1970
Mattel continued to expand the lineup in 1970, releasing 32 new castings off of the pegs, including the new Spoilers and Heavyweight series.
This year also marked the beginning of the Hot Wheels Club promotion, where you could join the club and receive special member only benefits including chrome finish versions of the Boss Hoss (Silver Special), Heavy Chevy, or King Kuda -- all for only a $1.
It is interesting that Mattel went back to producing some models both in the US and Hong Kong after mostly not doing so in 1969 (except those pesky closed wheel GPs!). The list of castings made in both countries seems arbitrary. There were also plenty of single country sourced castings as well.
Interiors
1970 castings had a limited interior color palette. Colors included ivory, midtone (bronze (HK)), brown, dark brown, and black.
Exteriors
19 Spectraflame colors were available in US castings this year.
Two US Grand Prix castings came in different enamel colors: gray and red. Three other castings came in blue, dark blue, or yellow enamel.
Hong Kong cars were produced in 15 colors, including all of the 2nd generation colors for the first time (except salmon).
Two HK Grand Prix castings were available in enamel paint: gray and red. Some Heavyweights were available in enamel white, and two other castings came in enamel blue or dark blue.
Wheels
Wheels were still a mix of hub and capped style, but now predominantly capped. Most hub style wheels were limited to Spoilers castings. See the 1968 Wheels section for more!
Casting Names and Part Numbers
Pedal to the metal this year, no time for lining up into nice groups, assign a number when something is done and ready to go into production! Let's crank this up to 6400 and go.
The first 4 cars are outside designs, but there doesn't seem to be an underlying scheme this year. There's a random mix of US only, US & HK, and HK only production.
It could be that Snake & Mongoose were destined for the Spoilers series considering they are sandwiched among the other Spoilers, but it could be coincidence.
There are quite a few single number gaps from 6400-6424, designs that were not quite ready, rejected, someone lost track of the next number?
Interesting that the Boss Hoss Silver Special is right in there at 6406 even though it was not destined for the store pegs.
Then we start again at 6450 with the Heavyweights (6 of them) and continue with a few single gaps until 6459.
Then we jump another 10 to 6469 for the Fire Chief Cruiser. This just happens to be exactly 200 from the just about identical Police Cruiser, somebody getting cute with the numbers.
About that gap from 6425 to 6449, just enough room to use 6436 for the Sky Show Fleetside and Deora, yes they each have the same part number. Since they were sold in separate countries I guess that was OK! This looks like a case of just picking a number from the middle of the unused numbers.