Every year around this time, the Hess Corporation, an independent energy company, advertises their "Hess Racing Cars" for Christmas. Apparently, they've been doing this for 45 years now, a fact I find quite surprising. According to their advertising, the cars are available at local Hess gas stations. They clearly must sell these cars to someone; otherwise they wouldn't advertise year after year. But who buys these? I never think of a gas station as a place to go to buy stuff like this. As a kid, I never said "hey, let's go toy shopping at our local gas station!" And I don't know who would do that today. Maybe truck drivers pick this kind of thing up for their kids?

According to the Wikipedia article, these cars (especially the older ones) are considered collectibles and can fetch into the thousands of dollars, depending on the rarity and condition. Pretty amazing! Does anyone here have (or previously had) a Hess car? If so, what did you think about it?