HotWheels Track

[[AK]Nuts]

So with Lil' Nuts being 2 years old, I thought it time for him to get one of my childhood favorites, HotWheels Tracks. I looked all over only to discover that you can't buy the standard issue orange track anymore. Everything is sold in a kit with a mechanical piece that forces the kid to stick to the design on the box. No putting the track on the stairs... no setting up chairs and tables to create ramps... nothing. Just a fixed set-up that requires no imagination. Damn Mattel.

So I poked around on e-bay and found a couple of folks selling the classic track sets and I bought one. 75ft of track with connectors, 3 loops, a couple of turns, clamps, etc... I think I'm more excited than he is about getting the track. (He has about 50 hotwheels that he received from cousin for Christmas)

I was quite upset at hotwheels for doing this. Just like Lego which now sells everything in pre-designed kits. When I was a kid, my favorite toy was my huge box of 200-300 legos. It wasn't a spaceship kit. It wasn't Farmer Brown or Deep-sea Explorer... it was just a big box of friggin' legos. There were instructions to build about 10 different things (good to do with dear ol' dad on Christmas day) but mostly I just built what ever I wanted.

So many toys today remove the ability for the kid to use his imagination.

[[AK]Bribo]

I ruined many a Hot Wheels car by creating some MASSIVE jumps using that orange track in my driveway.

You can still buy the "big tub o' Lego". As recently as a few years ago I bought one for Joe.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index...entPage=search

[[AK]Squidly]

Many changes were made for protection from lawsuit. Maybe kids were swallowing connectors or something. :P

[[AK]Hylander]

I was a lego kid for sure. Every christmas I looked forward to a new box of legos. I can only remember one kit, it was a car with a working engine/pistons/suspension, etc. You are right, all the kits now seem to take the creativity out of it. Back then, most were pretty much 'parts' with some lego men thrown in here and there. I remember building huge space ships and buildings, and cars. My friends and I use to have demolition derby cars. You built cars out of the parts bin and then smash them into one another. The last car with at least 3 wheels was the winner.

As far as matchbox, I too had all the matchbox cars with tracks. I had the loop with connector corners, etc. However, my favorite matchbox track was I believe the "superspeedway" one where you had to long straights and big banked blue corner pieces. On the front stretch you had handles where you had to time hit the back of your car with the launcher on every lap. I had a blast with that thing!

I was also into the slot cars, remote control cars, etc. I was pretty much into anything that had cars involved.

[[AK]Bribo]

The Lego kits are not that bad, however they are really only good for one build. Ultimately, the car/spaceship/whatever is broken into a jillion pieces by your kid and the parts make their way into "ye olde tub of parts".

[[AK]The Beast]

I was a Hot Wheels/Matchbox kid....I never had the tracks, but my friends and I would play a game where we'd take turns picking cars out of the bin in a sort of "draft", then have a round robin tournament where we'd shove them so they'd roll into one another in a high speed collision--if the car flipped and landed upside down it was out, keep smashing till at least one flips, last one with cars left won.* Needless to say, my old Hot Wheels wouldn't do too well on eBay.

*For the record, there was a Formula 1/Indy-style car that was almost unbeatable in that game--it was too low to flip, and the other cars would hit its front spoiler with their wheels and usually go right over.

[[AK]Bribo]

However, my favorite matchbox track was I believe the "superspeedway" one where you had to long straights and big banked blue corner pieces. On the front stretch you had handles where you had to time hit the back of your car with the launcher on every lap. I had a blast with that thing!

My friend had this exact track in his basement and we spent hours playing with it. We would also take our cars outside and make elaborate roads, houses, etc in the dirt. Great fun for a 10 year old.

[[AK]Nuts]

With 75ft, I'm planing on going down the stairs, through the library and then hooking through the dining room. The kit comes with 3 clamps too (I always used Pops' glass ashtrays) so I can get some good hills using kitchen chairs.

Of course in a few years, those very tracks are going to be used by Lil' Nuts to whack his sister... oh joy.