda 442 that I had taken great care of. Later on, when I took up the hobby of collecting 1:64 scale diecast cars, I discovered that the purple 442 is one of the "holy grail" cars of the Hot Wheels universe. Only 11 are known to exist, with the best one, still unopened on a decent (but not mint) card appraised somewhere around $12,000 about 10 years ago. From what I could ascertain at the time, it would have been worth in the neighborhood of $2,000 in the condition it was in, pre-brick.
So now, all these years later, I'm 61 years old and I still play with toy cars. I probably have 200 pre-1972 Matchboxes and 100+ red line Hot Wheels from the 60's and early 70's. I have nearly every realistic casting from both brands from the past 15 years or so, plus color variations of the ones that I really like. About half of my estimated 4,000 car collection is made up of higher-end models from brands such as Greenlight, Auto World, Johnny Lightning (which is now far upmarket from where they were in the early 70's), and Castline M2. Hot Wheels has various premium, limited-production lines such as "Car Culture" that retail in the $6 to $7 range, while the Mainline cars are still around $1.25. I was looking for a hobby less expensive than my Corvairs and found it, although I found out that, as addictive as it can be, it really isn't all that cheap!
(On an associated note concerning the "Sizzlers" from this video: To this day I have never had even one of them! They never really interested me - I just thought of them as a gimmick, and the plastic bodies and chassis' were a real turn-off for me. To this day, I avoid plastic-bodied "diecast cars" that have a metal chassis and a plastic body.)
Thanks for the great memories. I recall my first hot wheel, hot wheels sets, and sizzler set. An oddity I can share, I had a Matchbox style track. A self-adhesive patch with a small pole stuck to the bottom of the car. The dual lane track had a spring in it, than moved around the figure 8. Bam - instant slot car set, with any hot wheel or matchbox.
I had the matchbox track set too! After the second or third time putting the peg/patch to a different car it wouldn't stick anymore, right? But it was still cool while it worked!
@@thewretchedmessgarage7097 Yes! The glue gave up, I had forgotten that. Thanks for some more great memories.
I love your videos Steve and I love the history!! Being a 80s kid I miss all the stuff you show everyone and we went from hotwheels to restoring regular cars but I still have hotwheels and models I never will grow out of that
As always, great stuff Steve.
I gotta ask, what are those cans you have on the radiator?
I’m a fan for life. Your automotive knowledge ever ceases to amaze me.
Cat food
I had all that stuff and more, but i was really crazy about AFX slot cars, my favorite being the Petty Superbird.
Cool info. My friends and I were excited by the Don Prudhomme and Tom McEwan funny car set they sold which had drag chutes. We didn’t notice in the TV commercials that the chutes weren’t actually in the cars, but in boxes under the track. First experience with marketing hype, I guess.
I remember my little brother and I got a Sizzlers track with two chome cars (I think one was actually a van) in 77' or 78''. It had a black Hi bank oval track.
The cars were fast but their batteries didn't make it to the next christmas.
The Sizzler also needed a brake if you ran it on an oval track as it would run too fat and fly off. I still have the Powerhouse, the Juice Machine and the pneumatically operated brake in mom's attic. There is also a complete oval track, with a loop and a jump, along with one of the large Hot Wheels storage wheels. I loved Hot Wheels as a kid.
I still race mine. The Motors, contacts and rivets are all being offered aftermarket and the modern equivalent battery is NiMH and are considerably more powerful than the 50 year old stuff.
My understanding is that they had capacitors, not batteries. Mattel brought them back in the 1990s, I nabbed a set with the Fat Track, just like I got for Christmas 1972.
Just like the baseball cards...my mom gave all my Hot Wheels 🔥 away.. dozens of them in the HW cases plus all my track and power houses.. 53 years old and I'm still bitter! 😆
I was born in July 1st of 65 I remember getting my Hot Wheels track and the Supercharger as you mentioned I’d say I was 5 for Christmas 1970. I love my Hotwheels. I still have 2 from the 70’s the packin’ Pacer and mail truck. And I have one from the 90’s that my Ma gave for Christmas as a keepsake a woody wagon with rear adjustable suspension. Thank you for sharing Steve brought me some memories there. I never knew about the Sizzlers existed that’s new to me. Again thank you for sharing Steve.
