10/19/2023 — Below are the slides from the Mattel Sneak Peeks Presentation from the 37th Hot Wheels Collectors Convention Finale. The event happened at the convention at the LAX Marriott (Los Angeles) on Saturday, October 7. This year’s presentation was narrated by Hot Wheels Design Manager, Craig Callum — a newer addition to the team. This article covers the PREMIUM SNEAKS which includes 2024 Hot Wheels Car Culture, Team Transport, Boulevard, 1:43, Elite 64, and the Red Line Club. See the previous article for the: BASICS SNEAKS.

Car Culture / HW Off Road

If it feels like forever since we had our last Car Culture off-road segment, it’s because it has. The last time we saw a true off-road segment in Car Culture was Wild Terrain in 2020. If you’re keeping track at home, that is 24 5-car segments that have come and gone in-between the two. What this one lacks in terms of name — Seriously, “HW OFF ROAD”, did the copywriter have off? Or did legal get involved? — the five vehicles look rather nice.

One thing to note here: the new ’05 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado that was previewed at the Singapore Diecast Expo is clearly not this one as this one has more of a traditional Toyota graphics vibe to it.

Speaking of giving off the Toyota vibe, the #’18 Toyota 4Runner returns for it’s first release outside of Boulevard, and wears a fresh coat of Toyota Pure Blue paint. It will be interesting to see if this casting will continue to command the high prices it’s coveted Boulevard releases have.

Swiss watchmaker, IWC Schaffhausen has once again paired up with Hot Wheels thanks to it’s CEO Chris Grainger-Herr being a Hot Wheels collector. The ’93 Mercedes-Benz G-Class becomes the first Hot Wheels off road vehicle to feature the IWC brand in a stunning, all-black release. Please note: this is NOT the chase in this series.

The #Big-Air Bel-Air finally goes premium and it’s deservingly so. Collectors such as myself have amassed a great start to this casting collection and it was very clear that seeing a premium release would happen sooner than later given the rising popularity of this casting.

Lastly, the Range Rover Classic goes premium. There seem to be some similarities between this deco and the one that was done for the 2012 Hot Wheels Racing Off Road: ’83 Chevy Silverado 4×4, but no mention of it being a companion piece was made. I’m inclined to think it was purely coincidence.

Okay, okay…. the LAST vehicle is Car Culture / HW Off Road is the #Chase. The ’05 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado gets the nod to be recolored here due to it being the only new tool in the mix.

Car Culture / Exotic Envy

Exotic Envy will be a segment in Car Culture for the third consecutive year. And with that, we will see 5 models from 5 different brands: Aston Martin, Lamborghini, McLaren, BMW, and Porsche.

The Aston Martin V12 Speedster makes the leap to premium in a rather iconic deco for a British car: dark green with a blank, white roundel.

In today’s Hot Wheels landscape, it’s rather surprising to see a casting that isn’t popular (and over 12 years old), get a retooled diecast chassis for premium. Yes, I know it was in Speed Machines, but even that release had a plastic base. Perhaps, it’s this release in orange that could prompt collectors to take another look at the Lamborghini Reventón Roadster.

The obvious choice here is the McLaren F1. Collectors love this one and the GTR casting, and this metallic purple paint looks spectacular even in this e-sheet photo seen here. Let’s hope that actual release relays the stunning nature of this piece.

Clean cars seem to be all the rage these days. That’s why I love when the Hot Wheels team throws us a changeup with a wacky deco like this. No, that is not the Target logo — rather, it is a replica livery from a real car in the 1979 M1 Procar series.

The #’71 Porsche 911 returns to Car Culture in something other than a Magnus Walker deco. This one looks very German-inspired bringing in the gold, red, and black from the German flag.

Three of the eight Car Culture segments this year have had a Porsche as the chase piece. This is the third. The wildly German deco shown above is mono-toned, and placed over a jet black body staying true to the theme of Hot Wheels Car Culture chase pieces.

