Streeter Mills
First introduced in 1976 to celebrate America's Bicentennial, Neet Streeters™ are currently being produced at a factory in Thailand for use in the "The Hot Ones®" series.
From India to China, from Malaysia to Mexico, these factories that we call "Streeter mills" have been around for decades. They continue to thrive because they prey on unwitting collectors who are smitten by too-cute-for-words Neet Streeters™ in retail store toy aisles and on fancy websites.
But behind the friendly facade of the local Wal*Mart, the pastoral scenes on a "collector's" website, or a cleverly-worded online auction, there often lies a Streeter mill.
At Streeter mills, cars are built for quantity, not quality, so manufacturing defects and personality disorders are common. "There is virtually no consideration of temperament," says one Hot Wheels™ collector. "I wish legislators could sit in my office and watch … people sobbing in extreme emotional pain over having to decide whether to throw away their car because of a loose axle or mismatched wheelsets."
Hundreds of thousands of Neet Streeters™ and other Hot Wheels are shipped around the world to be sold in retail stores, but many are snapped up and re-sold by profiteers, or "scalpers", via online auctions or Internet sites. The ploys of the scalper are designed to dupe a well-intentioned collector into buying a Hot Wheels™ car at inflated prices, thus keeping the engine of cruelty working overtime.
It's seldom profitable to open a blisterpack and play with a Neet Streeter™. The profit comes when cars live their lives "carded"— sealed in their packaging. The profit comes when scalpers provide only the minimum requirements to keep a car alive and able to sell. Loneliness, fear and pain constitute the typical life these cars know.
Life is particularly bad for "peg-warmers," cars that live their entire lives "Mint On Card" and are kept for years, without human companionship and with little hope of ever becoming part of a family. These cars receive little or no care and may never see a Hot Wheels™ track or a Rally Case™. They are not held or rolled around on a table. After their popularity wanes, these diecast cars are commonly boxed up, abandoned and forgotten.
Organizations like the New SouthPark Order™ and the Blue Real Riders® Club have been boycotting scalpers and investigating Streeter mills for over a decade, exposing the cruel realities of the commercial diecast car-building industry. But our work is far from over. There are still thousands of scalpers that need to be shut down for good. We need your help to do that. Please help the BRR® Club stop these profiteers by spreading the word about Streeter mills, making a donation to our Glass for Streeters™ program or telling a friend about the Blue Real Riders® website.
Since its creation in 1976, the Neet Streeter™ has never had the windows or rubber tires it so clearly deserves
