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Stock #24381 |
CB's Die Cast Review: November 18, 2000 |
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2000 First Editions #28
When the roster
of First Editions is announced each year, there always is one casting that collectors
dream will be an outstanding model. When the Hot Wheels poster was released
this year, the artists' rendering of the `67 Dodge Charger leapt off the page.
That conception stayed in our minds for months -- until the model hit the pegs.
Some of us collectors, especially those that hail back to the infancy of Hot Wheels in
1968, were hoping to exclaim: Woop, there it is! Instead we were left asking:
Is that all there is?
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The Charger was the Dodge representative in the fastback design craze of the mid
1960s. Based on the 1964 Charger II concept car, the production version first
appeared in 1966, with minor changes for the following model year. The new
Charger body utilized the Coronet chassis. As expected in this era, the standard
engine was a 383 horsepower V8. But, the high performance V8 Magnum engine
produced 440 horsepower and employed a four-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust
pipes. The car basically was designed to carry four passengers, with two bucket
seats in the back and up front, separated by a center console even though the three-speed
manual or automatic transmission was mounted on the column. An optional
console-mounted four-speed transmission was available with the larger engines.
Tires were available in blackwalls, bluewalls or redwalls. The top of the line
wheel cover matched a certain toy design released the following year that was destined for
future fame. The body was available in a number of enamel and metallic colors,
and could be finished with the optional black or white vinyl roof. The Charger
name has remained popular throughout the years, and is assigned to one of Dodge's premier
performance sports cars today.
Just as the full-sized vehicle bears a strong resemblance to its Plymouth Barracuda fastback
cousin from that year, the Hot Wheels model has a similar familiarity to the ancestral
Custom Barracuda
model from 1968. Unlike the original Spectraflame car, Mattel chose to design the
First Editions model as a low-rider, without the rear rake that was ubiquitous with the customized
hot rods of the late sixties. The low-rider appearance was more common in cars from
the late fifties and early sixties, and less so in this period. The die-cast metal body
is painted silver enamel, matching one of the prototype colors. Detail includes door,
truck and hood lines, door handles, windshield wipers, taillight and gas cap. The chassis is
chrome-plated plastic, has good detail and also includes both bumpers and the
front grill. The interior contains four bucket seats and is made of red plastic. The
glass is clear plastic, and includes only the triangular vents on the side. The vent
post is molded into the glass, similar to the `59 Impala, `65 Impala and
`70 Road Runner. The side-to-side taillight is tamped in red with the name of
the car dropped out across its face so that the silver paint shows through.
Large red Dodge lettering is
tamped on the rear quarter panels. The model rides on the new five-spoke wheels and
was manufactured in Malaysia.
Well, to be blunt, our expectations for this model were greater than the end result. The
model doesn't approach the level of detail found on recent First Editions based on vehicles
from this era, including the `63 T-Bird, `65 Impala, `70 Chevelle and
`70 Road Runner, among others. The trunk lines don't extend to the edge of
the car, and there is a small faceless dimple on the trunk that gives no clue that this
should be a gas cap. There is a hatch on the rear quarter panel on the driver's side.
Normally, this would be a gas hatch, but since the true gas cap is supposed to be on the back
of the trunk, we have no idea what this represents.
The taillight tampo is very uneven, and dropped out lettering is too fine to be consistantly legible.
A second silver tampo of the lettering should have been printed over a masked red painted taillight.
The dashboard has absolutely no
detail whatsoever. No rain-drip window molding detail exists around the side windows.
The car sits way too low. It also appears to be too long for its width, such as the
1970 Dodge Charger Daytona and the `59 Caddy, but that might be due to the low
profile. And those wheels, on this car -- a minor peeve, but a peeve nonetheless.
If the car had different wheels and a metal chassis, we wouldn't have been as disappointed.
The customizers will like this model, because they will be able to modify many of these characteristics
while making their creations. The basic model won't be considered as one of the classic
First Editions when the final tally is taken, which is a shame. While it is
improbable to expect Mattel to produce 36 winners every year, it would have been nice
to be able to recognize the Charger as one of the signature cars of 2000.