Car Culture / Slide Street

Hot Wheels Marketing Director, Jimmy Liu has found another place for one of his real-life cars in one of his lineups. The Nissan 240SX (S14) — a car he is credited with designing — joins the second installment of Slide Street. If you check out that license plate, you’ll see it reads, “TOY INC” — Jimmy’s social media handle.

A clean version of the Hot Wheels #’18 Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5 can be seen here varying from the other releases of this casting which have all been replicas of 1:1 RTR Formula Drift cars.

The LB-Works Lamborghini Huracán casting gets the premium treatment a full two years after it’s debut in the 2021 mainline. This one features the same Mad Mike livery that was also featured on that car.

Car Culture / Team Transport

Team Transport rounds out 2023 with the next three releases in the line: #59, #60, and #61.

The ’97 Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR & Fleet Street are both given very clean looks, and should pair well with past and future Mercedes releases.

For as subtle as the Mercedes deco is above, this Porsche deco on Team Transport #61 gets after you. The Euro Hauler has “PORSCHE” billboarded across the entire side of it while the off-road Porsche 959 (1986) wears a more subdued version of the livery.

We will see how hot rods do in today’s Hot Wheels collecting landscape as the ’33 Willys gets a very classic hot rod deco: black with flames. It sits on the back of the Speed Waze casting with a speed shop deco.

Team Transport for 2024 kicks it up a notch from the get-go. Dan Gurney’s famous ’70 Plymouth AAR Cuda returns to the Hot Wheels lineup — now, with a matching hauler to boot! The Sakura Sprinter here reminds you how cool vintage racing decos are.

In the same case as Gurney’s Cuda is another all-time great race car plucked from the history books: the Olio Fiat #Fiat 131 Abarth. This one is paired with the Second Story Lorry in dark blue with the Olio Fiat logo. That vacant second story lends hope to the notion that we could see more of this livery in the future.

Red, white, and blue — it doesn’t get much more American than this! The ’66 Chevelle rides on top of the new collector favorite: the ’72 Chevy Ramp Truck.

The unlicensed Team Transport hauler, #Carry On is back. This time, sporting a new classic on the back: the ’66 Porsche 906 Carrera 6. Another retro race car means more room for more retro liveries. Designer Ron Wong mentioned that this one has a separate front and rear window piece that can make for some interesting color breaks in future liveries. Google “Porsche 906 Carrera 6” and tell me that you aren’t getting excited…

Even the 1989 Test Car livery of the Sauber-Mercedes C9 is getting play in 2024 Team Transport — and a matching Fleet Flyer hauler to boot!

The #Castrol ’96 Honda Accord is another racing legend, this time, from Japan. Apparently it went toe-to-toe with Skylines in it’s day winning 15 consecutive races in 1997 and a JTCC Championship the year prior. This one rides on back of the Fleet Street hauler.

Boulevard

Hot Wheels Boulevard continues to be a hard line to track down. Given the look of the next couple mixes, that trend will continue into 2024. #86 thru #90 round out 2023 so it will be interesting to see where the card art goes for 2024.

A new version of the #Ford Anglia 105E hits premium as the ’67 Ford Anglia Racer. This new model has fender flares, and updated front end, interior roll bar, and of course, a diecast chassis. Overall, it is exactly what the name implies: a race car version of the car made famous by Harry Potter.

2023 could very well be the year of the Hot Wheels #Porsche 935. It was a Super Treasure Hunt in the mainline, had common and chase pieces in Car Culture — both different — and now carries a familiar (licensed) livery in Boulevard.

I don’t believe this is a real livery for the Accord like the Castrol one shown above in Team Transport, but it’s a great one none-the-less that looks the part! With decos like this, the ’96 Honda Accord race car could become a collector favorite in the years to come.

The Hot Wheels ’95 Toyota Celica GT-Four finally gets something other than a clean deco. It’s not the Castrol livery that collectors have been clamoring for however. Instead, we see the vintage Toyota striping that’s been a hit on a couple previous releases in premium making for the start of a nice livery collection.

