Well well.  It's been a long time and I must apologize for the extended absence - I have no excuse to offer, but my arm has been twisted and here I am.

So ... just what has Mattel been up to lately while I have been busy elsewhere?  Hmmm ... even more interesting than the re-introduction of Real Riders on the Treasure Hunts (yippee!) are the changes that have taken place in the cardboard department.  I have to admit that there are certain things I like about the way things are going.  Now, anybody that knows me well will guess that I do not miss the old collector numbers one bit, for two main reasons:  one, they were starting to make little or no sense, with no rhyme or reason as to when a new number was applied, and two, they were not even used on international packages.  I have always felt that the only numbers that count are the stock numbers, since these make a continuous series all the way back to 1968, even though the order in which they appear is a little ... bizarre.

So ... in 2000 we see Mattel taking a Matchbox approach, albeit on a grand scale, with somewhere on the order of 250 (I'm guessing) cars for the year (48 series cars, 12 Treasure Hunt cars and 36 First Editions, followed by 154-odd open stock cars.  I have to admit that when I first saw these new numbers, the first question was whether this was going to be a yearly thing or if Mattel was just resetting the collector number clock to zero for the "pre-millennium" (remember that the new millennium didn't actually start until the 1st January 2001 ... but that's another subject).  However, now that we are seeing some 2001 cars, that question has been answered.  Also, we see that Mattel has finally settled on 36 new FE's for a second year in a row, so I guess that is going to be the norm for a while.  What I like about the new numbering is that now you have a good idea as to how your collection is doing; with the old collector numbers it was anybody's guess, and one never really knew which year a car belonged to.  The really good news is that these numbers are also being printed on the international packages, which hopefully will make these cards a little more palatable for the cardboard collectors ...

Then, late in the year we started seeing Kyle Petty's ride in the lower right corner, and the stock number moved to the top of the card, which is a stupid move imho since it means that these numbers are now covered up when you stack your collection of cars ... dumb dumb dumb.  Unfortunately, even with Kyle off the card (I hear that Mattel is getting out of sponsoring Nascar), the stock numbers have stayed on top for 2001, so I for one am preparing for a lot of extra hassle as I put my collection in order ... sigh.  One step forward, one step back.

Mattel has also been playing around with corners a lot lately ... I just noticed that the cards were getting the top left corner back when lo and behold we get a completely new card design, with a graceful curved cut once again removing the top left corner.  At the same time, I see that the name has moved over to the right side.  Hmmm ... this is going to make it really easy to spot Treasure Hunt cars, isn't it?  The scalpers are going to like that.  Personally, I like the new cards, except for the stock number being on the top ... but I guess it's more important to have "Mattel Wheels" on the bottom ... for those two people that don't know that Hot Wheels are from Mattel.

Speaking of which - has anyone else noticed that the "Mattel spot" is gone suddenly from the Hot Wheels logo?  Interesting, very interesting. That spot has been there for over thirty years and now suddenly, poof, it's outta there.

On a final note, it's nice to see a real Hot Wheels car on the card for a change.  Personally, I doubt that I would have chosen the Sho-Stopper, but I guess it makes sense, since it looks kind of futuristic yet at the same time is bland enough that it doesn't overpower the card design as was the case when they tried a red car back in 1998.  Now I have to try and mix up some Hot Wheels blue paint and see if I can make myself one of these babies just for fun.

Oh, and wasn't that Mini Cooper just TOO cool with the pop-off body?

Viper