Presented without commentary this week. You all know these two lines. So, here are a couple of pics.

Hot Wheels







Matchbox Cars

Man this one is hard. Both were great but I'll have to give the edge to hot wheels

Hot Wheels will probably win so Matchbox gets pity vote.

Going with Hot Wheels. I used to love those cars shaped like animals like the shark and snake ones.

Matchbox wins in overall value,rarity and desirability by older collectors and ebay scalpers. I would say Hot wheels wins the newer fans and is more desired by kids, as the sets are really meant to be played with, be it making a 20 foot track or slapping your friends with the orange track lol., .... good times.

I dont know about the quality of the 80s product, but growing up I always saw matchbox as the cheaper alternative to hot wheels. Hot Wheels was for the kids who could afford the huge battery powered tracks. On the other hand, matchbox was great for putting out more real world cars. Not in the sense of exotic/sports cars, but everyday cars you'd see normal people drive, and I liked the relatability.

There's a song that kind of compares these two
Da Brat & Jermaine Dupri "While y'all drive match box, I push the hot wheels"

Another tough choice! Had to go with Matchbox since I liked the more realistic cars and play sets better than the race tracks of Hot Wheels.

That is the only reason I'm going with Hot Wheels myself. The shark and the green lizard/dragon one with the huge red eyes were awesome!!!

Went with Hot Wheels, since I preferred them as a kid over Matchbox.

Ironic that they're both owned by Mattel now.

Too be honest as a kid I couldnt tell what was what when it came to these...I just cant vote on this as Im sure I had both.......

I had a multi-level folding Hot Wheels City playset. It was awesome!

Till my nephew got a hold of it, that is. . .

no real rational as far as my vote for Hot Wheels as a kid I kinda thought of them interchangably

HOT WHEELS LEADING THE WAY

this ones a tough one both are great brands but ill have to pick HW

Not voting. This is going to be a case of where brand name wins, for no other reason than it's a brand name.
Beyond that, the two are pretty interchangable. They were the same scale, constructed pretty much the same way, worked in the same sets.

I don't really know what the difference is, other than the fact that Hotwheels had some cool fantasy cars, and I don't remember Matchbox doing the same.

I respect your stance and I agree with a lot of it, but I have to go Hot Wheels. Most of my old cars are Hot Wheels and thats what I got the most enjoyment out of as a kid.

I remember being a kid and not liking matchbox. I always thought they were cheaper for some reason.

When they were separate companies, Hot Wheels was known for doing mostly fantasy cars (but some realistic stuff too). Matchbox was known for strictly real-world cars (even if some were prototypes). Once Mattel bought Matchbox, the brands eventually became interchangeable. Even after Mattel assured MB fans that they would keep it as a real-cars-only brand and leave the fantasy stuff in the Hot Wheel brand.

Thanks, Treb!

I still think Hotwheels is winning this strickly by name alone.
Kinda like TF vs Gobots, where some gobot haters have never even seen a picture of an actual gobot toy, let alone held one, but still calling them "cheap K-Mart Transformers."

I vote hotWheels, simply because I still actively collect them.

However, back in my youth, I collected both and really liked the actual "matchbox" that the cars were packaged in. When Matchbox was owned by Lesney they were awesome.

Thanks so much for the clarification and I stand by my vote because Hot wheels were the best of both worlds: fantasy & reality cars

No problem. Happy to help.

I'm sure that brand recognition has a lot to do with it, especially for non-collectors. And your TF/Gobots analogy is spot-on, except Matchbox was at one time considered the more high-end of the two (at least by Matchbox collectors). And to be fair, Matchbox had been around for 15 years before Hot Wheels appeared. Transformers and Gobots were much closer in terms of their debuts.

So it makes a little sense for some fans to feel that Hot Wheels were a cheap copy, even though the quality for both brands was about the same. I think that Mattel won the "battle of the aisles" through their superior marketing, like Hasbro did with Transformers.

By the way, next year marks the 60th anniversary of Matchbox and 45th anniversary of Hot Wheels.

Yeah. Definately agree. I almost mentioned in my original post that Matchbox predates Hotwheels by quite some time.

Did you mean Matchbox there?

I have an ancient Lesney Matchbox of a 1968 Ford Mustang. It has all the taillights, headlights, and even the Ford logo molded onto the body in fine detailing. The wheels even steer with a switch in the side. I have a brand new Mustang matchbox car that's a lime green California Special, with accurate paint and lights and even interior design to the California Special car.

Whereas my 2011 Ford Mustang Hot Wheel uses the same mold as the 2010, 2012, and 2009 with no variation and half-assed details. The only truly great Mustang Hot Wheels I have are the '86 hatchback Mustang and an incorrectly-labeled Boss 302 with rubber wheels.

BUUUT... Hot Wheels had the track. I grew up in the 90s, but I had vintage Red Line track as well as the super-awesome 90s power-pack loops. Matchbox didn't have anything quite like that.

Tough decision.

Nope. Boba mentioned a good example of why most collectors back in the day thought Matchbox was better. They did a lot better on the aftermarket too (such as it was back then). Of course, not everyone agreed and there were just as many die-hard HW collectors out there denouncing MB as there were MB fans railing against HW. My experiences in that world may not be indicative of all HW/MB fans, but that's pretty much what I saw/read/heard back then.

Btw, I wanted to bring up another point that was mentioned earlier in the thread. Matchbox had its own tracks and playsets that were very similar to what Hot Wheels had (at least the one that had realistic themes). I used to have both, but IIRC the tracks weren't interchangeable. I think the cars worked with either, but it's been so long since I last owned or even played with one of those sets that I can't remember for certain.