What Happened to Daddy's Matchbox?

Six months ago I began a weekly diecast toy car diary called Daddy's Matchbox, a perky little name, I thought.

As time went on, I realized that name presented some issues, not the least of which was that Matchbox is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I'm a Matchbox fan, but I am not affiliated with Mattel.

Additionally, the majority of my posts are about Hot Wheels cars (also Mattel), and occasionally other brands will show up, like Johnny Lightning. Okay, small point, but it bugged me a small amount.

The real impetus to change the name came when I realized many of my readers like connecting to my posts through Facebook.

Originally, I linked to my personal Facebook page, but followers of my blog weren't necessarily interested in the type of material on that page, and personal friends didn't always want to know everything about Daddy's Matchbox.

It made more sense to have a business FB page with a Like button dedicated strictly to the blog, a FB page where people could post pictures, swap stories, even trade toy cars, and for a registered website FB page I really began to feel uncomfortable about using a trademarked name in my domain.

While a hassle to change the blog name, it made sense to do it now and get the FB page set up with the new identity.

I'm writing all of this because I know there are tons of things to read and view out there, and I truly appreciate every person who has taken their valuable time to read my blog. I do not want to waste your time with a sudden blog redirect, but it was the right time to make the switch.

Also, don't think that Mattel busted my chops -- they did not.

Thanks for your patience, support and understanding -- and know my tiny cars will continue to show up every week as before.

Sincerely,
Dale Luckwitz

The pictured ad is from a Citgo insert found in the October 1968 Ladies' Home Journal. Over time I'll put scans of vintage car ads up on the Daddy's Tiny Cars FB page, and I invite you to post your own vintage toy and car ads up their too, as well as any pics of favorite diecast toy cars and planes.

Between Post Picture

Saturday night my wife and I took our  kids to an Unbirthday Party (from the Mad Hatter's rant in Alice in Wonderland about celebrating the 364 days of the year not your birthday) at East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Kirtland.

The kid-friendly community-building event saw 12 tables set up, one for each month of the year, and everyone sat at the table corresponding to their birthday month. October was a lonely table, but likely a busy month, given the number of people at the July table.

Cake decorating elements of all manner were provided, and the cake of my birth month, February, ended up with no less than one dog-like dinosaur, 10+ gummy bears, a small rooster, and lots of mini M&Ms.

Following a variety of games and after many frosting-coated kid faces were more or less wiped clean, everyone was able to grab an unbirthday party prize from one of two over-stuffed baskets full of all manner of toy oddities.

This post exists because as my wife and I were wrangling the littlest one, who was completely coated in aquamarine-colored frosting (that's my boy!), my ten year old, affectionately known in this blog as Racer Z, rushed excitedly up to me to show me his prize.

What was so special, however, was that the prize he was so excited about was not for him, but for me.

"Dad! I picked your prize for you! You're going to love it!"

The prize was the above pictured little die-cast, a Shell Motorsports Indy Racer die-cast (#28 Shell Reynard, if you must know). My son was so thrilled because he was adding to the Daddy's Matchbox collection!

"Did you pick a prize for yourself yet?" I asked.

"Not yet, but I thought you would really like this. Do you?"

"I do, very much," I truthfully answered.

I don't think I could have been happier had he driven in a real car and handed me the keys.

See I may be an adult, but I can still imagine the excitement of rummaging through a toy basket for a fun trinket, and to know that the real excitement came for my son from finding a gift for me will be treasured.

Little Indy Racer, you may proudly take a place among the Daddy's Matchbox collection.

Thanks to all the wonderful people at East Shore U.U. -- if you're in Kirtland, Ohio some Sunday, please drop by -- and a happy unbirthday to all of you!

For accuracy, the featured car is not affiliated with Matchbox or Mattel and was manufactured by EPI Sports Collectibles.

Week 24: '81 Delorean DMC-12

Phil Pekarcik, stager and composer of the recent artful photos for Daddy's Matchbox, is without electricity, along with thousands of others, as a result of an ice storm. No power = no car pic.

Rain froze on everything -- wires, trees, cars, farm animals, politicians -- bringing now-heavy branches down, often with disregard for electrical wires or structures beneath.

My family was fortunate in we were without power for less than eight hours, allowing the water damage restoration crew who has been working in our basement to continue their efforts.

