On this date 50 years ago today- Hot Wheels were first introduced by the toy maker Mattel. Hot Wheels would be the main competitor of Matchbox until 1997 when Mattel bought out the company that owned Matchbox. I remember as a kid having a collection of both the Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. I also had the racing track set but never had a whole lot of success keeping the cars on the track! My Hot Wheels- Matchbox era was short lived- I would soon be collecting baseball cards and using any money I had on them.