'68 Mustang 2001 - Basic Cars #089 / Hippie Mobiles 1/4 Hot Wheels 1998 Basic Cars Item No.: Asst. ??? No. 50127 Manufacturer: Mattel Includes: n/a Action Feature: Opening hood Retail: $1.00 Availability: ca. 2001 Other: In rotation since 1998
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Timing is everything - and I slotted this car for being featured today a few weeks ago, because I have to keep ahead of things. I bought it thinking "ha ha 1990s take on a 1960s hippie car" and now... well, I guess it can be an ink blot test. The Hot Wheels '68 Mustang Hippie Mobile was probably meant to cash in on the late 1990s nostalgia for Woodstock. The base car (also sold as a '68 Mustang) has been in circulation since at least 1998, and got a major retooling in 2010. As time went on, these cars had less metal and got Theseus'd - so modern incarnations weigh less and don't have the opening hood. Modern deco tends to be better, but older cars end to feel more solid.

The vastness of this toy line ensures you can get some older stuff at reasonably low prices. The car isn't worth much more than its issue price, but shipping will get you, so I have little problem shelling out three or four bucks for one of these when the paint stands out from what's on the market today. You can see the changing tastes throughout the years, from wacky innovations in deco or style, to cars you will absolutely never see mass-produced again. I'm not sure what 1:64 cars parked outside a venue to see the Dead play would do if manufactured around 2025.

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Given its age, the shiny, silver base model looks remarkable. When a toy doesn't yellow over two decades, that's a good sign - the wheels spin nicely and the paint is still delightfully good. The wheels are plastic, but everything else seems to be metal other than the windows. Newer cars don't have the heft, and while they're by no means bad you can feel a definite difference in the all-metal varieties. There are some small, sharp details like door handles, vents, and a place for a license plate that all turned out well - but, unsurprisingly, they didn't paint all the lights. I suppose you could do it if you have a steady hand. I do not.

There are some deco choices that seem appropriate to the collector of the late 1990s and early 2000s, ironically or otherwise. I saw a lot of guys in their 30s and 40s going through Hot Wheels pegs and kiddie pools filled with cars that would probably find this relevant to their interests. But also hippies have frequently elicited a certain response from people which has resulted in amusing art, ironically or otherwise. The post-post Woodstock deco has mutated peace symbols and "United Groove" on the sides, resulting in a car that's somehow both factory perfect and mauled by some goofball with a stencil. It feels like something that somebody probably saw in a photo or on the road at some point. I imagine parents saying "don't stare, Johnny."

The toy world always has a push and pull of "it was better in the old days," and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. As an old toy, its materials were not betrayed by age. New action figures have photos printed in their faces, Transformers can move more than their shoulders, Masters of the Universe got rid of rubber bands. That's great! But Hot Wheels did the impossible and still sell for about a dollar, at the cost of nearly all-metal builds and most moving parts other than wheels. I leave it up to you as if it's better or worse, but I certainly wouldn't mind it if the price went up to $2 or $2.50 if the level of metal or moving parts stayed like it was in the 1980s and 1990s. But from the sound of the news, we're probably going to get $2 cars without the return of better materials and moving parts real soon.

This cultural artifact alludes to a bygone era, sold during a period where it felt like everybody was just finishing up capitalizing on the burning remains of Woodstock. We're well beyond the custom van craze and hand-painted "groovy" cars strike me as being as approachable as poison dart frogs were I to find one in the wild, so this particular cultural mash-up may work best as the kind of thing that makes someone pick it up, look at it, and ask "what the heck was that all about?" The amount of unwanted, unloved, but fascinating debris from the 1990s toy collector market would no doubt be a great subject for a book or a documentary, but alas, it is a lot of work, and I am lazy. As we are staring down what may be the biggest toy price increases of our lifetime, it might be worth your while to hit those antique malls and garage sales. See if you say anything that makes you pick it up, scratch your head, and give way too much thought to what was no doubt just an attempt to separate someone who wanted to still feel like they were cool from their dollar. (For more of that, see the previous 2,843 entries.)

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