What We Do
Glass For Streeters® provides shelter and care to rescued Neet Streeters™ from all over the United States. The GFS program is led by a team of highly trained specialists whose credentials and experience are among the best in the nation. When a car is brought in to our facility, it is immediately given a thorough examination and assessed for temperament and disposition. A rehabilitation plan is outlined, and we begin an individualized program of surgical attention and physical therapy. Our goal is to not only provide glass for Streeters, but to also help them become happy, freewheeling Blue Real Riders® vehicles.
Smooth Creamy Skin
After an initial exploratory procedure, the car is given a soothing, aromatic bath of antibiotic paint stripper. This removes embedded impurities, environmental pollutants and dead paint cells. Then it is given a sleek, luxurious new coat. In most cases, this consists of a paint scheme intended to honor the car's heritage by replicating the appearance of the 1976 first-edition Neet Streeters™. We begin by applying a color coat of the Blue Real Riders® Club's Retro Blue Enamel, overlaid with a top-quality reproduction "Oldie But A Goodie" decal from the Redline Shop. Finally, for protection from the elements, we apply a product specially formulated to work with our enamels, giving the car a thick, shiny clearcoat.
Photo comparing a 1996-issue India casting (left) and a Blue Real Riders® Retro Resto.
Glassed Augmentation
When the patient is fully cured, we schedule the next procedure— glassed implants. The benefits of glass augmentation surgery can be substantial. The obvious benefit to the procedure is a more appealing physical appearance, but many Neet Streeters™ experience a considerable increase in self-esteem after a glass augmentation surgery.
Many hobbyists would simply cut a sheet of clear styrene to make a window. However, Glass For Streeters® places such importance upon function that our front & rear windscreens are actually carved from acrylic nearly a full millimeter thick. This painstaking process enhances clarity and durability, making our windows more resistant to cloudiness and scratches. With new glass, the car's interior piece must also have the front corners carefully reworked for a proper fit. After countless clinical trials, the windshields are epoxied into place.
Wheel Transplants
From the beginning, the Neet Streeter™ was designed with a massive amount of wheel clearance. This helps to maintain the car's roll mobility if the axles become bent from abuse, and it permits installation of a variety of wheel types, which often have slight size variances. It also allows for a certain amount of error in manufacturing, where the cars are assembled with great haste, in vast quantities. It may have been done merely to satisfy the designer's aesthetic sensibilities. Or perhaps the car's ground clearance is intended to help it roll through flood waters. Whatever the reasons, the policy of the Blue Real Riders® Club is to disdain the "hi-boy" look that was popular in the 1970s when the car was designed, in favor of a more natural ride height.
Glass For Streeters® puts the car on a waiting list for a Real Riders® transplant, until a suitable donor is found. By accident or by Dremel™, proper axle sets soon become available, and "lowering" the car to correct the stance is simply a trial-and-error process. Repeated test-fittings by the dozens insure tight tolerances, both front and rear, while still allowing the car to roll freely.
Low-angle photo shows chassis work; the car's glass for Streeters® implants are barely visible.
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
The phrase "lowering the car" is correct, but it's more accurate to say we raise the axles. This means that the car body is lowered, but so is the chassis. Results of testing on our zamac mule showed that the car could be lowered so much that it rested on the base, with the wheels not even touching the ground! Our diagnosis is that each Blue Real Riders® Club Glass For Streeters® program car requires extensive chassis modifications.
Obviously, these modifications are centered on the removal of metal with the least ground clearance. First, we eliminate the "Taz tabs". These are disk-shaped features that approximate brake rotors. Under hard downward pressure or weight, they act as "stops", keeping the wheels and axles from being bent up into the wheelwell cavity. However, we're trying to move the wheels up into the wheelwell cavity. A tab-ectomy only takes a few minutes, and recovery is immediate. Then the rear spring shackle features are cut off flush with the trunk floor. The "ladder bars" are retained simply for their visual appeal.
In the front, a reinforcement running between the front wheels is ground down. On earlier India-style castings, the grinder is also used to remove the side-exit exhaust pipes. The chassis piece is then de-burred, and sharp edges are filed smooth.
The results of a successful operation to remove large growths from a Streeter's rear end.
Don't Get Screwed
The final reconstructive procedure bonds the car together using advanced technology. Simply put, we use a chemical mechanism involving the curing of bisphenol resins with aliphatic polyamines, resulting in catalytic polymerization of the incorporated epoxide groups. Following a few hours of bed rest, the patient is again examined. If complications are observed, our comprehensive care plan is amended to allow a return to surgery as soon as possible to correct the condition. Occasionally, this is necessary despite the rigorous application of numerous mock-ups, test-fittings, and clinical trials. In most cases, however, we are able to move the vehicle and begin physical therapy on an out-patient basis within a day or two of the vehicle's repair.
After surgery, Neet Streeters™ are started on a synergistic rehabilitation program with oversight from a physical therapist. During this therapy, we assess the cars' health and temperament in order to make the best adoption matches possible. When Streeters are relinquished by owners, our staff makes every attempt to collect a thorough history of that car. In an effort to make good matches between people and Streeters and to place cars in lifelong homes, we are always available for adoption counseling and expert follow-up assistance, such as Hot Wheels® history lessons, medical services, and behavior counseling.
BRR® Club Signature Series
A small percentage of Neet Streeters™ are eligible to become Blue Real Riders® Club Signature cars. They receive a variation of the individualized procedures performed on a Retro Resto car; most notably, the application of transparent Spectra-style Blue Hoo Hue™ paint, for a "candy over zinc" shine, crowned with a chrome-plated hood scoop. Also, as diecast collectors almost universally reject chromed interiors, these Streeters' seats are re-covered with GE Hundred-Watt Soft White to help illuminate our GFS windows without glare or harsh light. As a final part of a positive, healthy lifestyle, we detail the grille and headlights, which helps improve the car's appearance and overall well-being.
Only Classics™ series Streeters can become BRR® Signature cars.
Our Special Purpose
Since 2008, Glass For Streeters® has been working to give deprived Neet Streeters™ the opportunity to roll free and independent in their natural environment, on tires that look and feel like the real thing, with windowglass as comfortable and secure as any other Hot Wheels® car. We want to save them from their all-too-frequent fates as sad captives in a collector's box, or worse, as trade fodder in a scalper's lair. Managing the Glass For Streeters® project and rehabilitating the cars is an ongoing task, one to which there is no foreseeable end, for we will need to protect Neet Streeters™ for as long as humans continue to pose a threat to them. This costs money, which we have to constantly generate. If you would like to contribute to the protection and well-being of these cars, then you can, either by sponsoring a Streeter's rehabilitation, or by adopting one into your family.
Click here to sponsor or adopt YOUR Neet Streeter™!
