Autoblog

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]