For weeks we have been dealing with basement issues -- a filled 20 yd dumpster in my driveway is testament -- and mold and water damage has meant loss of furniture, walls and lots of general stuff.

Last night I helped my ten-year-old with his school project: a cereal box about a president (he was doing Andrew Jackson, and had named his cereal "Old Hickory Crunch"). My son was overwhelmed and stressed, and my main contribution was to help him break down the project into components and to guide him in focusing on individual tasks and not worrying about the overall size or complexity of the project. I even worked on teaching him to take deep breaths and to find the humor and fun in the entire experience,and I guided him in not labeling work good or bad, but just seeing it as what it is.

 Living in the now fifth grade style, so to speak.

This morning as I looked at an appointment I had to attend concerning healthcare coverage for my kids, while pricing wallboard for the basement, while thinking about the task of rebuilding my basement walls, while coordinating an upstairs fogging for the mold, while discussing one-car scheduling for physical therapy for my wife who damaged her knees in a car accident, while calling the trash company to remove the dumpster (which likely would be delayed due to to the ice and snow), while handling paperwork concerning my unemployment,while dealing with ten other time-consuming necessities, I realized I did not have a picture for the blog, or even a blog written, and, unlike the ice, I began to melt.

I couldn't do it - too many parts, so many elements to coordinate, too little money, so many projects outside of my comfort zone, so much to do, so much I didn't know how to effectively do ...

...and it clicked. This was my Old Hickory Crunch.

Problems are relative to our individual lives, but either the advice I gave my son was real or I was just talking.

I believed what I had told him.

I took a deep breath.

I began breaking down my day into small parts, and as I did, I moved past my problems and soon began imagining how overwhelmed others must feel with no electricity, or, even worse, no homes, or no water, or living in war torn countries.

My problems became neither good nor bad, but just parts of my big picture.

So my wife came outside and we took care of one small part of the day: she began snapping pictures of the first 2011 Hot Wheels to show up so in Daddy's Matchbox. For the picture I chose a model year of when I graduated from high school, 1981. Also, I tried to think of the most unexpected car one might find in an icy tree in Ohio, and for me that was a Delorean.

I'm not convinced that makes sense, but it did to me.

Outside, the trees are coated in thick ice, looking mystical or toy-like, as if of spun glass. The sun is peaking through the top branches, and I see bursts of bright green, yellow and red, which I realize is the handiwork of the ice, which is creating prisms to break down the light of the sun into its component colors.

Everything is crazy, surreal, intensely beautiful.

Picture doesn't do justice to the actual visuals. Extra point: can you find the bird in the tree?

Our resident cardinal, wondering what the fuss is all about.

This is a non-commercial blog and most of my readers don't even live in Ohio, let alone the Cuyahoga/Geauga County area, but I nonetheless want to give a true, heart-felt shoutout to Gil Gotlieb and his crew at Airguard Restoration, who did the flood/mold remediation in my basement. Gil and crew were incredible, listening and solving problems at every step, and they made a stressful situation seem not so bad. What an absolutely great company that does absolutely great work, and what an absolutely great bunch of people. Thank you.

As previously mentioned, car picture was shot by my wife Rochelle. The Delorean is number 144/244 of the 2011 Hot Wheels collection, part of the Faster Than Ever line.

Week 23: 1971 Dodge Charger R/T

What a challenging week already. Water damage in the basement, took out the drop ceiling, ripping out drywall, disposing of tons of damaged things, tearing, carrying, trashing, fixing. I'm a CHARGER!!!

Yesterday my son's bee-boop sounding toy wasn't bee-booping -- I took it apart, and against the odds, I made it bee-boop again! I'm a CHARGER!!!!

Batteries in other son's toy went dead. They were rechargeable. I charged them.  I'm a CHARGER!!!!

I cleaned a counter with a vinegar and water solution, instead of chemicals.  I'm a green CHARGER!!!

1971 was the third generation of the Dodge Chargers. I was in third grade in 1971, when I won third place in the classroom spelling bee, winning an extra large Hershey bar.  I was a 1971 CHARGER!!!

I was born in '63. R/T stands for Road and Track, but only 63 Hemi 426 "elephant" engines ended up in the 1971 Charger R/T (this was the last year for this engine in any car). I have numerical similarities to a 1971 CHARGER!!

I'm really tired.

Really, really tired.

I'm going to sleep. Then I'll be recharged.

