I randomly thought of this toy from my childhood the other day but couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was called. Finally, tucked away in a part of my brain I haven't accessed for 20 years, I remembered the name had something to do with "streaks", which finally gave me enough info to get accurate results on google. I'm surprised there is so little information on the web about this line of toys, I can't find any particular write-up on wiki/blogs or other web sites, no pictures of collections or info on all the vehicles or sets that were released. I find this a little surprising since its a toy from a big manufacturer, branded with a popular brand (hot wheels). The toys also had such a wide release (in the states anyway) available at all kinds of toy stores (from my memory), had multiple commercials that ran on TV, had a mcdonalds toy tie in on more than one occasion, and the product line was developed a few times to include new variations on the theme (jets, battle cars). Anyone else enjoy these as a kid? I might have to pick one up on ebay for nostalgia purposes, seems like there's lots of NOS. The cars had a square plastic hole in the back, where you would insert the square plastic male end of the launcher. Then you would pound your fist on the launcher and it would blast your car 10-20 feet on a wood or tile surface. The cars didn't have wheels, just flat plastic bottoms. The car stylings and hovercraft idea was pretty neat to play with as a kid, particularly while F-Zero on SNES was a contemporary game, these toys fit right in. A pretty action packed commercial for Jet Streex Mcdonald's toy version of streex. These didn't move as well or as far as the normal versions, but they did look more like F-Zero cars.
Ah, I remember having one of those. Worked like crap, got stuck on the launcher nozzle most of the time. I think mine did have wheels though...
I believe I have a few of these. I had a shit load of Hot Wheels cars as a kid, I have to find them again and go through them.
I didn't have one of those, but I had a set with a track and a spinning wheel that would launch the cars out onto it.
I had one of the McDonald's ones. I was researching these awhile back for someone and found that while Hot Wheels has a really big collector and fan-base, they seem primarily concerned with the die-cast cars and track sets, and don't seem to care about the oddball stuff like Streex.
I remember these! Very cool. I think I had a few of the McDonald's ones Yeah, that one would be a bit hard to market...