JOHNY LIGHTNING

Johnny Lightning, a die-cast car brand commemorating 50 years in 2019, may have started as a perceived Hot Wheels copycat, but, in later years, would blow the market wide open for nostalgic subjects rendered in die-cast.

The brand, launched by Topper Toys (a division of Deluxe Reading of Elizabeth, New Jersey), started in 1969, surely a response to Hot Wheels’ feverish reception in 1968. The models themselves were largely based on popular production cars at the time — Camaro, Charger, Mustang, Toronado, and the like, with wild nose and tail treatments. Bodies and chassis were die-cast metal. JLs were widely looked upon as aping Mattel’s ultra-successful Hot Wheels models, with their piano-wire axles, bushed wheels, and emphasis on speed instead of outright detail. (Early JL