I love Hot Wheels Car Culture. Shall I count the ways?
It seems all the lessons learned from previous premium lines from Hot Wheels have led to this. Lines like Classics and Garage were too cumbersome. Too many assortments with too many models, and in the case of Classics, many models that looked exactly the same. Boulevard was full of gems, and had a nice focus on realistic models, but was also too big and was laden with pegwarmers. Hot Ones and Flying Customs took the wrong direction, focusing on Hot Wheels nostalgia instead of realism, Cool Classics was boring, and Heritage tried to do both and didn’t totally work.
Enter Car Culture. Only four assortments. And thankfully four FOCUSED assortments. Insane artwork. Realistic models, done in realistic decos and liveries, celebrating relevant elements of the car world. The lines are selling, the models are talked about, and the anticipation for each new batch grows.
And what do you know? 2016 worked, and 2017 Car Culture is here. And hope is high that we see it in 2018 as well. Happy times.
The first batch of 2017 focuses on an old Hot Wheels friend – muscle cars. Corvette, Camaro, Cougar, Mopar, Gasser. That assortment brings many into Car Culture that weren’t there before, but the models are updated enough to keep those hoarding Japan Historics and Euro Style back to the pegs. It is a great assortment, and even better in hand.
Mattel sent me a set to preview, and the video is below. And yes, a full photo feature is on its way as well.
Enjoy.
Cool eh? What do you think?
Photo showcase coming soon:
I must have these all….. <3
I desperately need that Cougar. so pretty.
Just to think if hotwheels had the ferrari license still, missed opportunity
I saw the preview of the air cooled line on the HW site, and I have to tell you I was super excited until I saw they didn't do front and rear light detail. Such a shame, the cars are so sharp, but leaving off those details is just disappointing! Go tell them to fix that JL!
The artwork on the cards is brilliant, I would have a hard time opening these.
Auto Affinity from 2004 was a precursor to the current Car Culture series, themed batches with only a handful of cars per wave, but Auto Affinity was a lot more generous with the headlight and taillight tampos (although checking Google Image search, some of the cars didn't have them) and, of course, it had a Ferrari (the 360 Modena in the “Got Speed?” batch).
My favourite year for the retail premium Real Riders lines is still HW Garage 2011, which focused on only 5 automakers: GM, Ford, Chrysler/Mopar, Volkswagen, and, of course, Ferrari, plus the other 2 retail Real Riders lines that were going concurrently, Vintage Racing and Slick Rides Delivery (the precursor to Nostalgia/Pop Culture, but with brands instead of cartoon characters).
I also loved the Classics for the glorious (modern, un-leaded) Spectraflame paint jobs, and I didn't mind the lack of Real Riders in that series as it's always good to have some premium Hot Wheels lines that are track-ready.
Another thing about Auto Affinity, the card art itself was inferior to Car Culture (as it just had a single image for each wave), but it had the more solid-feeling blister that was flush with the bottom of the card, making them great for display.
The Auto Affinity packaging also had a window on the back of the card so you could see all sides of the car without opening.
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