Are the Hot Wheels PC's actually rare?

[KeelyKRFC9]

Hi guys,

I've got an opportunity to buy a hot wheels pc with all the accessories cheap.

My questions is are they actually desirable/valuable? Or just something cool and nostalgic?

TIA, Connor. 

[jaslion]

Yes they are rare. They are mostly a cool collectable basically and can go for a bit of money to the right person.

[johnny5c]

Very rare these days, I sold just the speakers, wheel, and pedals that I found at a garage sale for over $200 a couple years ago.

[KeelyKRFC9]

Wow, thanks for the replies. I will grab it asap in that case!

[LAwLz]

Rare? Yes. 

Desirable/valuable? No

[Akira Shimazu]

12 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Rare? Yes. 

Desirable/valuable? No

its kinda more into Collectible stuff . so yeah only selective people would have or sell it

[Kronion]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Desirable/valuable? No

If it's desired by collectors (which not all rare items are), it has value - in theory.

The problem is always in finding a buyer. Just because it says somewhere that it is X dollars worth, doesn't mean you actually find someone that's willing to pay that particular price.

[dizmo]

Everything has value to somebody. I don't see this flying off the shelf though, and it'll probably just sit taking up a fair bit of space. 

[freeagent]

Sadly I had the Barbie one.. just the “tower” though. Had a celery 500 and 256mb ram, single slot. 

[IPD]

My god that thing's ugly.  They couldn't even make the tower look like a pimped out van or something?  Make the monitor look like a jumbotron with speakers attached that look like the scoring pylons at IMS.

[Chase Douglas]

6 hours ago, KeelyKRFC9 said:

Hi guys,

I've got an opportunity to buy a hot wheels pc with all the accessories cheap.

My questions is are they actually desirable/valuable? Or just something cool and nostalgic?

TIA, Connor. 

They're definitely interesting but you might want to make sure you are getting it for cheap or you actually like it as something to collect, A recent video by Shank Mods sheds a bit more light on the situation of acquiring these.

 

He doesn't think they're actually as rare as eBay would lead you to believe due to the fact that shipping them would be a real nuisance which means people don't list them online.

 

We had a hard time getting our hands on one until we put up the bounty, which caused a bunch of people to start listing them for insanely high prices online.

 

Since we're based in Canada I'm assuming we didn't get many units in our region. Also shipping stuff like this in general sucks since the odds of it breaking aren't low, plus things always seem to get roughed up more when they need to cross the border...

 

 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Rare? Yes. 

Desirable/valuable? No

No, with PC hardware collectors, they are valuable and desirable.  Were the machines good?  No, of course not.  They were cheaply made Celeron PCs that marketed on their Hot Wheels and Barbie branding.  But they're also super cool looking.  That aesthetic is desirable.  Not to mention the user can upgrade the components with more reliable contemporary parts or as as sleeper.  In a world of beige retro PCs, these things were stylin'.

 

You def don't know what you're talking about if you think they are not desirable or valuable.

[dilpickle]

They are desirable only to a small group of people. So you have to find the right buyer to get a good price.

 

Its not like a GPU that you could sell to anyone at double the price.

[gergy008]

On 2/15/2022 at 3:10 PM, freeagent said:

Sadly I had the Barbie one.. just the “tower” though. Had a celery 500 and 256mb ram, single slot. 

I wish my pc had celery

[whm1974]

On 2/15/2022 at 5:39 AM, johnny5c said:

Very rare these days, I sold just the speakers, wheel, and pedals that I found at a garage sale for over $200 a couple years ago.

Just how did you convince someone to give up $200 for something that is more or less worthless?

[tealflip]

Depends on your definition of, "rare"

If we're talking about rare working ones, then by far yes. Multiple times the Hot Wheels PC, as well as its Barbie counterpart, suffered from a ton of terrible power supply's, so having a good quality, and actually WORKING one, is definitely rare. Collectors items have and always will be rare, no matter how you look at it.

[Fnige]

5 hours ago, gergy008 said:

I wish my pc had celery

Nothing is stopping you from getting celery and placing it in there except yourself

[8tg]

4 hours ago, whm1974 said:

Just how did you convince someone to give up $200 for something that is more or less worthless?

Let me explain rare vintage hardware really quick as a pc nerd.

Things that feed a nostalgia factor quickly become very valuable. Things that are strange now and are also now very rare have a lot of value.

Further, If there’s large scale interest in the item, it gets even more valuable.

 

An example being the hot wheels and Barbie PCs, it’s a fun aesthetic people like, it’s a weird designed product that’s almost a mockery of the idea of marketing an entire full PC setup to children, and they’re extremely rare now. People want them for the fun collectible factor, and their rarity makes them expensive as a result.

 

It doesn’t matter what the performance or the usability is, it’s not desirable for that.

 

Heres my power supply from 2004:

This is worthless from a practical standpoint in 2022, it’s not usable with a modern system unless you’re dumb.

But this is valuable for being a rare desirable component for old systems, there’s not many of these and collectors really like them, so they tend to fetch prices upwards of 100-120$, more expensive than a decent modern power supply.

[dilpickle]

12 hours ago, 8tg said:

Heres my power supply from 2004:

I can't imagine that meets EMI shielding requirements.

Edited February 18, 2022 by dilpickle

[whm1974]

13 hours ago, 8tg said:

Let me explain rare vintage hardware really quick as a pc nerd.

Things that feed a nostalgia factor quickly become very valuable. Things that are strange now and are also now very rare have a lot of value.

Further, If there’s large scale interest in the item, it gets even more valuable.

 

An example being the hot wheels and Barbie PCs, it’s a fun aesthetic people like, it’s a weird designed product that’s almost a mockery of the idea of marketing an entire full PC setup to children, and they’re extremely rare now. People want them for the fun collectible factor, and their rarity makes them expensive as a result.

 

It doesn’t matter what the performance or the usability is, it’s not desirable for that.

An actual Commodore 128 either model is worth something due to Computer History. The Same for the Apple Lisa and Atari Jaguar. Need I go on? The possible value those Mattel PCs have, is how not to insult young children... As I recall those were very low spec anyway.