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GRAND PRIX SERIES
FAMOUS
RACE CARS! AUTHENTIC MINIATURES!
Odds
& Ends...
"Welcome
to the major league." Above is a page from the 1970 Mattel
International catalog showing the 11-car Grand Prix line up.
There's some very
interesting stuff on this page. First of all, check out the two
new cars for 1970:
the Porsche and the Ferrari. The Porsche is wearing Ford Mk IV
numbers and appears to
have black windows and headlights. Is it a photograph or a
drawing?
The Ferrari is wearing McLaren numbers, but that's not the most
interesting feature.
Rather than intake stacks behind the cockpit, this car has a scoop!
Several of the 1969 cars in the photos are prototypes. The green
enamel Brabham has a clear windscreen and white interior. Same
for the Shelby
Turbine and Indy Eagle. The Lotus Turbine has the prototype clear
glass and white interior and
is painted in orange enamel, a color that never showed up in
production. All
four of the Indy cars that were used for the catalog photos still
exist! Two belong to
Bruce Pascal and two to Bob Rosas.
Above: catalog
models! Photos courtesy of Bruce Pascal & Bob Rosas.
From the 1968 catalog, here's an artist's rendering of the Ford
J-Car. The description reveals two interesting points.
First, the original plan was that
this car would only be produced in white enamel. Second,
"streamlined underbody" refers
to the painted base found on HK, but not US, J-Cars. Below is the
photo of the
J-Car that appeared in the 1969 catalog.
The
1969 catalog featured artist's renderings of the four new Indy
cars. Interesting that the Lotus is wearing Indy pole sitter Joe
Leonard's #60 badges,
rather than the #70 badges that ended up on the production decal sheets!
Below:
1969 catalog photos of the four new Le Mans & CanAm cars.
The
two-page spread below is pretty cool! This is from
the catalog that came as part of the Hot Wheels Club kit in 1970.
Pictured are all of the cars
from 1968 and 1969, and the new cars for 1970. Several of the
cars in the photo are
prototypes (see the orange enamel Lotus Turbine in the 6th row?
the rear-loading Beach Bomb
in the 3rd row?).
Note that the four Indy cars are the exact same four cars pictured
above and now in the hands of two collectors. Also, note the very
interesting
prototype Ferrari 312P (1st car, 8th row). It has a red intake
scoop, rather than metal intake
stacks! I've always wondered if this car existed as a prototype
or was simply a drawing (as in the
catalog photos at the top of this Odds & Ends page). This
photo suggests that there
was indeed a prototype in one form or another. I wonder where it
is now...
Click on the spread to see a larger version on the photo.
Above
is a rare 4-car Indy Team set from 1969. Unopened and still in
the shrink wrap, these sets are valued in the $1200-1800 range.
Similar to the Indy Team set is the Ontario Team set. These sets
contained a McLaren, a Lola, a Ford Mk IV and a Chaparral. The
above set is missing it's shrink wrap and stickers have been applied to
two of the cars. The Ontario set below is still wrapped in the
original plastic.
Here's
a hard-to-find Action Set Gear Box featuring a red Ford Mk IV and a
white Chaparral 2G on the front. The box is about 3 feet long and
has
room for track and accessories, and a 12-car tray.
Every
Grand Prix collector needs one of these cases!
The
following color guide is from the 1969 catalog and shows the first
generation Hot Wheels colors. Both gold and light blue
essentially
disappeared after 1969. "Lime" covers both lime and
antifreeze. "Lavender" is known as creamy
pink among collectors.
Below
is a color guide that was created by a collector using PhotoShop.
Although this is not an official Mattel chart, it does a reasonably
nice job of
showing the six new colors that appeared in late 1969 and early
1970. Note that the "lime"
VW is actually antifreeze in collector jargon, and that the "light
green" Peeping Bomb appears to
be US lime rather than the Granny Smith green apple color
characteristic of US light
green.
Some
redline era artwork featuring Grand Prix cars! These beautiful
panels by artist Otto Kuhni were featured on track set boxes and
depicted the layouts
that kids could assemble with the track sets. This particular
artwork was
featured on the Grand Prix Super Charger track set.
Below
is a rare and valuable Hot Wheels store display from 1969.
Displays such as this were provided to stores to introduce and
advertise the Hot Wheels
line. This particular display features the four Indy cars about
to race on the streets of
Monaco! A red Maserati Mistral serves as the pace car, and
residents driving a rose
Custom VW, a blue Mercedes 280 SL, and a green Rolls-Royce patiently
wait for the race
parade to pass!
This display was listed on eBay in Oct. 2004 with a Buy It Now price of
$28,000!
MORE TO COME!
Please check back later...
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© 2004 by Rick Wilson. All Rights Reserved.