Fast Cars? Fast Girls? For Sure….

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Author: Suciu, Peter

COLLECTING

Drew Heitner has a simple mantra on cars and the opposite sex: "Women judge their men by the cars they drive. Men judge their cars by the women they attract." That's apparently true even when those cars happen to be… toys.

Heitner, president of M&D International, has been responsible for distributing some of the biggest names in collectible scale cars. Now he's set to introduce some entirely different hood ornaments. The company's Fast Women line of 1:18 scale painted-resin female models is meant to be displayed with its popular die-cast automobiles, just like the real women in those racy auto calendars or car shows.

Heitner says he introduced them to America because he thought there was a hole in the marketplace that the scantily clad figurines could fill. "These are aimed at the hip-hop and tuner culture of fast, tricked-out cars with big speakers and lots of after-market products," says Heitner. Already, these female accessories are creating a buzz with retailers. The first line, which is set to arrive in stores next month, includes five figures with names like Candy and Mitzi, clad in different skimpy outfits. (More dolls in 10 new poses will be released this summer.) M&D plans to provide smaller-scale figures for the 1:24 and 1:43 scale collectible cars as well. Eventually, there will also be accessory girls clad in era-appropriate clothes and hairstyles so that cars can be matched with women. There's even talk of introducing figures with no clothes at all. They'll be sold unpainted, so it will be up to individual collectors to decide how to dress them for their debut on the hot rods' hoods. Gentlemen, does that start your engines?

PHOTO (COLOR): CRUISIN': A scale auto and mini-babes

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By Peter Suciu