That Present Was Right On Track

Hot Wheels car sets were the coolest.

- Elliott Mattice

One Christmas in the late ’60s, my brother and I got a Hot Wheels set from our parents, and it was all we’d hoped it would be.

Of course we’d seen the TV commercials leading up to the holiday. They showed real dragsters and souped-up muscle cars in California interspersed with pictures of the tiny metal cars that sped incredibly fast down cheddar cheese colored tracks. At the end of each ad, a gruff voice spoke the slogan “Go...with the winner!”