Found this in a bookstore, Hot Wheels Classics The Redline Era by Angelo Van Bogart, then bought it for my son. This book was published by Krause publications and released in 2009. Quite an interesting collectors book for Hotwheels enthusiasts. The book showcases, in 223 pages, the Redline era from the period of 1968 to 1977 that these diecast cars were a part of.
The book is in a hard cover format at your average coffee table book size. The book retails for around $30, as what is printed at its back cover. I see however at Amazon that the book can be had for a cheaper price.
The people at Mattel who were responsible for these diecast Hotwheels cars were interviewed and gave valuable insight as to how these toys came to be. From what event or car inspired that particular creation. Some cars were even based on toys or models of a different scale that were shrunk down to diecast car size.
For hardcore collectors, one interesting feature of the book is a rarity alert caption on some Hotwheel toys. It usually gives detail as to which batch of that particular toy has a high collector value (I'm not directly saying in terms of price...hehehe) due to the uniqueness of scarcity of that particular batch.
If you are expecting a complete picture set of the toys in all angles, I'm sad to say that you might be disappointed. Only one page is usually devoted to a particular toy model and not all toy angles or gimmiks are shown. Still its a great book for the information it has as to the history of that particular toy line.
For nostalgia purposes, it will definitely give you that high you feel when reminiscing about the past. I didn't have any Hotwheels toys growing up, what I had in my back of the woods were Matchboxes and Tomica's. If I could find a counterpart book like that for those said diecast toy cars then it would definitely be bliss for me.
