Rescue Ranger
I am going to put a date to myself here, but I also don’t
care really. Too late for irrelevant things like that. We have a very important
casting to look at for this post. The Rescue Ranger is modeled after a
Chevrolet cab fire truck of the late 70s / early 80s era. It has the same front
grill as the Chevy Van casting. There have been a couple different names
for this casting, Recsue Ranger being the original, Emergency Squad and Ranger Rig
have also been printed on releases of this casting.
The Casting
I remember as a young boy, getting absolutely hooked on a
drama TV show called Emergency. It was a product of the early 70s. The station
that the fire truck was housed in was station 51. I honestly don’t know if
there was a connection to the Hot Wheels designer and the TV show but almost
every fire related version of the Rescue Ranger that I have ever been able to
look at has a number 51 on it. It was also named Rescue Ranger and Emergency
Squad as previously noted. Other style releases have varied numbers, but the
fire truck versions are all labeled station 51! It is a very integral part of
the Hot Wheels city line up and has been around since its first release in 1985
[1]. Rescue Ranger and its surnames have been featured in the line up 45 times
and continues to be in the line up into 2019! With all the new castings and
version of fire trucks in the Hot Wheels line, this one in particular has stood
up too many that have fallen to the wayside.
I have several of the releases in my collection, I tend to
lean to the Fire Truck versions more, guess subliminal nostalgia kicking in.
The rescue ranger has been featured as a HW City bomb squad, HW City Forestry
Service, HW City Biohazard and HW City First Responder. There is only one Hot Wheels City or Metro
casting that has been featured this many times and with this versatility while
maintaining a sense of realism (teaser to a future post).
The older castings have a metal body and base, some of the
newer releases have plastic body and plastic base. The all metal versions are
great on the orange track, but the weight slows them down on uphill climbs. The
details are all there, oxygen tanks molded in plastic, light bar, hose reel and
sirens all clearly cast. Rescue Ranger is typically released with the basic
5spk wheels and they look great on this casting. The early basic blackwall
versions really look great too. There was a release in the real rider series in
1986 (see pics) and the white real riders are the collector’s premium find. The
casting has not been featured in the treasure hunt series yet but maybe
sometime soon it will make the cut.
And that is it for the review of the Rescue Ranger. The
current 2019 release is a Biohazard version in White plastic. Happy peg hunting
and collecting. As always, drop a comment below and if you have any pictures from
your own Rescue Ranger collection, leave them in the comments below.
Thank you,
Collector Quentin
I own the actual diecast pictured in these posts. However,
all packaging artwork, Mattel or Hot Wheels logos, paint descriptions and wheel
descriptions in regard to the Hot Wheels versions are copyrights of the Mattel
toy company.
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enthusiasts that are trying to put together, the largest complete database of
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