BMW M1 Procar

The BMW M1 Procar Championship was a one-make competitive race that pits various professional race car drivers from more than one motorsport discipline. By the name alone, this pits modified BMW M1 sportscars that have been identically modified for the race. The modifications on these cars also qualify these cars for Group 4 racing, seeing them powered by 3.3L inline 6 M88s rated up to 470 hp. The Procar Championship ran from 1979 to 1981. Pretty short, but BMW had bigger motorsport dreams at the time, and they decided to concentrate on those.

The Hot Wheels casting was designed by Mark Jones and is, as other Mark Jones designs, pretty slick. This particular version is from the Premium series: Eurospeed. Let me start this one by saying those wheels look great on this car. Gold MCRRs are just what the doctor ordered. The mostly black car looks more like an art car with the addition of those rainbow stripes on the back and bonnet. Closed pop-up headlights, but detailed taillights. Big number 15 on the roof, and this is one of the few cars that actually have livery on the windscreen. Project Cars is embalzoned on the sides, the bonnet, and the rear license plate holder. It should also be noted that the windows are sculpted, with nicely done louvres at the back, a gas tank lid on the side, and a single mid-wiper on the windscreen. The big, rear spoiler is part of the main body casting, and that’s fine. Another detail that should be noted is the presence of an intercooler that fills in the front gap nicely. This, together with the single tip, hotizontally-mounted muffler at the rear, makes for a very pretty car indeed.

Admittedly, though, I’m not a fan of the M1. Prosport or otherwise. I believe that it is an engineering marvel for its time, but it didn’t grow on me like some other cars of the era. But, with this casting that ticks all the right boxes, I say that this is a keeper.

Nissan 180SX Type X

The Nissan 180SX. Another JDM darling. Albeit one of the lesser-known ladies. This casting was initially released back in 2015 and was designed by Dmitriy Shakhmatov. I did pick up a couple of these as part of my JDM collection, so I’m not really that surprised that this made it to the Street Tuners. Yes, there are other choices, but the 180SX isn’t half bad.

Nissan 180SX Type X

The Type X is the tuned version of the car straight from the factory. At least the real one is. Although the half-open pop-up headlights are a nice touch and really brings that old-school vibes. Similar to the Sylvia, this 180SX comes in a plain colorway. Although to be honest, it seems like a missed opportunity since this car isn’t nearly as sexy as the S15 Sylvia. Paint job aside, the wheels are nice. Gold RREx wheels play with this car nicely and add to that old-school vibe. The only other details on this car are the emblems and the painted taillights. Overall, the car looks the part and it is a JDM tuner by heart.

Nissan 180SX Type X

It’s part of my collection no doubt. Not the best choice for the Street Tuners in my opinion, but there could have been worse choices.

Nissan 180SX Type X

 

’69 COPO Corvette

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. Is there a 1969 COPO Corvette in real life?

According to posts in the Corvette Forum, there has only been one 1969 COPO Corvette to leave the factory. On the auction site Mecum Auctions, it is also listed as only one COPO L88 Corvette and comes with complete documentation. I am not a Corvette expert so I can’t really put my 2 cents in. COPO stands for Central Office Production Order which allowed certain customers to spec-order non-standard parts and accessories. While there may only have been 1 COPO Corvette for the ’69 model, there was also a ’67 COPO Corvette ordered by a GM designer, Bill Mitchell. And it wasn’t just the Corvette, COPO Camaros were also available.

’69 COPO Corvette

But this here example from Hot Wheels is of the ’69 COPO Corvette. The casting first appeared in the 2011 New Models line and has been in production since. The one that I have is from the Car Culture Circuit Legends series. Which means that this sits on Real Rider wheels and tires. Very nice looking RRPrf in yellow (officially on the Wiki, but it looks more like gold). As with most Hot Wheels, this casting comes with broken size wheels which actually looks good especially with the Good Year marking on the tires. Decked out in yellow paint with a contrasting black roof and hood, the car looks very much like a circuit car. Being from the Car Culture series, you can bet that it has a better quality finish. It has decals galore, painted headlights and taillights, and a metal base.

’69 COPO Corvette

I am not a Corvette fan, but I do appreciate nice cars. And this one is very nice. The stance is good, it looks muscular, it looks American, and it feels good. A keeper then? I’ll need to spend more time with it for me to say.

Hot Wheels Car Culture: Circuit Legends

Hot Wheels Car Culture released the Circuit Legends set in 2018. The set is comprised of the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, the ’69 COPO Corvette, the Porsche 962, the ’16 Ford GT Race and the Mazda 787B.

The Circuit Legends pays homage to legendary race cars as the series name suggests. How legendary?

The Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe took home several GT class wins from 1964 to 1965 in several races ranging from the 24 hours of Le Mans, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 12 Hours of Reims among others. The Central Office Production Order Corvette is the Holy Grail of COPOs in that there was only one example of the ’69 COPO Corvette to ever leave the factory. The L88 was also known for its performance in Sebring and Le Mans. The Porsche 962 was built as a replacement for the 956 and has garnered wins in the IMSA GT Championship, the Interserie Championship, the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship and the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship. The Ford GT Race is relatively new and was created as part of the Ford Race program. The car debuted at the 2016 24 Hour of Dayton finishing 7th. In the same year, it finished first in the 24 Hour of Le Mans in the LMGTE Pro class marking 50 years after the original Ford GT40’s spectacular win in the same race. The Mazda 787B is another 24 of Le Mans champion but it is wearing a different belt as it has the distinction of being the only Japanese manufacturer and only Rotary engine car to ever win the legendary endurance race.

These cars are very nice. To be honest, I am not really a big fan of GT cars. I still like watching GT races but not as much as I watch World Rally Championships and F1 races. Let’s just leave it at that. Getting back to the cars, they are very nicely detailed. Even for a GT race car, the decals and livery are spot on. It would be nice to have these on a diorama race track just to imaging them tearing up the asphalt.

 

Hot Wheels Originals

Hot Wheels has been making original designs for decades. I didn’t really buy them because most of the fantasy cars are simply too wild for my taste. Lately, I have grown to like some of these original designs.

Hot Wheels Night Shifter

Take the Night Shifter. At first glance, it looks like a big, burly, American muscle car with a blown engine up front and exhaust pipes running through the centre of the car. Or so I thought. Reading about it more, it turns out that the car’s fuel tanks are exposed in the trunk and the pipes feed the fuel back into the engine like old fighter planes. And that’s where the inspiration came from. It’s a custom muscle car with bits of a fighter plane thrown in. It made a big first impression on me that I got it from the pegs without thinking twice.

Hot Wheels Kafer Racer

Then there’s the Volkswagen Kafer Racer. Based on a Volkswagen Beetle (hence the name, Kafer), it is a modified VW bug with an outrageous body kit, almost GT like with its widened body, whale-tailed wing and pronounced exhaust pipes coming from the rear-mounted engine. This one is a crazy model that actually looks like it was based off a real car. The Momo livery probably helped with that.

Hot Wheels Crate Racer

The Crate Racer is another Hot Wheels original design. This truck was designed by none other than Larry Wood. Larry Wood gave us classics such as the Purple Passion, the Ferrari 348, the ’37 Bugatti, the Science Friction, and many others. I got the Crate Racer initially because I wanted to take it apart so that I could re-use the engine for a custom. I haven’t really been good at customs so I decided to keep the Crate Racer intact for now. It’s really cool to see that engine shake as you roll the truck along.

Hot Wheels has made a lot of other original designs. And as I mentioned before, I’m not really a big fan of these fantasy cars. But once in a while, there are some that catch my eye and I do my part to have fun with them.

TLVN Mazda RX-7

There’s no hiding that I am a Mazda fan. It should be no surprise then that I have taken to the new TLVN FDs like a moth to a flame. There are now seven variants of the said TLVN to date, and I am happy to say, that I have them all.

The first two are the Infini Type Rs, TLV-N174a and TLV-N174b. Silver and Yellow, respectively. I was very excited about these as these were the first releases, not to mention it came in yellow, the colour of Keisuke Takahashi’s FD in Initial D. The FD3S is counted as series 6 in Mazda’s stable, also counted as the third generation RX-7. This Type R is considered as a lightweight sports model making 255 PS and 294 Nm of torque. The nice thing about the TLVNs is that they come with the correct scaled down wheel designs, and despite not being the prettiest wheel design, it is what makes this car an RX-7.

The two Type Rs was followed by one red model under the guise of The Era of Japanese Cars 13. This came in a special box with a bit of history on it. Unfortunately, I can’t read Japanese. But this is basically the same car, with the same wheels, the same interior, but comes in red. So, yes, it still comes with detailed side markers, twin tailpipes, blacked out taillights, RX-7 and Infini badges, and a pair of side mirrors. Side mirrors that you need to install by yourself. So, yes, mine is still in the box because I’m too scared to tack them on.

The next ones that came out are the Type RS (TLV-N177b) and Type RZ (TLV-N177a). The Type RS was on the higher-end of the ladder and had a power bump with its engine now making 280 PS and 314 Nm of torque. This is the limit set by regulations in Japan. Tomytec made the right call to change the wheels on this version keeping it identical to the original car’s design. The Type RZ is another limited edition version of the FD. It had the same power figures as the RS but was lighter by about 10 kg. Tomytec again called it and gave the RZ the same handsome gunmetal BBS rims and even had RZ badging on the C-pillar. The RS came in white and the RZ came in black. Contrasting colours, but the same beautiful car. These two also came with a different set of wings. Different from the previous silver, yellow, and red RSes. However, it would have been even better if the wing on the RZ had been the correct one. As it is, the RZ and RS models came with the same type of wing, whereas the real cars had different sets. I guess it was some sort of cost-cutting, but these aren’t cheap models to begin with.

