Hot Wheels Real Riders
Real Riders came out in 1986, using current castings with either racing tires or off road tires, depending on the type of vehicle. They had there own packaging at first, and as the line was discontinued, some of the models came on mainline cards. At the time they came out, there was not a ton of interest in them, but soon after they stopped making them, the secondary market went crazy for them. Several years later, Hot Wheels revived the use of the rubber tires in the Mainline (a real riders series in 1995) and they have been in constant use for special run premium line cars ever since.
Since they were mostly purchased by kids, cars in decent shape are harder to find, similar to redlines. There was a solid but small collector community at the time though, so enough survived in collections packaged to make them not too crazy to collect. The hardest to find cars are the French and Mexico produced models. Some versions of deco came with either white rims or black rims, making for some variations. Also, must castings came in more than one paint deco. |
We are missing just a few cars from a complete set of US available cars. The VHTF A-ok, a gold Cadillac Seville, a white hub Baja Breaker in the A-Team tampos, a white hub orange Baja Breaker, a white hub red 3 window 34, and possibly a couple others. The Cadillac Seville also came french made in grey with a couple tampo variations, and there are Mexican Cobra real rider variations as well. There are also a few outrageously expensive Mexican real riders from the 80's that are impossible.
We here at Little City Toy Cars also have a few blister packs: