For decades and decades, holidays and birthdays have been marked by little boys coming up with new and exciting ways to smash, crash and whiz little metal cars. When I’ve seen kids play for hours with Matchbox or Hot Wheels cancel like this car tracks, the big draw has usually been their own creativity in putting together tracks and, ultimately, launching the cars off long ramps that reach up to the bookshelves. This set takes an opposite (and somewhat more expensive approach), providing a few “wow” moment tricks with a minimum amount of track.
For kids who are really into matchbox cars, these three stunts make a great addition to any set. There’s a cool loop, a car-launcher, and a crane-type device that drops a car to the track below. The neat trick is that each stunt can be triggered by a car zooming into it from the track on one side, which will then send another car zooming out the other side after the stunt. So a child can use the launcher to send a car to the loop, which is “set off” the loop trick, sending a car off to trigger the crane trick.
The fact that the set only comes with one car says a lot about it. You need more than one car for all of the stunts to really work, since one car triggers and the other car performs. So it’s limited as a stand alone toy, and that’s the big warning here. Casual car kids might set off the tricks a couple times and think “is that it?”, unless they’ve got more cars and track to add. The toy is best if you give it to someone who already has a collection of cars and tracks. In fact, the toy is part of a series of Hot Wheels stunts, so the intention really is for it to be a creativity builder, rather than an all-inclusive toy.
Set-up was a little tricky. It was a little more than my seven-year-old could handle, but was relatively sturdy once all put together. It comes with extra rubber bands, but again, only one car.
As for the stunts themselves, the launcher trick is simple and pretty straightforward – it shoots a car down the track. The big excitement for my kids was the loop. A car sits against a rubber-band powered hammer and is shot around the loop when the trick is triggered. The crane stunt is fun too, but was harder for my kids to make work. You have to balance a car in the crane teeth, and ultimately, the payoff wasn’t quite as great as the loop.
Bottom line, if you’re buying a gift for a diehard matchbox kid, this set adds a lot. They’ll love adding the stunts to track set-ups and having them trigger each other. But a child who doesn’t already own and play with cars will probably be disappointed, and would be better served by more of a Hot Wheels “starter” toy.
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