Hot Wheels have been around for more than 30 years -- but they've rarely been hotter than they are now in Puerto Rico.

``I have only 357 models because I caught the fever late,'' says an apologetic Mario Tirado, 45. ``I've only been collecting for three months. Some people have thousands.''

Adolfo Rossello, manager of the chain's four stores on the island, reports Hot Wheels sales have quadrupled over the past year, with 250,000 sold in the first half of this year alone. He said many cars are being bought for resale at the racetracks sprouting up around the island. Other shops like Kmart also sell the miniature cars, but had no figures.

Puerto Rico's Hot Wheels craze began more than a year ago when Rafael Mediavilla's Dream Builders Corp. promotion agency was hired by Los Angeles-based Mattel, Inc. to boost sales.

His strategy was simple: Make it a public event.

A team traveled the island putting up the traditional Hot Wheels racecourse -- twin plastic tracks of yellow or orange, angled at about 45 degrees, each carrying a car powered by a force irresistibly simple, fair, and unfailingly reliable: gravity.

In seaside towns and mountain villages kids flocked to the events. Fathers started helping them to build their own tracks, which now come in all sizes and have become increasingly elaborate: multitrack, cloverleaf-shaped affairs with rollers that propel the cars to greater speeds. Cars come in different weight classes; the favorite is the ``lechera,'' a milk truck, because it's the heaviest.

The Hot Wheels parties spread to shopping centers, parking lots, parks. Operators began charging entrance fees, racing fees, betting. Video games, TVs, bicycles are given away as prizes; the beer flows.

No one knows exactly why, but it was a grand slam.

Maybe the marketing suits a people who love a good outdoor party. Or maybe it has to do with Puerto Rico's love affair with cars; the U.S. Caribbean island of 3.9 million people has 3.2 million vehicles. On Fridays many jam the car washes, emerging to parade gleaming in miles-long motorized promenades along San Juan's cobblestone streets and palm-lined seaside boulevards.

Sociologist Cesar Rey of the University of the Sacred Heart calls cars ``our fetish,'' and speculates that ``for those who can't afford a Jaguar, or BMW or Porsche, perhaps this is an expression of that frustration.''

In October, Mattel plans to release four limited Hot Wheels editions of 25,000 each that will carry Puerto Rico's single-star-and-stripes flag and license plate slogan, ``Isla del Encanto'' (Island of Enchantment).

``They'll sell for about $5 -- but I'll be betting that within a week they'll be resold on the street for more than $100,'' Rossello says.

That's because an industry has arisen around the cars with the ever-changing, always colorful NASCAR designs. At events they sell for up to 10 times the usual $1 retail price; when popular models run out, vendors fly to Miami or the nearby Dominican Republic and buy $1,000 worth at a time, Rossello said.

``I've spoken to people who have quit their jobs and started selling cars at these tracks or who set up tracks in their neighborhoods and they make from $500 to 2,000 a night,'' Mediavilla said.

``But the most important thing about this is that families are competing and visiting these events together, the grandmother with a few cars, the father, the mother and the children, everybody is having fun with this.''

SOURCE: MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press

[Posted 9/07/2000]