Some Hot Wheels play sets that brought back memories

Hello friends, I hope that you were doing well. If you remember a few blogs back I mentioned how I was cleaning up the garage to help with my mental health. I was looking for things that inspired my creativity. One of those things were toys. I’m sure your favorite toys inspired your imagination growing up as well. I talked about it previously but I was really into Hot Wheels as a kid. I’m still a huge fan of cars, and automotive art, and always will be. My brothers and I had a number of classic Hot Wheel, and Matchbox cars, and tracks growing up. As we got older we gave up a number of our toys to our cousins, nieces, and nephews that weren’t so lucky. Since we took great care of our toys they were in super great condition even as hand-me-downs. One of the best sets we gave up were from an old line called Sto & Go. These were track playsets that held a few cars, and could close into a small suitcase complete with carrying handle. Each playlet was themed after parts of Hot Wheels City. You could find a set that looked like downtown, complete with pop-up skyscrapers. One set had a garage, gas station, and car wash. One set was a construction yard, complete with working crane, and gravel dump. These playsets offered so many things to see, and do. We definitely got our fair share of wonderful memories through them, and were sad to let them go, but knew they were going to be enjoyed by another generation of family members.

One of the last sets I remember getting, possibly the last set in fact was called the Wildwave Stunt Set. The thing I really appreciated in the Hot Wheels sets was the storytelling that they provided. The early generation of tracks in the ‘60s, and ‘70s were fairly straightforward jumps, and loops. In the ‘80s there was much more storytelling. The Wildwave story was essentially a wave that a car could surf on. The track was a beach scene with a corkscrew loop over a lifeguard tower. There were tiny plastic palm trees, and characters that you could play with when you weren’t dropping the woodie surf wagon down the track. It was a compact stunt track that you could take apart for travel. I enjoyed this set more than others because it reminded me of my childhood. We spent a lot of time at the beach. I was gifted this track for Christmas in 1990. This was during an especially cold, and rainy winter. There was a death in the family, so my parents left us in the care of our grandmother. Despite the somber holiday when I played with the track it always reminded me of those warm summer memories.

It was certainly a track that I thought about picking up on eBay. But reason got the better of me. There was just no room to display it. There were plenty of other toys in the garage I had yet to find room for. The memories of that set remained, and that was enough… for now. I’d like to know if there were any toys, or playsets specifically that you had great memories of. Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!