Matchbox cars were first created in England in 1952. While working for Lesney Products, owned by Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith (no relation), die-caster Jack Odell created the first ever Matchbox car. It was a brass Road Roller made small enough to fit into a match box, at the request of his daughter. She wanted to take something to school for show and tell but school rules mandated that all items had to fit into a match box. The first line of Matchbox cars was sold by the Lesney company in 1953 with the #1 Road Roller, #2 Dumper and #3 Cement Mixer. New cars were added to the existing line each year until the line reached 75. (The line was increased to 100 in 2008 but let’s stick to history for now.)

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The Matchbox brand of cars dominated the die-cast toy car industry for decades. In fact, they had no real competitors during their reign as the only prominent die-cast toy car maker. That is until Mattel introduced their line of Hot Wheels in 1968 and had immediate success. Matchbox’s sales in America dropped from $28 million to $6 million following the introduction of Hot Wheels. There are a number of reasons why Hot Wheels had such an immediate success.
The first and primary reason for Hot Wheel’s overnight success was the wheels. Co-Founder of Mattel, Elliot Handler, had created new wheels that are described as ‘friction-less.’ These new wheels allowed Hot Wheels cars to race at up to 200 mph (for the scale of the car). These ‘hot’ wheels allowed Mattel’s line to quickly surpass all competitors, both car to car and sales to sales. Children simply enjoyed having a toy car that ran much faster down the plastic track.
Hot Wheels also had a great advantage starting out. The Lesney company (forerunner to Matchbox) started from scratch with a condemned building, limited funding, and grew out of a die-casting company’s slow season. Hot Wheels came from already well established Mattel. Mattel was the leading company in many toy categories and had highly successful lines of toys like ‘Barbie’ and ‘See N Say’. In fact, when Mattel introduce Hot Wheels, they did so with a $10 million advertising campaign. Hot Wheels also had an advantage in the production of their cars. They had their models build in places like China and the Far East, where labor costs were significantly less than in England, where Matchbox originated.
Another huge factor that led to Hot Wheels success in America was the fact that it was an American company. Hot Wheels initial success was limited to the United States and sent Matchbox sales in America plummeting as stated earlier. Matchbox was able to maintain a foothold in the die-cast toy car industry due to its worldwide sales.
Hot Wheels also became widely popular immediately because of the models they chose to produce. Matchbox had primarily produced their cars years after the actual car or vehicle was produced. Hot Wheels primarily used the designs of the American made muscle cars and hot rods of the fifties and sixties. They also tended to customize the cars the way many car enthusiasts did in Southern California, with the rear end jacked up and flames or other graphics painted on the body. These design characteristics helped Hot Wheels succeed in America because kids could now race around the living room with the cars they saw on the streets and their older siblings drove.
In 1969, a year and a half after Hot Wheels were introduced, Matchbox themselves came out with faster wheels and more contemporary models. Matchbox and Hot Wheels then remained neck and neck in the toy car world for many years. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that Hot Wheels began to pull away from Matchbox and become the clear industry leader.

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Collecting of die cast toy cars like Hot Wheels and Matchbox grew out of a passion for cars and childhood memories. Until the early 1990’s, collectors were constrained to just a few options: collecting variations and errors, collecting every car in a series or year, and collecting special limited editions not sold in stores. It wasn’t until 1995 that die cast toy car makers started producing cars for sale in stores that were packaged specifically for collecting. It was the introduction of the Treasure Hunt Series from Hot Wheels that started it all.
The series consists of twelve cars, typically hot sellers in the past, which had new paint and graphic styles applied and sport ‘Real Rider’ tires. Real Rider tires are actually rubber and can be removed from the rim like a real tire. Often times the tires had ‘Goodyear’ or ‘Treasure Hunt’ printed in white on the side of the tire. These cars were produced in limited quantities, 10,000 at first, but were released with the regular series each year. This created an interesting aspect to the Treasure Hunt Series since they were also sold for the $1 price of the regular series. The only exception to this is a box set of the entire series sold exclusively at JC Penny stores around the Christmas and holiday season. The series did experience a few variations over the years. One example is the standard practice from the regular series of re-releasing models with a different paint style. In 2005, in honor of the tenth anniversary, the series released the most popular model from each year of the previous ten years. It was also in this year that a thirteenth car was offered through a mail in offer, which required proof of purchasing twenty other cars.
The value of the Treasure Hunt cars typically spiked for a particular model when it came out. Often times a car found on the ‘pegs’ in stores for a dollar could immediately be sold for fifty dollars. The value would then slightly decrease when the next month’s cars were issued and the spotlight moved to the next model in the series. As is common, the cars for the inaugural year are valued highest. The ’67 Camaro released in 1995, for example, is the most treasured model and is worth over $300.
The Treasure Hunt regular series is now sold in two versions, the new version being one with a higher production quantity. This series was designed with the hopes that children could also have a chance a finding the rare cars. Both versions of the series have packages marked with a green stripe behind the title of the car. It is the only noticeable packaging variation from the standard line of cars. The Treasure Hunt series has now also expanding into other die cast lines of cars made by Hot Wheels including the Racing line. If you are interested in searching for these rare cars be prepared to get to the stores early, just before the new month’s models come out, and look for the green stripe. Good luck hunting!

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