An open letter to the HWC Staff: Is this commitment gone?

Originally posted by HWC Dave, January, 2002:

Greetings. There have been several posts asking questions about our next wave of online exclusive cars. So, here's a bit more info on what we have planned. We will have more detailed info in the days ahead. Please try to hold off on questions such as how you'll be able to order these, when they will be out, etc. We will have that info when everything is finalized. This post is intended to be more about the cars, than the logistics of the program. We will have pictures of these cars and their development as they become available.

This year, we will be featuring an online series of 14 vehicles. These vehicles will consist of 9 castings from the 25th and 30th Anniversary sets, 1 completely new tool, and 4 from the current Hot Wheels tool bank.

The castings from Anniversary sets will be nicer versions in terms of paint, decos, and wheels than the Annversary set cars were. We will be using the nice Redline replica wheels from the 30th Anniversary Twin Mill for these cars. For some of these castings which require small wheels, we will be tooling a replica of the old small redline wheel to match. In terms of deco, we will be featuring authentic spectraflame paint on most, but the cars will not be "replicas" of old releases. We will be creating some new paint and deco shemes for some of these older castings, but they will be done very authentically to the original years of Hot Wheels and will be done very tastefully, not overly deco'd. Basically, these castings will be designed as if they we released back in the "old school" days.

In regard to the modern castings we will be using, we will be featuring redline'd Real Riders with high end decos and paint schemes. These cars are really looking great. Our graphic design team has loved working on these cars because they don't have to stay in the normal boundaries of regular mainline cars.

As a special treat for collectors, all of our online cars will feature metal chassis. This means that we will be creating new chassis tools for a few of the castings we are using that currently only exist with plastic chassis.

We've got something special planned for the completely new tool and it will most likely be designed by Larry Wood.

All cars in this 14 car series will be produced in runs of 10,000. We've created a new exclusive blister pack based on the size of the current standard blister pack, but with artwork that is very in tune with the look and feel of our site. It is really sweet! In addition, each of our cars will come with an official Hot Wheels clamshell for protection purposes. These clamshells will most likely be available for purchase in bulk later in the year as well.

In addition, we will be producing 5 or 6 hotwheelscollector.com vehicles in support of the East Coast and West Coast conventions. Combined with our online series, all of these cars will make one killer set!

Finally, there will be a few cars that are only available to Redline Club members. We will have more details on this premium membership club quite soon. We are planning on having the first of these vehicles available for purchase in March. One more thing to add regarding the Anniversary tools, this is the last time these particular tools will be used--sort of our online version of Final Runs. Not that these castings will never be released again, but that these specific Anniversary tools will not be used again. We have no further comments at this time.

I told Dave that he reproduction 30th Anniversary Twin Mills and "Spoilers" set, as well as the Cool Collectibles Custom Firebird and King Kuda, all had the Delrin bearing-style redline wheels. I picked up several of these Twin Mills and took the wheels off; they fit perfectly on original redline cars. On March 9, 2002, he replied:

Yep, we were planning on using those wheels, but decided to re-tool them entirely instead. While the 30th Anniversary ones were cool, I think we can get them even closer to the originals. Should be awesome!

What I get from this article, is that the RLC™ was important to them. They wanted to do things right. They did not settle for what they had, they improved upon it.

When they told us about adding torsion-bar suspension and bearing wheels from the Anniversery and adult lines, they decided that even though they had cool wheels already, they could make them more like the originals.

They could have given us a polished zamac finish with Spectraflame paint over it (like the Classics™ series cars), but they took the extra steps of cleaning the flashing marks/lines off the castings and chrome-plating them— not just the Neo-Classics™ but the Real Riders®, too.

They wanted to push the boundries of the cars they offered us beyond that of which we had ever seen before. That's where the redlined tach logo comes into play. It was their reminder to keep pushing the limits, and their promise to us.

In every aspect right down to the customer relations and interaction, they tried to give us the best possible product they could, because this was not just a job to them; they cared. They cared about us, they cared about the club, and we cared about them as well.

It seems to me that ever since Amy started losing staff in 2003, and finally left in 2004, this site has lost sight of itself. No one seems to care about anything but the bottom line. We are listened to just enough to keep our interest barely holding on. Cars are made with expedience in mind, not quality.

In setting up for year one, the staff said the wheel was okay, but let's make it even closer. In 2007 we were told by one admin that they were going to get to the problem of wobbly wheel bearings and fix it... only to later be told by another one, "Naw, we're going to just toss that out and use a different wheel." He followed that up with a poll asking, in essence: "How would you feel about our changing the axle too, if it works better?

The special wheels have disappeared, and the torsion-bar suspension is slowly being eliminated, as well.

The Site Admin went from being online and communicating with us daily in the first 4 years, to being online and ignoring us (except when they want to put in an appearance or when the flames are getting too high. The free flow of ideas and information has continued to dry up, compounded by inaccurate information on upcoming products and incomplete descriptions from the HWC.

Have we been relegated to cash cows, to be fed fluff and hay, and be milked for our money? Or is someone at HWC/Hot Wheels Inc./Mattel Brands going to get back in the saddle, address what's going on, and get things back under control? We want the club and the products we once had, back.

I'm sorry, I'm tired of fighting for what was, just 5 years ago, the standard of this site. I just want to know if any one is left on your side of the screen that cares enough to do something about it, or if I've been completely wasting my time trying these past 3-4 years, as people keep telling me? Should I stop trying, and caring about what's going on with the site and the product?

I made a promise to the original staff to help where I could, give honest feedback, and, whenever possible, help make the site better. I've kept the secrets asked of me, and I have done my best to follow through with helping the site. I've held up my promise (even though the people I made it to are mostly gone now) because I made that promise to this site as well. is there any one at the HWC that is willing to give the same level of dedication as the original staff did? Or am I indeed just a misguided nut, dreaming of days of yore?