Well I guess it all started when we moved to Southern California from Canada in the late 60's. My dad is a tool and die maker and got a job in the aerospace industry. After a while he got laid off and started work at a new company. That new company was Mattel. I know what you are going to say: "What a lucky kid you were!" Well I guess you're right, I had everything a little boy could want and it was all Mattel stuff. Of course, after a while I got tired of some toys, so out they went, Major Matt Mason and every toy and character in that line, gone. I had so much orange track and curves and a power house it was unbelievable, gone. The Hot Birds Control Tower, gone. A mechanized helicopter that went around in circles, gone. A Bi-plane that went around in circles, gone. My mom threw out some much stuff it makes me kind of sad now. About the only thing that never made it to the trash bin were my Hot Wheels and my Hot Birds. So here I am now thirty five years later with 10 Hot Birds and 156 Hot Wheels. I happened to come across a toy collectibles store were I live. The owner of the store said he could appraise my cars so I brought in a few at a time and the values were quite amazing. So what happened was I started collecting Hot Wheels again only now I was buying the new stuff. Big mistake there! I soon grew tired of going to all of the local Targets, Toys R Us and any other place that carried Hot Wheels. I even went to shows and was buying up a storm. Then I got hold of a Tomart's guide and started going through it. I noticed my Police Cruiser was different than the one pictured, the guide said mine was a prototype. Yippee! Then I looked for my Paddy Wagons that I have. The Tomart's guide had no listing for a Light Blue (Spectraflame) Paddy Wagon. So I took both cars over to the toy collectibles store and the owner said that they were pre-production models, I scored again! So now I'm really thinking about some of the cars I have, I read in the Tomart guide that the Python was originally called the Cheetah. I remember when I was a kid, I asked my dad for a car that was unpainted and not riveted together. I found the car and it is not looking so good but low and behold when I looked at the base it said Cheetah! So I took the car over to my toy collectible's store and asked the owner if it was true that there were only three known examples of this car. He told me it was more like seven or eight of them around. Well I pull mine out of my pocket and show it to him and ask if this would be number nine? He looks at it, nods his head yes, not only is it a Cheetah, he says, but it also has a US base to boot! A very rare car indeed. He wanted to buy it but I could not sell it. Then came the Convention in Anaheim and I showed the car to Mr. Strauss and he wanted to buy it. Sorry, I said, but the car is not for sale, so out of blind luck I have some really valuable cars! So now I collect mainly Redlines cars and some of the new stuff that is appealing to me.

Tom Kowalke