Their most important technology was to mold in a small hook under the front axle so that they could be propelled by a lever-driven catapult, far faster than could be obtained by either gravity, or battery powered "supercharger" devices.

In 1994 Thomas Lowe of Cassopolis, Michigan became aware of the abandoned trademark and secured the rights to the Johnny Lightning name for his Playing Mantis toy company.

Playing Mantis produced the toy cars under the Johnny Lightning brand name from 1994 to June 2004.

In 2004 Mr. Lowe sold Playing Mantis (including the Johnny Lightning brand) to RC2 Corporation, which in turn was bought by the Japanese toy company Tomy in 2011.

Johnny Lightning sponsored five Parnelli Jones cars, including Al Unser, in the 1970 and 1971 Indy 500 races.

Thomas Lowe and his Playing Mantis company acquired the rights to the Johnny Lightning trademark and started producing reproductions of the original cars in 1994.

The full line of Johnny Lightning cars produced by Topper and Playing Mantis is described in the Standard Catalog of Diecast Vehicles.

[2] Playing Mantis also revived the Thunderjet 500 line of slotcars sharing their name with Johnny Lightning in 1/64 scale.

Playing Mantis brought back the pancake motor buy equipping the bodies with a reproduction of the Aurora Tuff Ones chassis, which was the original chassis that Aurora updated with wider rear tires, independently rotating and wider spaced front wheels, and a faster pancake armature.

These cars copyright 2001 - 2004 (12 referenced from the product package) continued with the shared names Thunderjet 500, Tuff Ones, and Johnny Lightning.

Johnny Lightning products were then produced and distributed by RC2 in Oak Brook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

Carrying over from the Playing Mantis era was designer and author Mac Ragan[3] who was responsible for many of the popular models and had written a comprehensive guide to Johnny Lightning cars called Tomart's Price Guide to Johnny Lightning Vehicles (2001).

A new clamshell style package arrived stores in January 2007 with the release of the new Johnny Retro series.

Additional overhauling of the brand included updating many of the long-time collector favorite series like Classic Gold and Muscle Cars which received new packaging graphics developed in the West Coast office by Jeremy Cox and Tscherne.

A large price increase coincided with the new package, leaving many collectors upset with RC2's management and decision making associated with the beloved Johnny Lightning brand.