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.
Toy Box Garage 