02/07/2018 — Toss it up to Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk being a showman, but he may be the first person to have officially launched a Hot Wheels car into space. No, that wasn’t the reason behind the Falcon Heavy being launched into space, but the fact that Musk sent a real Tesla Roadster into space (complete with space man mannequin), and a Hot Wheels version of the car (also complete with miniature space man), is whats grabbing people’s attention — well, at least here on a Hot Wheels blog.

Yesterday, I searched high and low for an image of the Hot Wheels Tesla that I heard was adhered to the dashboard of the full-size Tesla Roadster. I was pretty unsuccessful in finding one, but thanks to Redditor “ThaddeusJP”, this may be the clearest shot we have of it.

Later, I came across an article on cnet that had Musk himself, confirm that the miniature car on the dash was indeed a Hot Wheels car.

“If you look on the dashboard, there’s a tiny Roadster with a tiny space man,” Musk said, referring to a small Hot Wheels version of the Roadster mounted on the dash. “It’s kind of silly and fun but I think that silly and fun things are important… I think the imagery is something that’s going to get people excited around the world. It’s still trippin’ me out. I’m trippin’ balls here.”

Hot Wheels only produced one Tesla Roadster casting and that was the 2008 Tesla Roadster. Its been released several times since its debut in 2008, but with no close-up photo, its hard to say which release was adhered to the dash. With that uncertainty, and given yesterday’s news, all the red versions of the car seem to have climbed in value…

The prices (I expect) will come back down to Earth once the newsworthy aspect falls off, but it is always funny to see the knee-jerk reaction on the secondary market. The Hot Wheels car that Musk sent into space though? Well, that one isn’t coming back to Earth any time soon…

UPDATE 3/29/2018 — I have finally found a better image of the Hot Wheels car … not sure where it originated from. It looks like the red 2008 New Models release was used.