Acceleracers!
Hot Wheels Acceleracers were marketed as a series of straight to DVD movies that had a supporting set of cars, accessories and track sets. They were a sequel to the popular World Race movie produced for the 35th anniversary of Hot Wheels. Like several other attempts by Mattel, it was simply a way to have their product in front of kids. The plot lines were surprisingly good though, and four movies (Ignition, The Speed of Silence, Breaking Point, and The Ultimate Race) were made.
Each package had a card pack for the collectible card game with three cards inside, The cards were also available in a separate seven pack (called a booster pack) and there was also a separately sold storage box for the cards available which came with a special Synkro car in green. To the right is a packaged Metal Maniacs Pile Driver, the first appearance of the casting. All of the cars were new Mattel designed castings, and they have been reused like crazy in the mainline over and over again. Also, this series debuted two wheel styles (co-molds) that are very cool and have been used in premium lines since. We have divided the page into the four team groups of cars from the show. The next year Hot Wheels did a second series without the playing cards in the package that were somewhat short run. Lastly, McDonald's did a light up series of the cars that are fairly easy to obtain. The cards are very collectible as well. Like a lot of card games from that timeframe, they made foil versions of several cards that were randomly inserted in the packs, some of which are almost impossible to find. Even a complete set of cards with no special cards was hard to complete as there are many cards that were short run. Also, most cards were collected only three at a time, with an complete set being over 250 cards, that's a lot of cars to buy! The booster packs didn't do well at retail and were out of the stores very quickly. The collector box always had the same common cards in it, so it was not a source of hard to find cards either. We know of several long time collectors who are still trying to complete the set (including us!!). |
Metal Maniacs Pile Driver
15 Card Booster Pack
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We thought we should add some collecting tips for new (or not so new) collectors:
- The earliest 2005 packaging does not have the Cartoon Network Logo in the lower left hand corner.
- Several of the cars had both wheel variations (five spoke and six spoke):
- Ratified 2005 Metal Maniacs
- Rivited 2005 Metal Maniacs
- Hollowback 2005 Metal Maniacs
- Rollin' Thunder 2005 Metal Maniacs (both the red and brown versions)
- Spine Buster 2005 Metal Maniacs
- Iridium 2005 Silencerz
- RD-06 2005 Racing Drones
- Power Bomb 2005 Metal Maniacs
- A couple of the cars had different color rear spoilers:
- Synkro 2005 Teku (orange or black)
- Drift Tech 2005 Teku (orange or blue), orange came in the larger Hyperpod Set
- A Green Synkro was only available in the Booster Card Set that came with the card game directions.
- The black Spine Buster 2005 Metal Maniacs also has an insert variation, one is white, one is black.
- The RD-03 came in two colors, grey and the normal black.
- The three hardest cars to find back in the day were Spectyte, Chicane, and Flathead Fury.
- There is no RD-07, they ran an RD-10 instead, we have never heard a good reason why.
- A version of the RD-06 in silver chrome came packaged with one of the movies (The Speed of Silence)..
- A purple Spine Buster is available loose, not packaged. We do not know what that promo was for, but the car is always available on ebay...
- Three cars have a pearlescent paint version that is hard to capture in pics: Hollowback, Rivited, and Synkro.
- We have also found a RD-05 with non-acceleracers wheels, but the same paint scheme.
Teku#1 Reverb
#2 Drift Tech
#3 Synkro
#4 Chicane (very rare)
#5 Battle Spec
#6 Power Rage
#7 High Voltage
#8 Spectyte (very rare)
#9 Bassline
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SilencerZ#1 Octainium
#2 Nitrium
#3 Anthracite
#4 Iridium
#5 Carbide
#6 Covelight
#7 Accelium
#8 Metaloid
#9 Technitium
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racing Drones#1 RD-01
#2 RD-02
#3 RD-03
#4 RD-04
#5 RD-05
#6 RD-06
#7 RD-08
#8 RD-10
#9 RD-09
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Metal maniacs#1 Power Bomb
#2 Pile Driver
#3 Flathead Fury
#4 Rivited
#5 Hollowback
#6 Rollin' Thunder
#7 Spinebuster
#8 Rat-ified
#9 Jack Hammer
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variations
Synkro with black wing
Spine Buster with CM-5 rims
Rivited with pearlescent paint
Rollin' Thunder in brown
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Iridium with CM-5 rims
Ratified with CM-5 rims
Synkro with Pearlescent paint
Rollin' Thunder brown CM-5
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RD-03 in silver
RD-06 with 5 CM-5 rims
RD-05 with off road tires
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Hollowback pearl paint
Drift Tech with orange wing
Rollin' Thunder with CM-6
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Set Cars
Series 2 - 2006
Hot Wheels continued producing the cars in Series Two to capitalize on the continued popularity of the DVD's. The Card game was dropped and the castings were reused, this time divided into series that sort of connected to the movies. These were not good sellers and were not around long at the normal retail outlets. Like a lot of Hot Wheels series, the end of the run presents some of the greatest collecting challenges, so good luck in your hunt for these cars!
REpackaged 2005 cars
These are four cars in generic 2006 packages with slightly different paint and different rims.
Stripped metal Series
These are chrome finished.
Accelecharged series
These are cast in translucent colored plastic.
acceleron series
These are dark pastel color variations.
droned series
These are flat black with Racing Drones markings.
realm series
These reflect the different racing worlds in the movies.
team colors series
Different team color variations as indicated.
Hyperpods
Hyperpods are larger vehicles that can hold either one car or multiple cars. Some of the packages came with an added Bonus DVD of one of the Episodes. There were three smaller models, which initially had actual Acceleracers cars, later they were switched to non-Acceleracer cars with some Acceleracers deco. There was also a larger vehicle called the Drone Sweeper which had a battery operated car launcher within the interior, a detail straight from the videos.
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Ultimate track three pack
The castings from the Acceleracers line were re-issued in a one last pass in three packs. Engineering of the cars was the same, still using the Cold Molded 5-spoke and 6-spoke rims and metal bases, but they were painted in unrelated colors. Since these packs came out just after the demise of the Acceleracers line, the cars are often confused with the ones associated with the movies. They are still very cool so we have decided to include them here.
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Mcdonalds cars
These are very close in looks to the retail version cars, but the interior lights up with a switch on the bottom and the rims are not co-molded. The deco on the cars was applied via a sticker set that came in the package. The two Silencerz cars did not come with a sticker set.