"It’s more than just the motor. It’s the history; the stories the metal tells with each scrape, bump or nick and the memories that the fabrics of the seats weave with their smell and feel. To many, that’"
Retro Hot Wheels
Not sure what it is we like about this poster from a Hot Wheels campaign from some time in the 1970s. I guess it must be that there was no such thing as political correctness, and balls out power could be promoted to our kids via the toys they played with and the advertising campaigns that filled in the bits between the programs.
Go to the Hot Wheels site these days and you’ll see a lesson in CGI. The cars dreamt up in the HW ateliers owe more to the wire frames of gamer’s virtual rides than the visceral reality of these nitro-burning dragster babies, which were photographed, using film, light and chemicals.
Seems to me that with ubiquitous pixelation comes a removal of the smell, the dirt and the menace of real life. Shame that this digital prophylaxis is encoded in the bodies of contemporary Hot Wheels toys.
On the other hand, respect goes out to Buccaneer Films and their life on Youtube for re-introducing the smell of oil to model cars.
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