There's a monster in the back of the Mattel design center in Los Angeles. It's a two-foot-tall lizard that eats Hot Wheels while rolling around, storing them in its belly. When it stands upright, the monster roars like Godzilla, transforming into a ramp from which you can launch your favorite 1:64 automotive icons. It is a toy of epic proportions, light years more advanced than the Hot Wheels playsets I had as a kid.
It's called the Hot Wheels City Transforming T-Rex Ultimate Hauler, and Paul Schmid, Mattel's key lead vehicle product designer, is clearly proud of its intricate design.
"What we do back here is different than anybody else in any design area. It's not just about drawing pretty pictures, as you can see from these sets, because there's a lot of performance, a lot of math, a lot of engineering, a lot of geometry," he said.
Playsets like the Ultimate Hauler are just one aspect of what's made Hot Wheels one of the world's most popular toys, selling billions of the little things. If you're reading this, there's a good chance you owned one of those billions, and if the Hot Wheels team at Mattel does its job, you'll have more in your future.
But did you ever wonder what it takes to make one of the 1:64-scale wonders? I recently got a full tour at Mattel's Los Angeles design center, and while the Hot Wheels process isn't all fun and games, there's certainly no shortage of play involved in bringing these four-wheeled icons to market every year.
History
Hot Wheels is Mattel's biggest success of the moment, but it wasn't the company's first. Elliot and Ruth Handler founded the company in 1945, starting with toy furniture for doll houses made from scrap material.
The company launched its first toy car in 1953, the Dream Car, but that was a larger, more traditional toy. The company's little, cheap, 1:64-scale machines didn’t arrive until 1968. Founder Elliot Handler challenged his designers to come up with something faster and more fun than the other toy cars on the market. (Including Matchbox, which launched 15 years earlier.)
Mattel's designers worked with materials experts and designers from the automotive industry to develop a prototype machine that zipped across Handler's desk so quickly that he exclaimed, "That's a set of hot wheels."
The name stuck, but the design process has become significantly more complex.
Trim Levels
When we think of Hot Wheels, most of us think of the basic, plastic-bottomed, cardboard-and-bubble-packaged toys. Today, though, the company has a series of lines, starting with that standard trim, the most common toys, which still cost about a buck each when bought individually.
From there, you step up to the silver-tier cars, which add "A higher-end deco level and some special wheels," according to Bryan Benedict. He's the key principal designer for collabs and partnerships at Mattel. The term "deco" is toy-speak for decoration, meaning paint and overall design.
The next tier up is what Benedict calls "premium" cars, which offer even more detailing. Then there are the 1:43 "feature" level of cars, larger modes that include one-off features like pull-back motors or rumbling engines.
Finally, there are the Elite 64 Series cars, which stay true to the 1:64 sizing of the originals but offer far more detail. That detail comes at a cost: $20 or more per.
Designers divvy things up based on vehicle type (race cars vs. 4x4s, hot rod vs. JDM, etc.) and make sure they have the right segments covered in the right product categories, occasionally with a bit of debate between designers as they pick their favorites.
At the end, they produce 50 new models and 400 new "decos" every year, reinventing the product lineup constantly.
"We're not rehashing the same thing over and over again. We're keeping it 100 percent fresh," Benedict said.
Design Process
Regardless of the line or the scale, the process starts very much the same, with an original concept. Lately, some of those original concepts have come from a full-scale source: the Legends Tour. Since 2018, Hot Wheels designers have been inviting independent creators to show off their wildest creations, choosing a favorite every year to become immortalized in 1:64 scale.
Last year's winner was an NA Miata, wildly customized with a cyberpunk flair that caught the eyes (and the hearts) of Hot Wheels designers. This year, it was an amazingly overengineered 1943 Ford truck.
"What we do back here is different than anybody else in any design area."
But that's just one of the 50 wholly new models that Hot Wheels introduces each year. The rest of the car concepts come from various sources, including guidance from the marketing team or ideas from within the design team.
If it's a fresh concept, the first step is a series of two-dimensional sketches—art boards much like those used for full-sized models at car manufacturers. While a full-sized car takes upwards of five or six years to hit dealerships after the initial design phase, a new Hot Wheels design has to go from initial line drawings to hanging on store shelf pegs in just 18 months.
After the initial concept is fleshed out, it’s rendered into three dimensions. This is where nuance and style need to be transformed into fully fledged components that fit together, virtually sculpted in digital clay to create a 3D model that can be sent to Mattel's overseas manufacturers for prototyping.
But, before they meet their destiny with the industrial stamping press, most digital models make a pass through Mattel's in-house 3D printing workshop. Spread across two rooms and numerous machines, designers can get early mock-ups of machines crafted through a number of different types of additive manufacturing.
The company has everything from consumer-grade stereo lithography machines for quick, cheap prototyping all the way up to a machine like the Stratsys J850, which extrudes full-color 3D models, using a gel-like support material that must be washed away after the print completes. Some of these machines cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mattel has many operating constantly.
Once everything looks good, the digital models are sent to the manufacturing facility. There are a few rounds of prototyping and approvals to go through before the final molds are created for mass production.
But the job isn't done yet. After all, cars aren't any good if there's nowhere to play with them.
Playsets
Paul Schmid's domain is in the back of the building, a huge space littered with half-assembled playsets and an endless supply of orange track.
The process of designing these playsets is more hands-on but takes roughly the same 18 months. These designs, however, are much more driven by input from the marketing team, timed to match the seasonality of the market. New playsets tend to hit the market in spring and fall, with the bigger, more expensive sets dropping in the winter holiday window.
Designers here tend to be more hands-on, according to Schmid, often starting with foam board mock-ups. These are the first stop on a more complicated road to final approvals and manufacturing. Cost is a huge consideration here, with designs having to be refined and simplified to save pennies.
Safety is another primary concern. Schmid demonstrated a powerful launcher that can send cars through the air to hit a target. But, once that target is hit, a flap rises to block the free-flight of subsequent cars. "So you don't hit your little brother in the head," Schmid said.
But, the biggest thing is making sure that the sets work as designed, a process that relies on specialized equipment, including a 30,000 fps camera to capture the exact instant when a poorly profiled section of orange track causes a premature getaway.
The team uses the same 3D sculpting and printing tech to prototype parts before these models are sent away for full production.
Legends
Sunday's Legends Tour event was a sight to see. The parking lot outside of Mattel's design center was filled with custom cars of every possible description, including many that you'd struggle to categorize.
These amazing cars were flooded by thousands of fans from all over the world, many who won't be old enough to drive until we're well into the next decade. All in attendance admired the automotive creativity on display.
The judges picked one car out of the melee: The FordTruss. Scott Robertson, an ArtCenter College of Design department chair, designed and built this 1934 Ford truck. It was clad in water-cut aluminum panels featuring more than a few aeronautical cues. Its intricate design was amazing to behold, as was the 430-horse 6.2-liter LS3 under the hood.
The FordTruss now goes up against other Hot Wheels Legends Tour winners from around the world, with a Grand Finale winner to be selected later this year. I'll be rooting for it. It was my personal pick of the show, and since I can't take the real one home with me, I hope I get to put a little one on my bookshelf at home.
Update: An earlier version of this story indicated that Sunday's event was the Legends Tour final. It was actually a semi-final, with the Grand Finale winner to be selected later. The story has been updated to reflect that.
