My earliest personal memory is engraved in my mind. It was of me watching my brother playing GTA San Andreas, running over people on my Tio Benjamin’s PS2 on an old CRT TV in his room, in our house.
But besides that, I remember having a ton of Hot Wheels, and I’d always play with them. I had a bucket full of them, specifically the pork skin plastic bucket. Just having a bucket of Hot Wheels Made me love them so much. So, it would only be fair for me to collect them today.
I always had loved cars, and I don’t even know how or why. Both of my parents were and still are very supportive of my hobby taking me to stores to go look for Hotwheels. When I was around 7 my dad and I made a promise that any exotic car brand my dad finds at stores, he has to buy me. I wouldn’t think he would hold up to his word but he did. He told me on the phone one day that he had found a McLaren P1. I didn’t believe him when he brought it home; I was in shock. I couldn’t believe I had a McLaren in my collection, and that was when McLaren just started to make production cars. Sometimes they would buy some Hot Wheels randomly for me but most of the time I’d already have them, but one time they got me 5 Hot Wheels in one yellow Dollar General bag. One of my favorite cars at the time was the McLaren 720s since it was the newest McLaren at the time. They brought it home and I got so happy and excited I think I even cried. I don’t even remember the other cars they gave me. I just remember the 720s, and I still have it today.
When I was younger I’d play with my Hotwheels obviously but I also wanted to be a videogame designer. So when I played with them I thought of it as a video game. I still remember the name I gave it, I called it “ImportCity”. I forgot any of the stories I made, but I still can recall all the memories I had. When I was younger I always wanted to be a videogame designer. But I realized how hard coding was and I gave up on it. I would occasionally draw game covers in my sketchbook but soon realized that I’m terrible at drawing. The only thing I can remember was that I was heavily influenced by the 2014 movie “Need For Speed.” Yeah the one with Aaron Paul, and that single movie grew my love for cars more, but something even bigger, hypercars, and also the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento but mostly the Koenigsegg Agera R.
After watching the movie at home playing with my Hotwheels on the living room floor and seeing Rami Malek’s butt at the ripe age of 7. I grew a love for the Agera R. The first time I saw it in the movie it was as if I saw Megan Fox in the Transformers movie, and I’ve never seen the Transformers movie. I fell in love with it. Wanting it as a Hotwheel for my collection I instantly looked it up but soon would later have my heart shattered by something called scalpers. People buying a single car just to sell it on eBay for 70-80 dollars was absurd. And I hated it, same with the Bugatti Veyron, but I needed the Agera R at that moment. I even complained about it to my mom and she understood me. I would always dream of having the car in Hotwheel form to the point where I’d imagine I had it when I played with my Hotwheels. I always wanted the car after knowing how to order stuff online. I would always look through eBay listings to see if I could somehow buy one for cheap. But I couldn’t, and I was disappointed.
6 years later I would open my phone while in school and look at Instagram when I saw leaked information about the upcoming Hot Wheels Coming soon. The excitement in my heart skyrocketed as I saw the body of the Koenigsegg Agera R on my homepage seeing it will be released in early 2020 and I was EXCITED. The only problem was that it was a Walmart exclusive, and to add even more insult to injury it was a premium. And at the time the Walmart near me wasn’t stocking premium HotWheels. Not until Thanksgiving of 2019 came around.
My dad asked me if I wanted to go get supplies for the Thanksgiving dinner later that day since I had nothing else to do in the morning. I said yeah so I could check the Hot Wheels Hoping they stocked up. We went inside and I went to the toy aisle. My dad went to grab the supplies and I was walking at a fast pace excited to see if they had anything new. As I was walking to the aisle I saw all of the pegs FULL of the newest set of Hot Wheels. I got excited. But something caught my eye, the same set that had the Agera R. I started hyperventilating, I could hear my heartbeat just trying to find it. I was becoming hopeless seeing 4 other old guys in the same aisle as me looking through the Hotwheels thinking they took all the Agera R’s. I began to lose hope, but in the corner of my eye, I saw a long and beautiful name at the bottom of the card. “Koenigsegg Agera R”. I grabbed it as fast as possible tumbling down all the other cars in the same peg and I started jumping up and down quietly shouting “I HAVE IT I HAVE IT.” An old guy said to me “You found a good one?” And I exclaimed, “YES, I’ve been wanting the Agera ever since the Need For Speed movie came out.” I got so happy I couldn’t believe my eyes, having my favorite car as a Hotwheel.