Hot Wheels came out on the market in 1968...1970 2 years later Sizzlers came on the Market You were 5 in 1970>...And maybe that explain why you didn't get Sizzlers and goo goo goo over them !! Sizzlers are the best of HotWheels even though adult Hotwheel collectors prefer the Dicast Redline Hotwheels because of the value these days
Yes when we were younger, that minute and a half was a long time (and it was) there is no way kids no a days could ever have the patients to wait that long! Lol! The powerhouse! That brings back great memories! Hours of fun! Thanks Steve! 😊
Twelve years ago there was this new online auction website call Everything But The House and in those early days before they were well known, deals could be had. My prized auction win was an NOS Aurora slot car set. Which I never had as a kid. Back then, late 90s, early 2000s, thrift stores still weren't popular hangouts for dealers yet so I always found cool deals on Hot Wheels goodies including a complete set of loop the loop track and those neat table clamps that held the launch track up. The whole setup for a buck.
Lol, a Dremel! I did the same with my Buck knife, no electricity. Looks real clean too. Just go real slow and careful. No need to rush with a grinding tool. It will just take too much plastic away.
i have one 1996 (base charge) sizzlers camaro stored it when i was young got it out this year works amazing
You can get replacement cells for the cars and other restoration parts online, also early 2000s they reproduced them. You can get them going again if you want.
Thank you Steve. Love seeing the old stuff. Hopefully you do more on the model cars as well. I loved the show you had on MotorTrend. Looking forward to see what’s next!!!!
I had the super charger in 1968 also has the drag race set, and the hot wheels wheel carrying case.
Have you ever considered doing "The Character" again? I loved that in the magazines!
Steve, were you ever into slot cars? I played with 1/24 scale slot cars in the sixties. I thought all the commercial raceways had closed, but in the mid-eighties I learned that there were raceways still open. I then began my adult slot car racing career. There’s also an active HO racing community. There will be a HO Slot Car show on February, 13th of this year at the Huntington Hilton in Melville, New York (Long Island) if you’re interested.
Interesting video Steve
Steve you just bought back some very good memories of my childhood my brother and I and all our friends racing our hot wheels and the Sizzlers in the basement
I had sizzlers when i was a little kid. They were way cool
Sizzlers and ssp's were my favorite toys. I still have some of my sizzler stuff.
SSP'S were great, really fast , I also remembered that you would get whipped when you pulled the T-handle
@@steelwheels327 Ever catch the web of your hand in the fly wheel? haha
Thanks for making these videos - I enjoy them
As a kid, I had lots of Hot Wheels and Matchbox............I don't remember the Sizzlers tho......I must have been old enough that I was into real gas engine stuff by the time Sizzlers came out......
Great stuff Steve,thanks. Brought back fond memories of my Lionel PowerPassers
I'm 50 years old and loved hot wheels when I was a kid,but these must predate me a little, I've never heard of them.
i loved my sizzlers!!! i played for hours!
Steve I bought my last Sizzle new off the shelf at wally world in 2015. They were still being made then.
Dad was anti battery & kid mix. I got the cars that used Hot Wheels track but it's booster power was compressed air.
Yes, I was "driving" EVs at 7 yo. My favorite Sizzler was the red Spoil Sport. Sizzlers needed the wide "Fat Track" to be fully appreciated.
I never had any sizzlers but I did have a powerhouse. I spent countless hours playing with HotWheels. Thanks for posting this!
The booster was called "Supercharger!!
My good buddy, Kevin, had the chrome Mustang. That thing was super cool. I think we eventually took it apart. Not sure if the battery failed or we were just curious.
You make me want to do a video on Ideal Motorific cars. Those are older, larger scale and ran on AA batteries (until they made smaller scale ones in the early 70s). I probably have enough to do a video if I could find all of them again.
I had that power house as a kid. It destroyed every car that I tried to send through it. lol
Lol , when ya said undisassemblable the childhood me said 'oh yeah'.
I was lucky enough to have a Power Pit; I could just plug in the cars and turn the big silver dial. I wish I still had my Hot Wheels.
Loved my sizzlers set !
The orange roof on the power house makes it look like a Howard Johnsons! I had the one with the speedometers on the roof, and I believe that it doubled as the charger - and if I remember correctly, it didn't take batteries, it had a little knob you wound up, which wound back down and charged the car like one of those radios they distribute to people with no electricity.
