Over the year's, Hot Wheels have given collectors many different drag race castings that depict cars from different classes. And some of them have even featured bodies that lift up, which is an accurate representation of the cars they are based on. Now, most of the drag castings we've gotten are replicas of American drag cars. So what about the Japanese made cars that are built for the sport? Well, Hot Wheels has chosen create a JDM dragster, and it's non other than a Honda Civic. It truly is nice to see a different kind of drag car, and by "different," I mean a front-wheel drive dragster.
I ended up printing out the official check list Hot Wheels made available, and the Honda Civic Custom was one of the ones that piqued my interest. At the time, I was curious to see if they'd create an accurate depiction of a Civic drag car. And I have to say, they did. This casting has the exact appearance of the various Civic drag builds I've seen on the internet.
Now then, this casting's exterior has some cool features, and I feel one of the coolest ones is seen on its front bumper. My picture isn't the greatest, so it might be hard to see, but they designed this casting's bumper with a visible turbocharger. It might be a small detail, but I think it makes a huge impact on its overall drag racing appearance.
The hood has the next feature that I like. As you all know, a lot turbocharged drag car builds have an exhaust that's vents out the top of the hood. And for this casting, the Hot Wheels designers chose to do the same. Now, I do have to admit that I think the pipes could have been just a tad bit longer, but I can accept how short they are because I'm happy they are there.
A roll cage is the only thing that's missing from this casting, and I really don't see why it wasn't designed with one. Based on how it looks, I'd say this Civic is able to easily reach a speed that'll cause serious harm to the driver is something goes wrong. So its interior should definitely have some safety features.
Usually, I'd want the next release of a new casting to be plain, but that's definitely not the case with this casting. I, for one, am hoping to see many future releases of it with flashy over-the-top liveries that feature real-life sponsor decals. Okay, let's move on to the next JDM release.
The HW J-Imports is a mainline set that I've come to really like due to all of the cool releases that we've gotten, and one of them is the Mazda RX-7. Now, as you all know, the first release was finished in blue, which is why I immediately liked it. However, I was left scratching my head at the decision to make its design have the same color scheme that was used for the 2017 release of the casting. I mean, it doesn't look bad, and I liked it enough to get an extra one to have on display. But I am still puzzled by how they couldn't come up with a new color scheme for a blue RX-7. Thankfully, they've decided to give us a recolor of it, and I think it's the better of the two.
They've definitely picked a fantastic mix of colors for this second release. It's also great how they decided to use a different wheel for it, and I really like how they went with gold lace wheels. In my opinion, they help to further make this one stand out from the blue one that was released earlier this year.
If you're into cars, which I'm assuming you are since you're here and you collect Hot Wheels, then you've definitely herd of or seen the pictures of Nissan's new Z. And I'm sure you also had the debut release of the Hot Wheels casting on your want list as well. Although... it seems like many collectors decided to wait for the premium one instead because the mainline release ended up becoming a peg warmer in my area. Yeah, there were yellow Zs for days. Anyway, the Hot Wheels designers chose to give us another color in this year's mainline, and I'm sure that's made many in the diecast community happy.
White is definitely not a bad color for the Z, but you already know I'm waiting for a blue one, and hopefully they'll choose to give it black wheels, too. I'd also like to see a release that's finished in orange as well. Now, even if they do use both of those colors, I have to admit that my favorite release is going to still be the yellow one. And I guess the color became my preferred one for the Z after I saw the first photos of the actual car.
To be fair, I'm still happy to have an example of the Z that's finished in white. As I have already said, white is definitely not a bad color for the Z. Also, this could end up being the only white release that's plain. So I wasn't going to ignore it just because I like the other one more.
This year's mainline features a collection of releases known as "Ryu's Rides," and I think we can all agree that the collection would have been incomplete without the Honda S2000. Now, instead of just giving collectors another yellow one, the designers chose to also release two additional recolors. One of them is available to the general public, while the other one is only available to certain people, and I think you know why I'm saying that. Anyway, there's not a whole lot to say about the one that's easier to get, however, I'm not disappointed with it.
This casting made its debut back in 2011, and there ended up being a total of three different color releases, and this one is basically a re-release of the third one. Not only does the red look the same, it was also given the exact same wheels as the red 2011 release. So if you have the first one, then you probably weren't too interested in this one. But I was because the yellow 2011 release was the only one I had.
Alright, now that I got the JDMs out of the way, it's time for me to talk about the one American car I still needed to find.
The HW Drag Strip set has so far led to the creation of some exciting dragsters, and there's two that are available in this case. One of them is an unlicensed casting that's called "Hot Wired," and I'm still not sure if I want to add it to my collection. Maybe I'll change my mind about it, but right now it's not a casting I'm interested in. As for the other one, it's the '18 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, and it features a livery that taught me something new.
Initially, I thought the design was something they thought of, but that's not the case at all. There's actually a lot of history behind the name "Original Ramchargers." Now, there are many different sites you can go to for the full history, so I'm not going to go into too much detail here. But I will briefly mention some of the things I learned.
The Ramchargers is the name of a team that was formed by Chrysler engineers back in 1959, and their first drag car was a '49 Plymouth Business Coupe that was named "High & Mighty." You could say that that car is the father of ram induction because it was the first drag car to use a "high ram" intake to create a supercharging effect. Fast forward to 1963, and the group was now touring the nation with two cars that were called "Candymatic." They were white with seven stripes that ran from the roof to the trunk.
This diecast release might be a modern Mopar, but it's a very accurate portrayal of how the team's cars would have looked. It even has the seven stripes, too. So I feel it's a fantastic tribute to the team that created ram induction.
There's no way Hot Wheels should just stop with this modern Mopar. Since they can legally use the team name, I feel they should create a Team Transport release with a replica of the original "Candymatic" car.
Well, those are the last five releases that I wanted from case "L." The new Civic casting is cool, and I'm sure it's still one of this case's most popular releases. But the other three I wanted are still my favorite ones. And if you didn't already know, they are the '71 Miura, the Saian FKP 37, and the Mclaren Elva.
So what are your thoughts on the releases I talked about today? Go ahead and let me know down in the comments section. Okay, that's all for this edition of My Want List. Until next time, thanks for reading, and happy collecting.
No comments:
Post a Comment