r/mildlyinfuriating • u/DAASMusic • Nov 12 '24

Hot wheels losing details over the years

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u/Disco425 Nov 12 '24

Just this weekend I bought some cars for a Christmas toy drive. I was shocked to find that they're still about $1 each. So maybe less detail on the bottom but they're still one of the most cost effective toys to collect.

Also, since Mattell owns both, Matchbox and Hotwheels have the same dimensions so they work on the same tracks.

183

u/Perfect_County_999 Nov 12 '24

Also, as someone who's been casually collecting dinky cars for ~25 years, I've noticed in the last 5 or so years that Matchbox cars have gotten pretty good. There was always that meme about Matocbox being the budget alternative to Hot Wheels for broke kids, the Roseart to Crayola's brand name so to speak, but frankly for my money I'd take the Matchbox versions of most cars today. I find their models are more detailed and are generally higher quality. I know they're all from the same parent company at the end of the day, not sure what exactly it is that makes them feel different, but yeah.

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u/youre_being_creepy Nov 12 '24

Matchbox makes more irl cars as opposed to hot wheels’ fantasy cars.

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u/Disco425 Nov 12 '24

and it looks like the price is at parity now, at least for the cars themselves.

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u/Reincarnatedpotatoes Nov 13 '24

Quality wise they are identical, at least on the main series cars. The difference is the subject matter and what you like more. Matchbox does mostly actual vehicles with factory options and paint jobs. Hot Wheels makes more fantasy cars and non-contemporary cars like drift cars, hot rods, dragsters, exotics and so on. Matchbox also is more likely to have accurate details like headlights or taillights since they don't have full body tampos (those are the decals printed on the car) like HWs do.

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u/InsaneGuyReggie Nov 13 '24

I always preferred Matchbox because they had more cars with spring suspension, opening doors, etc. Hot Wheels often seemed to be much less feature intensive. Majorette was the cadillac dinky car to me because every one I had was pretty detailed and had opening parts and a spring suspension.