RAYS wheels and their slogan, “The concept is racing”, make their way onto the ’23 Nissan Z as the last Boulevard car for 2023. This is a real livery that was shown back in May via the @rayswheels_official Instagram.

The #LB Super Silhouette Nissan Silvia (S15) will be the latest mainline car to go full premium in its #First Edition deco. This one will obviously go great with the upcoming Team Transport releases in the same Liberty Walk deco.

There is something special about gold/bronze watanabe style wheels — ala #Real Riders 8-Spoke Wheels. This all-black Nissan Skyline RS (KDR30) with gold accents may be the best version of this casting yet!

When I covered the first release of the ’66 Chevrolet Corvair Yenko Stinger, I learned how unique this car was. I also figured it would be hard to recolor such an iconic car that really only came in one livery. Despite this one looking very similar to that Jay Leno’s Garage release, this livery is based off of a real racing livery that’s been up for sale on Mecum car auctions.

If you have been collecting Hot Wheels for 15+ years, chances are you know (or at least heard of) HWC Ray. Ray Adler is an avid Hot Wheels collector who founded his own Hot Wheels vaRAYation site. He started working for Mattel in the early 2000s as a marketing intern for the Hot Wheels brand. He was one of the early admin for HotWheelsCollectors.com under his “HWC RAY” moniker and his name can been seen on some of the early HWC/RLC releases. Now, he is the VP Global Head of Games at Mattel and drives a Porsche similar to this one. This one was done as a tribute to Ray, whom you can still find roaming around at Hot Wheels Collector Convention/Nationals events.

Car Culture Premium 2-Packs

Popular may be an understatement for the Car Culture Bugatti 2-Pack. This one will go fast when it hits Target pegs with the #’16 Bugatti Chiron and the first premium #Bugatti Veyron since the infamous Speed Machines release of 2010.

The ’91 Nissan Sentra SE-R & Nissan Silvia (S13) both get another premium release in two seemingly muted colors. These both carry the Super Street Magazine “SS” logo on their windshield.

1:43

Collectors have had a mixed reaction to the new 1:43 scale cars that started appearing at Target in 2023. The most common complaint has been the price point of $24.99 despite us (collectors) paying $20 + shipping for similarly detailed Elite 64 cars. For others, it’s the larger scale that they simply don’t have the room to collect. The first four cars haven’t been popular…

2024 could be a turning point for the line, however. The next two models, the Nissan Skyline GT-R (BNR34) V-Spec II NUR and Mercedes-AMG GT3 should be insanely popular, initiating the purchase cycle for collectors and 1:43.

Elite 64

This last Tuesday we saw the Elite 64: Land Rover Defender 90 Pickup finally go up for sale on Mattel Creations so that leaves only the ’21 Audi RS 7 Sportback Custom left for 2023. It’s a newer car with a relatively stock look so it will be interesting to see how collectors respond to it. Regardless, it is still nicely done like the rest of this line which is slowly rolling out.

The Porsche 928 Safari will give us our first opportunity to compare two similar castings created around the same time in both the mainline and in Elite 64. The mainline Porsche 928S Safari is nice but the scale and detail of this one may show off how impressive Elite 64 truly is.

I’ll take every BMW in the M Motorsport livery. The trio of colors over a white body just hits you differently. The ’90 BMW 318i Touring will be the latest to add to that livery collection.

So this is insane. You knew the Elite 64 vehicles would be extremely detailed, but an accessory pack?!?!? How cool is that? The ’17 Toyota Tacoma will have a slew of parts to customize this piece without even having to get out your drill.

There are simply too many interchangeable parts to call out individually. This is one that I cannot wait to see collectors open and start playing with. The graphics on it are the same as graphic designer, Kevin Geraldez’s actual Tacoma.

Even after retirement, former Hot Wheels designer, Mark Jones is still writing and sharing detailed notes about the product he created. He reached out to the graphic designer for this project, Andrés Andrieu, and left him some very specific notes about the paint & graphics for the Bugatti Type 59.

