You don't have to spend a fortune to start a cool -- and potentially valuable -- model car collection.

Look no further than Hot Wheels as a good place to begin. Anybody who's been in the model hobby business will tell you that, small though they may be, there's a lot of fun and collectability built into those ¹/₆₄-scale toy cars and trucks.

This year, Hot Wheels has a Classics line that is particularly interesting. These are near-copies of the old Red Line Hot Wheels that got the company set firmly on the road to success. The red line refers to a thin red stripe that adorned the tires of these cars.

The Series 2 classics, all priced at $2.99, take some of the best known designs, muscle cars and hot rods that celebrate 30 of the most collectible Hot Wheels cars over the last 38 years. The cars have die cast bodies and chassis. They all feature "Spectraflame" candy color paint -- that shiny metallic hue that graced many Hot Wheels designs from years ago.

The 1967 Chevy Camaro, for instance, is done in a deep shade of blue, with tiny "Camaro" SS and side stripes adorning its flanks. This car, like others, is a bit short on details, but it accurately recalls the popular Camaro version done years ago.

Another model in the series, the 1969 Dodge Charger Coupe, may be one of the best looking renditions of that car in ¹/₆₄ scale. It has an unerringly accurate profile with the correct stance and proportions. In addition, an R/T stripe around the tail is better than what I've seen on some larger models. Tiny emblems grace the roof pillar, just as on the real car.

Mind you, ¹/₆₄ is a tiny scale, and it's impossible to capture many points of interest at this size; thus, the fact that Hot Wheels has captured so many details is a feather in its cap.

There were only two mishaps -- one is a Dodge emblem on the front fender of the Dodge Charger Coupe; no such emblem could be found on any of the reference materials I consulted. It also would have been nice to fill in the side marker lights and taillights with appropriate red paint.

Particularly impressive is the 2006 First Edition Plymouth Superbird Coupe. The Superbird was a limited production high-speed car whose primary hallmark was a huge, towering spoiler on the tail.

Again, stance, proportion and profile were dead-on accurate -- the car even appears to have a vinyl roof, which would have been normal for the era because the car portrayed is a 1970 model. The green paint is a ringer for the original, and the seat patterns and style are exactly what was used in the real car.

Hot Wheels, like many other model companies, is diversifying into new scales and genres. One of its newest is G Machines, taking the name of an increasingly popular trend in which muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s are preserved on the exterior, but with the newest technology, engines, transmissions and suspensions underneath. The ¹/₅₀ scale cars in this series are priced at $3.99 apiece.

My example was a 1967 Pontiac GTO with the huge low profile tires and chrome alloy wheels, custom interior and dual exhausts. It is a beautiful rendition, and I'll be anxious to see some of the other examples in this series.

In a similar vein, Hot Wheels also has a new series called Kalifornia Kustoms, which features intricately detailed ¹/₆₄-scale cars inspired by California's car culture.

Priced at $9.99 apiece, these cars are displayed in clear, mirrored packaging that allows you to see the front, back and underside at the same time.

My 1967 Chevy Corvette has a tiny red-and-blue flag painted on all the emblems, and nicely done chrome colored trim can be seen along the rocker panel and around windshields. Separate and nicely done chrome bumpers are installed, and you can see the tiniest of accurate Corvette emblems in evidence all around.

It's possible, of course, to get all of these models at much less than the sticker price quoted above.