Back in 2008, an unknown seller posted the original Mattel Hoverboard that Michael J. Fox used in Back to the Future 2 on eBay with a starting bid of $30,000. The board ended up fetching more than $50,000, which was absurd because it didn’t actually hover. But now, Mattel, riding high on Nike’s 2011 limited release of the Mag shoes that Marty McFly wore, is finally fulfilling the dreams of so many children who watched McFly escape Griff Tannen and wondered when they would be able to fly one-foot above the ground by actually releasing Hoverboards for retail purchase.
Well, with a teeny weeny itsy bitsy little catch… they still don’t hover. Sorry, Vince.
Finally! This totally awesome 1:1 replica of the hover board from the BTTF 2 and BTTF 3 films includes multiple whooshing sounds and will glide over most surfaces,” Mattel said in a post on its collector blog.
For those hoping for a hover board jaunt around their own version of the Hill Valley town square, Mattel stressed that its gadget “does not actually ‘hover’ – check back in 2015 for that feature.” (Via PC Magazine)
Just like Nike’s playful remark that the self-lacing Mags wouldn’t be available until 2015, Mattel is also trying to cash in on a very lucrative joke. While we don’t know the price of these Hoverboards, it’s safe to assume that they’ll be quite expensive since Mattel is only taking pre-orders and won’t actually produce the boards unless a certain order quota is met. In the meantime, I’m just going to do what I did when I was 10 and take the wheels off my Nash skateboard and save myself a few thousand dollars.