The next pair came in the following trims. A blue RX-7 Type R and a Patrol Car RX-7. Apart from the colour, there wasn’t really anything new with the blue Type R. The Patrol Car, on the other hand, seems to have been based on the previous Type RS version. It came with the same wheels and the same wing. It also obviously came in Japan’s black and white police livery. It had the light bars on the roof, a rear aerial, and that plastic thing on the bonnet. Unfortunately, I have no idea what they are for so any valid information on them would be greatly appreciated. On a high note, while I was searching for information on this car, there was a photo of an actual RX-7 patrol car that I chanced on, and everything is as it is on this Tomytec model. Bravo!

’17 Audi RS6 Avant by Hot Wheels

The Audi RS6 Avant is on its third generation released from 2013 to 2018. It would have been under the codes C7 and 4G depending on who you are talking to and if you didn’t know, the Avant simply means that this car is a 5-door estate car (or station wagon if you really want to call it that). The car originally came with a twin-turbo V8 with a 4L displacement putting out a maximum of 560 PS and 700 Nm of torque. However, Audi thought that it could do with a bump in performance so they re-tuned the ECU they increased the maximum output to 605 PS and 750 Nm of torque. They called this the RS6 Performance. Maximum speed had been limited to a claimed 250 km/h though, the same as the standard RS6 Avant. I have been attracted to estates for a long time now, probably because there were so many performance sedans already out on the road. The wagon body-style was less conspicuous and would be a great sleeper car if I ever managed to get my hands on one.

Hot Wheels released a casting based on the 2017 RS6 Avant which is basically saying that it is based on the Performance version. It was part of the mainline cars for 2018 under the Factory Fresh series. This is the first casting for this model and a lot of people have been hyped about it. It didn’t disappoint. The car looked great with its bright red paint job and Y5 wheelset. Not only that, Hot Wheels decided on including details such as headlights and taillights, the Audi logo, the Quattro logo, and even number plates!

The casting was designed by Ryu Asada. He’s the same guy that gave us the Honda S2000 in 2011, the ’90 Acura NSX in 2015, the ’17 Nissan GT-R in 2017 and the ’82 Nissan Skyline R30 in 2018 among others. Those models were already damn good and this RS6 Avant joins them as one of Hot Wheels’ best so far. Another thing to mention about this casting is that it also came out as a Super Treasure Hunt for 2018 which made the hunt for the car even more frustrating (thank you, scalpers!).

But STH or not, having this car in your collection is pretty much a must. It will go down in history as one of the best cars that Hot Wheels produced and is really just one cool ride. If you have an actual Audi RS6 Avant, then it is even more of a no-brainer to get one.

2016 Ford Focus RS

The Ford Focus RS is Ford’s darling Hot Hatch taking on the likes of the Volkswagen Golf, Honda Civic, and Renault Megane RS among others.

This is the second Ford Focus RS from Hot Wheels with the first RS based on the 2009 Focus and this new model based on the 2016 model. This particular model caught my eye because of the livery. I am a sucker for liveries. And this one came with Koni livery. You can’t go wrong slapping a high-performance part livery on a car that was meant to perform. And the graphics on this car complemented this look very well. Being a mass-produced Hot Wheels mainline model meant that Mattel was free to skimp on a few details though. And they did skimp. There are no headlights and taillights on this model. It is properly cast, but it neither comes with paint nor tampo. It’s a shame because this car comes with a white base color and having no details on either head or tail is just a missed opportunity to make this car great. The shape and the stance are good overall though and the black J5 wheels with red chrome accent fit the aura of the car nicely.

Lamborghini Huracan LP 610-4 (Hot Wheels)

The Lamborghini Huracan.

Essentially a replacement to the Lamborghini Gallardo, the Hot Wheels Lamborghini Huracan is based on the LP 610-4 model. In real life, that is a mid-ship V10 with 610 HP and 4-wheel drive. The Hot Wheels first edition of this casting comes in a beautiful yellow hue, obviously based on the Giallo Midas Pearl. And while it isn’t an actual Pearl finish, the shade of yellow is absolutely stunning on this car.

In typical Hot Wheels fashion, the stance is aggressive with wheel-arch filling rollers. The PR5s look good on this car and the tampo’d headlights are a nice touch. Too bad they did not put the same treatment on the taillights, but the Lamborghini text on the rear license plate holder was a nice touch. There is just something about the way Hoy Wheels casts their vehicles that really grab you nowadays. The lines of the car are perfect, the sculpted front and rear end of the car look great, the exhaust and rear valence, and that stance.

There is one annoying thing about this casting that really is a bummer for me. The clear rear bonnet is a Lamborghini signature that ensures you have a good view of the engine powering the beast. On this casting, however, there is a bit of the casting that shows through the clear plastic (but not in a good way). Never mind that the mold of the engine is just black, but the bright yellow metal of the cast is just screaming from under that rear bonnet. It is in the mold of the engine cover though, but it does not really help alleviate the eye-sore that it is.

Overall, this is an excellent addition to the ever-growing lineup of Lamborghinis in the Hot Wheels stable. The only thing missing right now is a Real Riders treatment.