Having over 700 Hotwheels In my collection it only makes sense for me to not just exclusively have Hotwheels In my collection. I also have Matchbox, but they’re owned by Mattel so they’re the same. There are two other brands I sorta prefer over Hot Wheels. One being Majorette, and the other being Tomica. When Toys R Us sadly shut down. (Rest in peace Toys R Us you will always be remembered.) They had a huge sale on everything, me and my brother both got Hitman (the video game) headsets for I don’t even know how much but that’s about the most I remember for what I got for myself. But one thing I didn’t know was that my parents bought me about 6 Majorette cars. I don’t know why or how much they each cost. But I was really happy that my parents got me new cars to add to the collection. But there was one very noticeable flaw with these over Hot Wheels. They were significantly bigger, but not a noticeable difference but you can see from afar how much different they are. I still had my time with them but I never willingly preferred them over Hot Wheels. The other brand I still like is Tomica. The main flaw with these is that they are exclusive to Asian areas such as Japan, China, and Korea. I have to order them off Aliexpress and it always takes a while for them to arrive and I have to pay even more for what they are normally priced at from where they normally come from. It’s also difficult because some cars are bigger than Hot Wheels, smaller, or just right. It’s hard to tell if I’m gonna get a 1:1 in size for Tomicas to Hotwheels when ordering them. But I usually always keep them because returns are a hassle on Aliexpress. But The main reason why I still order Tomica cars is because they have the Ferrari license.
Back in 2015, Ferrari decided they were no longer gonna be with Hotwheels As they seemed too “childish” for the “amazing” and “prestigious” brand of Ferrari. But Fortnite is formal enough to have a collaboration with Ferrari. Besides the fact that my favorite car brand ever since I was 4 was always Ferrari. To the point where I made my classmates in Kindergarten believe my first word was Ferrari. Before I found out how to order stuff online, to be able to buy Ferrari Hotwheels. I would always ask my dad every weekend during the summer if he could take me to the “pulga” or flea market. And we’d go around once a summer to sell and like once a month so I can buy Hotwheels. And I’d always come across some Ferraris, always buying any I could find for cheap since collectors sell Ferraris for outrageous prices since they are no longer being made. I always loved selling stuff with my dad over at the Pulga and I would always buy new Hotwheels And I’d show my dad the new cars I got. And I learned another valuable skill there. Lowballing!
Back in late 2020 or early 2021 car culture started to go around TikTok and began to be popular. And since car culture began to be popular it would only make sense for Hotwheels To be popular around TikTok as well. And that’s when in my opinion Hotwheel collecting started to be more difficult as there were a lot of people trying to collect while I was trying to as well. But one big thing grows, whenever people start to enjoy a new hobby. There’s gonna be value in specific cars. And when an item has value, greedy people love to ruin it for others. This would be my main introduction to scalpers, besides the Agera R. The terminology comes from the fact that they “scalp” all of the cars they think will have value and sell it all on eBay looking only for a profit and nothing more, their soulless. It’s not to “help” other collectors find specific cars, it’s just for them. I despise scalpers in anything they always take away the fun for anything. I don’t see scalpers leaving the hobby anytime soon at all sadly, I only think they’ll grow. Hopefully not though!
My collection has grown a ton. With over 700 cars in my collection, it only is fair to have favorites. I have my favorite car, the Agera R. But another movie that made me fall in love with a car was Furious 7 with the W Motors Lykan Hypersport. It’s just awesome seeing a car smash through skyscrapers. Another car I love a ton is the La Ferrari. And yes it’s a LaFerrari not a Ferrari LaFerrari, would you say Ferrari Enzo? Another car I love is the Mercedes Benz 190e. I always loved how it looked but I never knew the name of the car. But thanks to ASAP Rocky I found out what it was called and I loved it even more. I have a huge love for rally cars and some of my favorites are the 2012 Ford Fiesta, Lancia 037, and the MG Metro 6R4. Another car is the Caterham Superlight R500, the 2012 Mercedes AMG C63 Black Series, and the 1996 Toyota Celica. And the RWB Porsche 930 is just my favorite Porsche of all time. Also the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and Huracan Performante, and the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport. And lastly, the Lexus LFA. All of these aren’t Hotwheels as some are Tomica cars as well. Sadly Hotwheels haven’t created my favorite car of all time, the Gumpert Apollo S.
That brings me here today where “almost” every day I would bring two of my Hotwheels every day to school to show my friends. I still love collecting Hot Wheels Even though they’ve been infected by unemployed scalpers, and my love for cars is still massive. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon even though it’s become less exciting as it’s harder for me to buy new cars when I have a good majority of them. I just wish Mattel would bring back many of their old models from the 2000s instead of cars from the previous year. Or when they make new models focus on cool new European cars, not boring electric cars. I love this hobby and I’ve had many amazing experiences collecting.