I'll be a RECHARGED CHARGER!!!!





CHARGER!!!!



Photo courtesy of Phil Pekarcik. I love the color of this car -- makes me think of spring. This car was part of the Hot Wheels 2010 New Models collection.

Week 22: Purple Passion

My Valentine's Day car pick: a Pearl Pink 1949 Mercury* tearing down the road like a high speed Valentine's Day card.

Valentine's Day cards, the yearly showcase of red and pink, flowing script and hearts...
 unless you're a kid.

Then it mean means tiny cards with licensed characters and bad puns.

That twist on a romantic tradition hasn't changed much since I was a kid in the early 1970s. I remember decorating shoeboxes to hold those odd little cards, and then, as now, not exactly understanding why Valentine's Day cards were to be given to every kid in the class. Why was I required to ask somebody who tried to beat me up to be my Valentine? That just seemed a bit extreme.

Over the years, characters on those cards have merged in my mind so that I no longer remember if they were sent or received by me, my oldest son (now 21), or my now fifth grader. Images of the Transformers, Peanuts, Looney Tunes, Garfield, Shrek, Power Rangers, Batman, and Lost in Space have all shown up and ended up on the kitchen counter.

Since the images usually have nothing in common with Valentine's Day, I've often thought it would be fun if there were boxes of those cards with inappropriate choices... characters from, say, Inception, Jersey Shore, The Hangover, or Apocalypse Now.

Or maybe not.

Still, it's that time of year again, and my son has a box of Iron Man gender-neutral Valentine's cards ready for that inexplicable February tradition, that, if not exactly fun, is special in its strangeness and love of pop culture.

As for me, I'll stick with pink cars and Malley's chocolates.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!


Photograph courtesy of Phil Pekarcik. Either there is some Photoshop involved, he blasted my car with a grow ray, or he shrunk the Edgewater Delicatessen with a shrink ray -- I didn't ask. 

* The above car is a special one: a mystery car (the ones you see in the store with the blacked-out blisterpack on the card) from the 2010 Hot Wheels lineup. This car, in a wide range of different colors and styles, has been issued and reissued multiple times as a Hot Wheels favorite. The Purple Passion was first issued in 1990, a creation of the legendary Hot Wheels designer Larry Wood.

Week 21: '67 Pontiac GTO

 A special Hot Wheels -- birthday edition, dedicated to the joy of experiences.

My birthday is this weekend, and as a celebration, I opened this white and teal 1967 Pontiac GTO sent to me by my brother who lives out of state.  Readers of this blog probably have noticed my affinity for aquamarine.

my bike -- notice any similarities?

Since the beginning of this blog, I swore I was not, and would not become, a  toy collector in the classic sense but would enjoy my cars with simple joy.

Translation: I would not store hundreds or thousands of unopened packages of methodically cataloged Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars in a sterile warehouse resembling the end of the first Indiana Jones movie.

Where is my 1971 Hot Wheels
Sizzlers Anteater?

And I meant it.

But the temptation has been overpowering at times, the this might be worth something someday, the this is too cool to open, the a Hot Wheels Treasure Hunt!! YES!! train of thought.

I'm not saying I'm against collecting, or that storing something in original packaging for the future is a bad thing, only that I began this blog with a philosophy of celebrating simple pleasures, and a slide into true collectorhood might compromise that mission statement.

So I opened the GTO.

You see, the car wasn't sent for my birthday, but in 2010 before winter even began. I've been holding it, thinking it was too perfect to open, the good china too nice to bring out, the plastic covering on the furniture.

So for my birthday, I'm reminding myself to enjoy the teal moments rather than indefinitely yet impossibly  store them away from the onrushing days.

There is a place for collecting, and photographing, and cataloging, and labeling -- but there is definitely a place for experiencing, and on this birthday, I can continue to collect years, or I can live them.

I think I'll go with live.


I love the picture of the GTO in the garage, taken by Phil Pekarcik. The garage was built by Phil from vintage blocks from his childhood, and I swear it looks like I could take that car out for a drive. 


The car is part of the Hot Wheels 2010 Faster Than Ever collection.


And if you're wondering what happens to each Daddy's Matchbox car, I do label them by week and keep them in order for eventual display, so in a way I collect them, but not for resale but as a fond physical diary. Someday I may use them as references, as in, "Way back when, oh, back during the week of the 1967 Pontiac GTO...."