Sure, that Camaro Z28 has seen better days, what with the door barely hanging on and potted plants I've always been a sucker for classic depictions of the Grim Reaper, and he's in fine form here, complete with requisite scythe and an exaggerated gear-shift. Transport souls across the river Styx is genius, and I certainly appreciate the Greyhound bus parody as well.īeing that it's both the image they used on the Weird Wheels box cover and all of the individual trading card packs, it's no surprise that Old Old Olds was the very first card that led me to becoming obsessed with collecting the entire set when I was younger. Oh how I love this Blackhound sticker card! The idea of having Charon the ferryman becoming a bus driver to The only thing I'm not sure about is why there appears to be a duck on the front of her car? Wouldn't a black crow or something more ominous be more appropriate? Turning her broom into a hot rod for the Witch's Wheels card was a brilliant move. The oversized padlock on the back door is a nice touch too. The Hearse of Horror is a bit more simple, but it makes me think of Phantasm, what with the driver claiming a body before the person has actually deceased. Then again, maybe he feeds that to the fan itself, what with it having a ferocious looking set of vampire fangs 'n all. I'm surprised he's using his tongue to help steer the van, since he has that IV blood drip in his hands. The female vampire is in charge of the gearshift skull, while the male vampire is handling the steering with his Gene Simmons-esque tongue. Vampire Van is another classic, with two vampires enjoying a night on the town together. Fast Frank is easily one of the best cards in the entire set. As if that's not enough, the entire car is covered in stitches, as if it were pieced together with random car parts, just as Franky was pieced together with random body parts. His immense power is being demonstrated as he's ripped out both the entire gearshift and the steering wheel, all while being strapped into his lab slab. First off, Frankenstein's bolts are hooked directly to the engine, presumably to give him all the electric juice he so desires. The Fast Frank card has sooo much going for it. Plus, it appears to be driven by a demon eel or a cooked lobster claw.Īlright, even if you weren't sold on any of the others, I don't see how any Halloween horror fan couldn't love this one. Okay, so this one isn't particularly Halloween-themed, but come on. Gotta appreciate the little details too though, like the ribs making up the front of the car along with the coffin driver's seat. Slab Cab is a hybrid taxi-hearse hot rod, and I love all the written gags on it including: "You kill 'em, we chill 'em!", "Let Phantom plant 'em!", and "One-way tours only." Even if Slab Cab doesn't have a future in cab driving, he can fall back on a career of writing great catchphrases.īone Dragger is a perfect example of a card inspired by Ed Roth's work, what with the exaggerated gear shift and engine. So now that you know some of the details behind this set, I'd like to share with you my scans of what I consider to be some of the best cards in the Weird Wheels collection to check out during the Halloween season: I'd really love to see Topps release a book full of the original artwork for Weird Wheels, just like they did for their Garbage Pail Kids and Mars Attacks trading cards. It's one of those lesser-known sets that I honestly think most people would flip out over, because not only is the artwork some of the best ever released for a Topps set, but the ideas are often brilliant as well. Weird Wheels consists of 55 different trading card stickers, each one featuring some kind of monster, creature, or mutant riding on a hot rod tailored to its nature. The artwork for the set was heavily inspired by the amazing hot rod creatures created by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth back in the 50s & 60s, including Rat Fink and the "Weird-Oh's" model kits. Today I wanted to pay homage to what I've always considered to be one of the greatest classic trading card sticker sets from the eighties: Weird Wheels! Released in 1980 by the Topps company, Weird Wheels features the brilliant artwork of Norman Saunders and Gary Hallgren.
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