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You’ll learn a lot about the history of Hot Wheels®, as well as get to see some amazing cars on your visit to The Children’s Museum. But did you know these extraordinary facts about America’s favorite cars?
1) The first Hot Wheels car that was produced was a dark blue custom Camaro in 1968. You may recognize the Camaro name from Transformers movies; Bumblebee transforms into the muscle car while saving the day. Watch Bumblebee transform at The Children’s Museum.
2) Mattel has sold more than 1 billion Hot Wheels cars since then. If they made one Hot Wheels car per minute, it would take more than 175 years to get to a billion cars, so they must be manufacturing them very quickly indeed!
3) The most anyone has ever paid for a Hot Wheels car was more than $70,000. One wealthy fan paid that price at auction for a Beach Bomb model that is extremely rare because the model wasn’t a big hit at the time of production. Now who’s laughing?
4) For the Hot Wheels 40th anniversary, a diamond-encrusted racer was commissioned to honor the occasion. Talk about extravagant. Would you like to drive a car covered in diamonds?
5) Leading up to the 2011 Indy 500, a real-life Hot Wheel car was driven by Tanner Foust down a ramp attached to a giant 10-story “door” and executed a world record jump of 332 feet. You can see a fan’s clip of the jump here.
Don't miss our own epic Hot Wheels track that we built throughout the museum in This Week's WOW:
See Hot Wheels: Race to Win beginning this May at The Children's Museum—race in before these cars hit the road later this summer!
