Week 10: Hollowback

The picks for Daddy's Matchbox are and will be (for the most part) replicas of real cars that have rolled off carmaker lines -- some Hot Wheels models may be based on modified versions for street racing, but you won't see the car that looks like a dinosaur or something.

So when I grabbed this Hot Wheel's Hollowback from the rack at Target,  I assumed it was based on some underground racing reality or car modified for drifting. As hip as I might seem, this late 40-something dude in Ohio is somewhat removed from the illegal street races of L.A., although I have seen The Fast and the Furious, The Fast and the Furious II, III, and Tokyo Drift (in the spirit of full disclosure, I was actually cooking dinner during III and Tokyo Drift, but I ran into the livingroom for the race scenes).

The idea was, I would tie it into music because obviously this related to the Gwen Stefani song "Hollaback Girl."

I gave the car to Andy, the guy who takes some of my car pics and who is +20 years younger, and explained my most excellent blog idea.

"You know, like the Gwen Stefani song 'Hollowback Girl?'" I asked.

"No," Andy said.

"No, yeah, you know, this is a Hollowback, so the Hollowback girl would be the hot girl who drops the flags during a street race, like in The Fast and the Furious. See, she isn't going to do that."

"Uh, no," said Andy. "The song is 'Hollaback Girl,' but your idea makes a lot of sense."

At that moment we both knew that it didn't, and I just had sounded really, really old.

"Like the girl, who, you know drops the flag, for the...Hollowback..." I weakly said.

"Right. For the Hollowback car. But no."

"So...."

So I did learn, by Googling, that hollowback is a B Boy type dance move, and hollaback has nothing what so ever to do with cars.

Oh, well, it's still a cool car. And if you don't know what "drifting" or "B Boy" refer to, well I'm sorry -- you're just not as hip as me.

Photo of Hot Wheels Hollowback courtesy of Andy Bindernagel.