Autoblog

Click above for high-res gallery of the new Ferrari California

A few months ago we advised taking our post about Mattel leaking major Ferrari news with a big grain of salt. But as that famous toy maker has been known to do in the past (remember the 1969 Corvette?), Mattel was indeed working on a 1:18th scale model of a new, small Ferrari. As we know, however, it won't be called Dino.

A Mattel insider and Autoblog fan has tipped us off that a 1:18 scale Hot Wheels Ferrari California will be available in "late 2008." With the official unveiling of the Ferrari California supposedly planned for the Paris Motor Show in October, we might be able to take one for a, uh, small test drive before the car is even unveiled.

Click above to view the video after the jump.

If the ad campaign is any indication, those of us born in the late 1970s are the demographic Pontiac's aiming at with the G8. First, there was the Spy Hunter themed TV spot, and now this one, which pays homage to the seminal car-guy experience of zooming around on a carpet in 1/64 scale. Hey, we're cool with that. The G8 GT does induce heart palpitations in many of us who still cling to our battle-scarred collection of now-vintage Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars with our initials etched into the underside. Like many of the other tiny cars we racked up miles on, a miniature G8 would have made us wish for either a shrink-ray, or a personal fortune by the time we hit 16 so we could buy a real one. Video embedded after the jump.

[Source: AdGabber]

Click above for high-res gallery of the Hot Wheels Honda Racer

Last November at the 2007 SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Hot Wheels unveiled a troop of concepts to celebrate its 40th anniversary. These new Hot Wheels cars were not designed by everyone's favorite 1:64 scale model toy maker, but rather were all new designs penned by designers from Lotus, Chevy, Ford, Mitsubishi, Dodge and Honda. The Lotus Concept, Mitsubishi Double Shotz, Dodge XP-07, Gangster Grin from Ford, Chevroletor (GM), and Honda Racer, along with Hot Wheels' own HW-40, are going on tour around the United States in August, so keep an eye out.

The first of these concepts to actually become a toy will be the Honda Racer, the design of which is inspired by the 'H' in Honda's corporate logo. There's room for a driver and navigator in the side-by-side shape of the concept that features a paint scheme inspired by Honda's participation in F1 back in the day. A fictitious Honda V10 VTEC that displaces a theoretical 2.0L per cylinder (that's a 20-liter engine for those keeping score at home) powers the red-and-white racer. The Honda Racer's design, Guillermo Gonzalez, says rather than bean counters and engineers imposing restraints on his creativity, the only parameters when designing his Hot Wheels car were that it had to fit in the trademark orange track and be able to do a loop. With a 20L V10 and the assistance of good old gravity, we're sure a loop is well within its means. You'll be able to buy the Honda Racer next month when it begins arriving on store shelves in May. Until then, check out the high-res shots Honda released of the Honda Racer in our gallery below.


[Source: Honda]

Earlier this week we brought you amazing photos of a Hot Wheel car Mattel valued at $140,000. "WTF?!," is what we heard from a lot of readers who wondered how a $1 toy could possibly be worth more than their entire collections of late-80s Buicks and/or Mustang IIs.

We asked similar questions, too, and got a series of photos from our buds at Mattel documenting what it took to create what is probably the worlds' most expensive 1:64 scale toy car.

In our previous post, we said most of the value came from the diamonds and rubies on the car's white gold body. We may have been wrong. Studying the photos in the gallery, the amount of patience and painstaking attention to tiny, tiny detail is where at least half the $140k is spent. We get bleary-eyed just thinking about having to place each of the 2,700 jewels in each of those microscopic little holes drilled in the car's 14k body.

So, yeah, $140k is still way too much money to pay for a car you can't even live in, but we now have a little more respect for what it took to create it.

Update: For all you HW collectors out there wondering what model is beneath all that glitter, it looks to be the Custom Otto casting.




[Source: Mattel]

click above for more high-res pics

A few years ago, Bruce Pascal paid more than $70,000 for a single Hot Wheels car. The car was an extremely rare rear-loading Beach Bomb with an even more rare pink coat of paint. But it didn't have even a single diamond or ruby, which makes us wonder what Mr. Pascal thinks about this jewel-encrusted toy car commissioned by Mattel to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Hot Wheels.

Jeweler to the stars, Jason of Beverly Hills, transformed this $1 toy into a $140,000 dust-collecting bauble. Almost every surface of the car is covered in some type of precious stone. The car's 18-karat white-gold body shimmers with blue diamonds, the base features white and black diamonds, rubies are set in the car's taillights, and black diamonds were used on the car's tires. Even the tiny interior is jeweled as is the engine. There are 2,700 jewels on the car at a weight of nearly 23-karats.

