Indycar Diecast Collecting - Blog

October 16, 2021

Indycar Diecast Collecting

Having grown in up in Indy my first visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was in 1965. Funny that Mattel launch the Hot Wheels brand in 1966. While Mattel owns the market share in diecast genre my favorite die cast for Indycar collecting is Johnny Lightning due to the fact their later designs are much more detailed and realistic.

indycar diescast collection

My Collection

Johnny Lightning cars have thrilled collectors with their speed, detail, and

quality since 1969. The original emphasis was to make the cars the fastest in

downhill racing and on oval track sets. The direction later turned to realism,

with the production of popular muscle cars leading the way. These models

remain the core of the Johnny Lightning brand today.Topper Toys started the Johnny Lightning brand in 1969 and in 1970 had a brilliant marketing strategy to sponsor 5 Parnelli Jones cars for the Indianapolis 500 which Al Unser won driving the Blue Lightning bolt cars. After winning the 1970 500 Johnny Lightning cars were selling 3 to 1 over Mattel Hot Wheels.

Al Unser 1970 Johnny Lightning Special

As you can see they were staying with a more Hot Wheels exaggerated designs during this period.

In 1971 Topper Toys tried to go public and failed closing it's doors for 23 years until 194 when a toy collector and entrepreneur named Tom Lowe noticed that the Trademark had been abandoned and created Playing Mantis Toys.

Here is my newer version of this car and as you can see the more realistic looking design.

Johnny Lightning circa 1994

Playing Mantis: 1994-2004

A car buff, toy collector, and entrepreneur Tom Lowe discovered that the Johnny Lightning trademark was abandoned, and by 1994 he put it back to work selling toy cars to a new market. He was sure that adults who’d played with Johnny Lightning cars as children would be attracted to replicas of them. His new company, cleverly named Playing Mantis, introduced eight models, each in a variety of colors. Cars and packaging mimicked the originals and they were an instant hit. Made like the Topper models with heavy die-cast metal bodies and baseplates, the new Johnny Lightning cars were hefty, durable, and fast on the track.

Rick Mears 1979 Gould Sponsored Indy 500 Winner Car

Kids could play with them and adults admired them. Lowe reasoned that if there was a market for replicas of these old toy cars then adults would also be interested in die-cast models of some of their favorite real cars from the period. Muscle Cars U.S.A. debuted in late 1994 and soon became the bedrock of the new Johnny Lightning. Going into the late 1990s the die-cast toy car business grew rapidly in the United States, and Johnny Lightning rode the crest of that wave into the 21st century. Playing Mantis remained in the South Bend, Indiana area for its entire ten-year existence.Tom Lowe, the ever-watchful businessman, felt that perhaps the bubble might not last and he put Playing Mantis on the market in 2004.

RC2 and Tomy: 2004-2013

Sales were strong in 2004 and it didn’t take long for a buyer to appear. RC2, a company formed a few years earlier from the purchase of the venerable Ertl corporation by Racing Champions, bought Playing Mantis in June 2004. Tom Lowe stayed on in an advisory capacity but RC2 moved the Johnny Lightningbrand and a small number of designers to its headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois. There, Johnny Lightning continued to release high-quality replicas of mostly American cars in roughly 1:64th-scale. As the market for adult collectible toy cars began to taper off after 2007 the production runs became smaller and less frequent. Tomy, a Japanese toy company, purchased RC2 in 2011 and their U.S. headquarters remained in Oak Brook. Eventually, most cars were fitted with plastic baseplates to save money. The last assortment of Johnny Lightning cars from Tomy appeared in 2013.

Round 2: 2016-present

Round 2, LLC, a collectibles and toy company in South Bend, Indiana, licenses the rights from Tomy to produce Johnny Lightning cars today. In a curious twist of fate, the owner of Round 2 is the former owner of Playing Mantis, Tom Lowe. He also assembled the core marketing and design team from the Playing Mantis days to develop the new Johnny Lightning cars.

The pride of my collection which I found in Indianapolis is autographed Dr Jack Miller "The Racing Dentist" who raced at Indianapolis from 1997 - 1999.