Red Line Club

You voted, and here is the result! The RLC sELECTIONs ’72 Skyline HT 2000GT-R goes on sale at the end of the month. Thank God this is made-to-order because the design is outrageously awesome and should pair well with some of the existing releases of the #Nissan Skyline H/T 2000GT-X done for mainline and premium.

The 2nd release of the RLC ’86 Porsche 959 goes on sale in early November. The spectraflame black on this one is super sleek, and those chrome #Real Riders Exotics look soooo nice on this casting.

Another November release should be the ’95 Honda Integra Type R in championship white. You’ve probably seen this already as the hype is already there.

The 2023 RLC Holiday Car is the ’52 Dodge Power Wagon. This one comes in a spectraflame dark green and reads, “HIGH COUNTRY Tree Service” on it’s doors. Gone is the rocky base that accompanied the first release as this one will come in an acrylic case as seen in the picture below.

Magnus Walker has already shown off the new RLC Porsche 964 months ago, but this piece is still yet to be dropped via the RLC. The spectraflame mint green is stunning, and according to the Hot Wheels team, comes at a premium.

We saw the first painted sample of the Mercedes-AMG G 63 4×4² at the convention in spectraflame blue. No opening feature on this one but it does come with a full-size Real Riders spare.

Phil Riehlman’s dinner car is a RLC-level casting and will appear in a brand-new spectraflame color in 2024 called: Spectraflame Teal. The ’68 Custom Plymouth Barracuda is Phil’s interpretation of how he would redesign his Barracuda is money was no option. Under the hood, the car packs a Hellephant engine just like its RLC ’69 Dodge Charger cousin.

At one point, it felt like only a matter of time before we saw the #Nissan Skyline GT-R (BNR34) in chameleon paint. The chameleon painted, #Custom ’72 Datsun 240Z was released in 2019 and we hadn’t heard a mention of the color changing paint since. Then, the RLC team dropped this bombshell on us! I’m not entirely sure if it uses the same metalflake chameleon the 240Z had, or if this will be a spectraflame chameleon, but this is meant to represent one of the rarest production R34’s out there: the Midnight Purple II Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec. Nearly 2.5 years ago, one sold on Bring A Trailer for $315,187 and I can only imagine what that would be today!

No word yet on when the street freaks style ’71 AMC Javelin AMX will drop, but it’s safe to say this is another highly-anticipated RLC release. The innovative 2-part base with a custom suspension piece will be used on the upcoming RLC ’64 Dodge Power Wagon having set the standard for lifted vehicles.

The 2024 RLC Membership Car is the Kawa-Bug-A. This will be the first time we get it without the roof rack.

Mini truck fans will have to wait a little longer for the ’86 Nissan 720 King Cab. We saw an unfinished prototype that still needed some tweaking when it came to the articulation piece, but it was finished in the spectraflame dark purple (sans graphics) that the truck will come in. Another innovative piece that will require a little more development time to get it right.

Speaking of getting it right… Hot Wheels Designer, Ron Wong was on-hand to showcase the RLC ’21 Pagani Huayra R. By the looks of the FEP prototype that was shown, Ron NAILED this design with a wonderful assist by Andrés in graphics. If this is where RLC is heading, the membership may once again see an exponential increase.

A Toyota Supra MK4 is heading to the RLC. It’s been a highly requested piece, and this ’97 Toyota Supra will feature an opening hood AND a removeable diecast targa top!

Equally as requested, the last generation of the RX-7 will also make an RLC appearance. The ’93 Mazda RX-7 R1 will debut in an all-new spectraflame paint color. Please be bright red… please be bright red…

Lastly, another collector request has come into fruition — well, kind of. Hot Wheels Designer, Brendon Vetuskey has heard the calls for the #’91 GMC Syclone in RLC. Instead of re-introducing the Syclone however, he is giving us the Syclone’s SUV brother: the ’92 GMC Typhoon. This one will come with an opening hood that reveals the Typhoon’s Syclone engine.

To view the presentation in it’s entirety, check out the live steam video posted to the Lamley Group YouTube channel:

To checkout Lamley Group’s RLC preview with Brendon and Ron, check out the video below: