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I started the cross reference of this casting thread with other listed reference links today. If any (?) remains they are referenced that way. In the mean time, feel free to add your own images, stories, information and experiences with this casting in your own thread posts as we go along.
The Turbofire is another concept car designed by Ira Gilford for Hot Wheels as a unique in house concept design model. Today, these type of castings are most often referred to as fantasy castings by both collectors and enthusists.
Production runs were made at the USA factory only and it subsequently comes with a narrow clear wrap around window piece.
The production body features a rear hinged engine cover that lifts up and back to reveal a detailed turbine engine. The rear panel is a part of the engine cover and features a large international orange painted rear light in the upper portion.
The bare metal base piece has two known variations regarding the copy right circled C letter and the registered trade mark circled R letter. In one version both are larger and on the other both are smaller in size.
Typically only white interior pieces are found, but a few dark (black) versions are known in red painted cars.
There are (18 to 21) known Spectraflame paint colors used. They range from the most common colors of Aqua, Gold, Green, Red, Blue, Lime Yellow, Orange, Antifreeze, Copper, Brown, Rose, Olive, Purple, Light Blue, Magenta, Yellow, Hot Pink and Light Green as the rarest color used. The Online Redline guide makes another reference to faded paint for this casting that was painted Spectraflame Light Green. Here the paint has faded to nearly a clear body color, but that evidence of the light green paint can still be seen in the fender wells. Another example is shown for a faded Spectraflame Lime color as well. (I will add the image of 23 different Turbofires from the Online Redline Guide in a post below, but will note here this site page as an excellent resource for collectors to us in the future to visualize the different paint colors used by Mattel over time for this and other castings.)
All cars left the factory with medium sized Type 1 style Redline wheels up front and large sized ones in the back. Some later production cars are known with all (?) capped wheels and other castings with mixed wheel sets.
Each casting was issued with a HK or a USA metal collector button with either a gold car image or a gold car image with dark orange highlights on blue (or light purple (?) background. Both of those type factory buttons came in either a notched or a smooth tab (?).
Two complete Turbofire pre-production castings are known. Each of these have the dark (black/brown) interior and a smoke tinted window piece. Another design difference is with the opening rear cover. In pre-production models it will fully open, but in the production model the cast in exhaust pipes are replace with a stop block, and the hinge elements have additional zamac built up to reinforce them, and a peg is added to the rear cover to prevent the cover from fully opening against the stop block.
The Turbofire is one the castings reproduced by the Muky toy company in South America for the Argentinian market.
Referenced resources -
http://hotwheels.wikia.com/wiki/Turbofire
http://www.onlineredlineguide.com/69/69_turbofire/69_turbofire.html
http://www.hwredlines.com/menu-grp-cars/1969/6258-Twinmill/6258-US-cars.shtml
http://www.hwprotos.com/menu-grp/hw-69.shtml
The Elite Redline Guide (2010)
https://sites.google.com/site/redlinebuttons/Buttons/1969
The Turbofire is another concept car designed by Ira Gilford for Hot Wheels as a unique in house concept design model. Today, these type of castings are most often referred to as fantasy castings by both collectors and enthusists.
Production runs were made at the USA factory only and it subsequently comes with a narrow clear wrap around window piece.
The production body features a rear hinged engine cover that lifts up and back to reveal a detailed turbine engine. The rear panel is a part of the engine cover and features a large international orange painted rear light in the upper portion.
The bare metal base piece has two known variations regarding the copy right circled C letter and the registered trade mark circled R letter. In one version both are larger and on the other both are smaller in size.
Typically only white interior pieces are found, but a few dark (black) versions are known in red painted cars.
There are (18 to 21) known Spectraflame paint colors used. They range from the most common colors of Aqua, Gold, Green, Red, Blue, Lime Yellow, Orange, Antifreeze, Copper, Brown, Rose, Olive, Purple, Light Blue, Magenta, Yellow, Hot Pink and Light Green as the rarest color used. The Online Redline guide makes another reference to faded paint for this casting that was painted Spectraflame Light Green. Here the paint has faded to nearly a clear body color, but that evidence of the light green paint can still be seen in the fender wells. Another example is shown for a faded Spectraflame Lime color as well. (I will add the image of 23 different Turbofires from the Online Redline Guide in a post below, but will note here this site page as an excellent resource for collectors to us in the future to visualize the different paint colors used by Mattel over time for this and other castings.)
All cars left the factory with medium sized Type 1 style Redline wheels up front and large sized ones in the back. Some later production cars are known with all (?) capped wheels and other castings with mixed wheel sets.
Each casting was issued with a HK or a USA metal collector button with either a gold car image or a gold car image with dark orange highlights on blue (or light purple (?) background. Both of those type factory buttons came in either a notched or a smooth tab (?).
Two complete Turbofire pre-production castings are known. Each of these have the dark (black/brown) interior and a smoke tinted window piece. Another design difference is with the opening rear cover. In pre-production models it will fully open, but in the production model the cast in exhaust pipes are replace with a stop block, and the hinge elements have additional zamac built up to reinforce them, and a peg is added to the rear cover to prevent the cover from fully opening against the stop block.
The Turbofire is one the castings reproduced by the Muky toy company in South America for the Argentinian market.
Referenced resources -
http://hotwheels.wikia.com/wiki/Turbofire
http://www.onlineredlineguide.com/69/69_turbofire/69_turbofire.html
http://www.hwredlines.com/menu-grp-cars/1969/6258-Twinmill/6258-US-cars.shtml
http://www.hwprotos.com/menu-grp/hw-69.shtml
The Elite Redline Guide (2010)
https://sites.google.com/site/redlinebuttons/Buttons/1969
And what color is car #8 in the middle row of the photo? :freak:
