In the hot seat: we meet Hot Wheels' design boss

Is designing miniature toy cars the best job in the world? “There’s no maybe about it,” says Hot Wheels’ product design manager, Craig Callum. “In the toy design world, we create fun for kids.

We’re thinking on a daily basis about what would a kid love, what would make a kid happy and what would develop them. Working with all that in mind is really rewarding. There’s nothing on earth that kids’ laughter isn’t the medicine for.”

Callum channels the playful attitude that sparked Hot Wheels into life. Launched in 1968 as the brainchild of Elliot Handler (whose wife Ruth brought Barbie dolls to market), the very first example was a blue custom Chevrolet Camaro, part of the original ‘sweet sixteen’ line-up rich in muscular American flair. 

The portfolio is now far more diverse: a typical range contains about 450 cars, around half of them fresh that year, always split between manufacturer-licensed real models and wackier Hot Wheels Originals, which envisage everything from pie-in-the-sky supercars to wheeled toilets. “Still with the proportions of a pick-up truck, though,” grins Callum.

So how does a young man from Sandy, Bedfordshire, end up designing toys of the future at Mattel’s Californian headquarters?

Callum’s love for cars started aged five during the school run in his mum’s Citroën 2CV: “A bunch of students were hanging out the roof of a 2CV alongside, cheering and laughing when they saw us. I was like: ‘Wow, cars can create this kind of reaction in people.’”

He was soon sketching cars of his own. “I’d design wacky hotels on wheels with helicopter pads, things like that. Mum said: ‘You could be a car designer.’ I knew straight away that’s what I wanted to do.”

After an automotive design course at Coventry University, Callum worked on full-scale vehicles for several years until a job offer from Lego (a childhood love of his, alongside Matchbox and Hot Wheels) arrived.