The car was introduced at the 2008 Toy Fair in New York by Nick Lachey (who's sorry now, Jessica?), who will auction off the toy later this year with the proceeds going to Big Brothers Big Sisters. The lucky (by which we mean having more money than sense) winner will also get a custom-made display box that features 40 more diamonds, one for each year of Hot Wheels production.


[Source: Gizmodo, Mattel, Photos by Rob Loud/Getty]

Thinking back to our formative years, there were three defining moments that began our automotive obsession. Our first exotic car poster (Countach FTW!), our first subscription to a buff book (in our own name) and countless hours spent on the carpet with our Hot Wheels collection doing imaginary power slides and performing gravity defying leaps over the abyss of our kitchen sink. Amazingly, Hot Wheels has been facilitating those memories for four decades since it began selling its die-cast toys back in 1968.

For Hot Wheels' 40th anniversary, it commissioned artists to design a few concepts that would celebrate the toys' heritage, and it is now planning a U.S. tour to mark the four billionth miniature sold. You'd have to be a fast food restaurant to claim to have served more people than that. Details about the tour are minimal, but Hot Wheels is planning a stop off in Detroit and an appearance at the historic races at Watkins Glen once things get underway later this summer. And a tour wouldn't be complete without schwag, so Hot Wheels plans on giving out collector cars in a variety of colors during the trip. We are so there.

[Source: AutoWeek via Winding Road]

Click image for live gallery from the Hot Wheels SEMA press conference

To celebrate its 40th anniversary of scale dream fulfillment, Hot Wheels decided to do something it has never done before. The company allowed designers from outside itself to develop concepts that will be turned into actual Hot Wheels offerings. But they didn't open the doors to just anyone, they chose designers from some of the leading auto manufacturers. The results were unveiled today at SEMA. While all had some cool elements that made them fun and toy-like, we really liked the Lotus Concept and the Mitsubishi Double Shotz, pictured above. It had TWO Evo engines for goodness sakes! Other entries shown were the Dodge XP-07, Gangster Grin from Ford, Chevroletor (GM), Honda Racer (that happens to look like the "H" logo from above), and Hot Wheels' own HW-40. Each of the cars will also be built as a 1:64 model for the Hot Wheels lineup.

See more sketches of the new Hot Wheels creations over at CNN Money.

[Source: Mattel]

Show of hands. How many of you used Black Cats and cherry bombs to incinerate large numbers of Hot Wheels as kids? Especially the pink ones, right? Because they were for girls. Do you know how much those cars in their pre-charred, uncrispy state could be worth right now? What were you thinking?

Here's a better use of miniature cars and pyrotechnics not endorsed by Mattel (this we can guarantee): rocket-powered Hot Wheels. Even if you choose not to study the step-by-step instructions (basically, just strap a model rocket motor to a Hot Wheels car) at Instructables, you must watch the video we've embedded after the jump. It's what we as kids were trying to accomplish 20 years ago. We think.

[Source: Instructables]

It probably takes considerable effort to get funding and engineering for a vehicle that can break the land-speed record or 458 mph. To achieve such a speed at 1/32 scale, you only need James May and 45 English Scalextric slot car fans. Just past the jump, you can see a terrific video that May put together on the history of the scale car, which goes all the way back to the 1930s with the British Dinky brand. After getting you up to speed on all gravity-based scale models, May settled on electrified slot cars. To make the story interesting, May rented out an airplane hanger and laid out 150 feet of track and then proceed to time car after car to see if it could beat the land speed record at 1/32 scale. As it turns out, the record was easily beaten, and speeds of almost 700 scale mph were achieved. Check it out.

[Source: Jalopnik]

Click the image above to view Polly Wheels in action

Most of the Autoblog readers have been fostering a love for the automobile since a very early stage in life. We collected Hot Wheels and Matchboxes, and we had model cars and remote-controlled hot rods. The one thing those toys have in common is that they're marketed almost exclusively to boys.

Mattel has decided to give the girls what they've wanted all along: race tracks, pink cars that go shopping, and a great way to compete. Earlier we gave you an extensive debriefing on Polly Wheels, complete with an Autoblog Gallery, and now we're adding video, too. Check out the Autoblog interview with Stephanie Cota, Vice President of girls marketing at Mattel. There is also some exclusive footage of a prototype Polly Wheels Race Track in action. Check it out!