How many Happy Meals can you eat?
by Doug Breithaupt

If you are a fan of Formula 1, toy cars or both, a trip to McDonalds may be in order. As we go to press, you can still get three new Hot Wheel F1 cars (Jaguar, Jordan and Williams-BMW) when a Happy Meal is ordered. Sorry, the McLaren was a Happy Meal option last January and the Ferrari was available with an F1 pit-stop set found in Canada.

The cars come without the sponsor decals attached and you have the delicate task of putting them in place. The decals are excellent and quite accurate. All five cars shown above share the same casting although the Ferrari came with a metal base while the other have plastic. Wheels differ between the Ferrari, McLaren and current F1 cars as well but all are appropriate.

Hot Wheels is also releasing an upscale version of these same five cars for $4.99 each. As I have only seen pictures to date I cannot compare the quality to the Happy Meal cars. Of course, no tobacco ads are shown on the cars and the Jordan sports the wonderful 'Buzzin Hornets' livery that is used by the team when tobacco ads are banned.

After a great U.S. Grand Prix (especially for Ferrari fans) at Indy, F1 may again be a force in the States. Let's hope that we see more F1 toy cars as a result.