My brothers and I really liked our Sizzlers in the '70s. We were too young to have gotten the originals that were painted like the factory cars, I.E. the Boss Mustang, Z28, etc, by the time we got ours in the early part of the decade they were all chrome. Nevertheless, they were fun in the grade school tennis courts (Newton, Mass.) More than a few collectors made the mistake of mixing the Sizzlers in with the diecast Redlines in the same collector case and forgetting about them for 20 years or so - the batteries would fail and leak acid on the adjacent diecasts, ruining the paint and etching the Zamac. Not fun.
Another great video, brought back a lot of memories.....thanks for sharing and keep them videos coming ALL OF THEM!!!
Really cool video I still have some hot wheels from when I was a kid, and I got some of the old redline’s that were my dad’s even. I have real cars now and my rc trucks and cars, but I think they are what started every car guy’s in the hobby. Digging the model collection in the back, you should do a video of some of the old models like the johan’s and others. I’m big into my models and my rc’s, just about as much as my real cars.
Soo cool! Never heard of Sizzlers, and I was born in 1972! You’re like a kid up in your Moms Attic! 😁 great video 👍
So much fun to watch these vids
Thank you Steve
Mid 2000’s (maybe?) HW my son and I picked up a few sets and cars on the rerelease. They were a ton of fun to watch cars randomly pass and wipeout.
We always just rewired it so it would always charge, all the top was is a connection. so if nothing plugged into it no battery use from the charger, plug a car in and wait or leave for a while and run it or switch it off and charge another.
Yep right there with the rest of you ...my Sizzler charger look different . It was little ,red in color and i think contained either two C or D batteries! Did anybody out there have SSP or SST they were really fun too!
yes i had the ssp cars
SSP's were fun But those ripcords could leave a heck of a welt on your brother.
You're talking about a "goose pump", it took two "D" (not B(???)) cell batts. Had a built in belt clip, and was handy to have. Had SSPs, too, (Black Strap, Daytona, and Smash up Derby with a truck and a VW) they were cool!
They even had an Evil Kinevel SST,
That was a great review Steve, I was born in April of 1960 and I remember hot wheels and the Sizzlers the super charger. For one Christmas I received the California 500 race track, it came with 2 cars with little metal things that attached to the cars so you can attached a small plastic antenna to help count the laps of the cars going around the track I had lots of fun racing with my friends. And yes U had to keep holding down on the top of charging unit for 90 seconds or more. 👍🇺🇲☮
I got my "Supercharger" set the first Christmas they were available.👍
I wish I still had my Hot Weel collection. I never had Sizzlers instead I had slot cars and the largest track you could get from JC Penny's
The juice ⛽box evolved to a plug in charge station that was similar in size as the wheelhouse . It had a wind up timer on top& mini jack to plug the car into, worked more efficiently than the battery charger
Had the big black oval track set
Hours of fun, cars would take a hit line til battery depleted and would dip to inside line slowing down ..sometimes. or just stop to recharge , wrecks were common w multiple cars in a race
If you didn't behave , original orange track lengths became handy discipline tools for Mom 💥Ouch
Love the hot wheels and matchbox cars! Still have mine from the 70's in the little soft plastic carrying cases! Never had any sizzlers, don't know anyone that did. The old toys were great to have and play with! Keep up the great videos! Take care.
When new, those things would fly. I was born in 1960
I never heard of sizzlers, and I was born in '65! I did have the Hot Wheels dragstrip though. I rarely got a new Hot Wheels car, Tootsie Toy cars was more fitting for my parent's budget.
Still have mine along with the brake set up and speedometer
I had a huge set with the Power Pit charger
I remember all that stuff on the table, Dad had all of it including the banked track,and he had the Speed Train that I sold ,That was part of that line of product
Great video! I have the sweet sixteen complete set from 1968, I also have many others from 69 up to 73. Great collection you have there!👌😎👍
Hot wheels are my weakness. Still buy a couple every time I see them and so does my wife.
awesome vedio! yes it is to cold to be outside!
If you have an actual Redline Mad Maverick (not the Sizzler) you have a bunch of money on your hands!
had them as a jid. My dad took one apart to fix it. great video. It was fun racing them on the wide black banked track.