The Casting Designers

There seems to be some confusion over the men that designed the first Hot Wheel castings. Let's try and set the record straight. There is an element of speculation to some of the attributions below, one of the reasons for creating this page was to put a stake in the ground, and try to justify the attributions. The attributions here may not match those on the casting pages seen elsewhere on this site. When this occurs you can be fairly sure that casting has conflicting attributions associated with it.

It would be interesting to know how the US vs Hong Kong casting differences arose, weren't they all from the same original drawings?

Harry Bentley Bradley

Harry Bradley was the first casting designer for Hot Wheels in the 1968 casting year. Various sources place the number of castings created by Mr. Bradley at 11 or 12, but that is not likely correct.

One reason for the confusion may be a poster Mr. Bradley created for the 1998 Hot Wheels Convention.

However, the interesting part of this rendering is that I failed to show all sixteen cars! There were sixteen in the group that I designed and I left out the Firebird, the T-Bird, the Hot Heap and the VW Beetle! I was rushed and thinking about the composition of the layout and just overlooked four cars!

-- Harry Bentley Bradley

That could be the source of the 12 car number, Mr. Bradley later corrected that impression in a 2000 Hot Wheels Convention poster.

The 2000 rendering tells three stories: the process by which the cars were done; the first sixteen cars that I designed (I thought I had better set the record straight after the 1998 screw-up!)

-- Harry Bentley Bradley

You can see the posters mentioned above, and the full quotes from Mr. Bradley, at Bruce Pascal's highly informative redlineprotos.com site in The Harry Bradley Collection. Scroll down to the Convention Posters section. Another source of confusion could be that five 1968 castings were based on previously existing designs from other men, notably the Hot Heap from a Don Tognatti original design, the Beatnik Bandit from an Ed Roth original design, the Python and Silhouette from Bill Cushenberry original designs, and the Ford J-Car designed at Ford Racing. That could be the source of the 11 car number.

Still someone at Mattel had to create the original 1:64 scale drawings for each casting to be built, and for my money that man was Harry Bradley.

Mr. Bradley also did the original design for the car displayed on the blister pack. The actual blister pack product rendition was done by Otto Kuhni, but from Mr. Bradley's design.

When Harry Bradly resigned from Mattel he recommended his friend Ira Gilford to take his place.

Ira Gilford

Mr. Gilford was the 2nd Hot Wheels designer at Mattel, and created the first Mattel original designs, including the iconic Twin Mill and Splittin' Image castings. Unfortunately I have not come across any definitive quotes on which castings he designed, so we'll use a bit of deductive reasoning to decide which castings should be attributed to him.

The next designer hired into Mattel was Howard Rees. There is good evidence that Mr. Rees designed nine castings while working on the Hot Wheels line, all of which were 1970 or 1971 castings. When Mr Rees left he was replaced by Larry Wood. Since all of Mr. Rees designs were for the 1970 or 1971 casting years, it follows that Mr. Wood's designs would be later in that year as well (at the earliest). That would leave all of the 1969 designs being done by Mr. Gilford. Is this ironclad proof, no, not at all, but it's consistent and makes some sense. Hopefully more conclusive proof will be uncovered over time.

There are some sources that suggest that Howard Rees and Larry Wood were involved in modifying the rear-loading Beach Bomb into the side-loading Beach Bomb. This will require more digging to determine if it's correct or not.

Mr. Gilford continued his work on the Hot Wheels line in the following casting year, being the designer of the Heavyweights and Spoilers series, as well as the majority of the other castings in 1970. By the 1971 casting year, Mr Gilford is attributed to designing two Spoilers, and shared credit with Larry Wood for that year's Heavyweights.

Howard Rees

Howard Rees was the 3rd casting designer in the Hot Wheels line at Mattel. The best information I have found on which designs were Mr. Rees is a commemorative display that shows 12 designs (he had done?). Three of the designs were Sizzlers, the other nine include: 1970 castings Jack "Rabbit" Special (often attributed to Larry Wood), Mantis, Peeping Bomb, Mighty Maverick, Mod Quad, Seasider, and 1971 castings: Short Order, Noodlehead, and Cockney Cab.

You can view a photo of the display at the Diecast Hall of Fame biography for Mr Rees. Mr. Rees may have been the designer that created the 1:64 scale drawings of the 1970 Tom Daniel designs, Red Baron, Sand Crab, and Paddy Wagon.

Mr. Rees is listed by some sources as modifying the rear-loading Beach Bomb, and modifying the Custom Fleetside (and Deora?) for Aero Skyshow ramp outfitting.

Larry Wood

The 4th casting designer at Mattel was Larry Wood. Mr Wood replaced Howard Rees as a designer in the 1970 casting year. It has been reported that the Tri-Baby was his first design. Also designed in the 1970 casting year by Mr. Wood were the iconic Snake & Mongoose funny car castings, and possibly The Demon from an original design by Darryl Starbird. Mr. Wood has been attributed as creating new bed designs for the 1971 Heavyweights. Attributions in the casting pages on this site will show joint design credit for Ira Gilford (cabs) and Larry Wood (beds, trailers).

Mr. Wood would be involved in a large proportion of the remaining casting designs in the Spectraflame era. Instead of trying to sort through all of Mr. Wood's casting designs we'll use him as our default designer going forward in the 1971 and 1972 model years. We do this as there is pretty good agreement on the casting designs to be attributed to our final two designers Bob Lovejoy and Paul Tam.

Paul Tam

Paul Tam worked for Mattel from 1970 through 1973. It has been reported that the Whip Creamer casting was his first design. Mr Tam is generally attributed to have designed the following Spectraflame castings: the 1970 Whip Creamer, and the following 1971 castings: AMX/2, Evil Weevil, Hairy Hauler, and Six Shooter.

Bob Lovejoy

The consensus is that Mr. Lovejoy designed the 1971 What-4 and Rocket-Bye-Baby castings. Mr. Lovejoy is also attributed with designing the Mattel Hot Birds line of spectraflame metal airplanes.

So there you have it, the six men that designed all of the castings in the Mattel Spectraflame era from 1968 through 1972. There is still some work to be done here, especially sorting out Ira Gilford's, Howard Ree's, and Larry Wood's contributions in the 1970 and 1971 casting years.

Honorable Mention - Otto Kuhni

Otto Kuhni was the artist responsible for the Hot Wheels blister pack front design, the design of all of the various buttons, and countless track set and accessory artwork. He defined the look of Hot Wheels in the redline era. His name should definitely be listed prominently along with the original casting designers. Interestingly enough he was not a Mattel employee at the time, but hired as a contractor during this prolific time in his career.

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