I was already a Matchbox fan when HotWheels were first introduced: HotWheels invented the "give it a push and it rolls a good distance" type of wheels-on-wire-axles, slick enough that they could make the HotWheels race track with the spinning rubber capstan sending the cars all the way around the track. A Matchbox's wheels would turn, but it would only roll inches if given a push.
Matchbox was getting crushed in the market. Then a year or two later (a long time when you're a kid) they introduced the Matchbox Superfast line which had the same type of wire-sprung wheels, but they still weren't as good at rolling as HotWheels.
but being a child on-the-spectrum I was pretty upset by the whole thing for another reason, because Matchbox cars were realistic reproductions of actual car models (Maserati Ghibli); HotWheels cars were imaginary fantasy cars (Green Goblin or something), and I couldn't stand them, I liked realism and my favorite way to play with them had a lot of parallel parking... but HotWheels were better.
The older history is different.
I was already a Matchbox fan when HotWheels were first introduced: HotWheels invented the "give it a push and it rolls a good distance" type of wheels-on-wire-axles, slick enough that they could make the HotWheels race track with the spinning rubber capstan sending the cars all the way around the track. A Matchbox's wheels would turn, but it would only roll inches if given a push.
Matchbox was getting crushed in the market. Then a year or two later (a long time when you're a kid) they introduced the Matchbox Superfast line which had the same type of wire-sprung wheels, but they still weren't as good at rolling as HotWheels.
but being a child on-the-spectrum I was pretty upset by the whole thing for another reason, because Matchbox cars were realistic reproductions of actual car models (Maserati Ghibli); HotWheels cars were imaginary fantasy cars (Green Goblin or something), and I couldn't stand them, I liked realism and my favorite way to play with them had a lot of parallel parking... but HotWheels were better.
so the end of the story is... I hit puberty