Jun Imai studied at Art Center College of Design before joining Hot Wheels in 2004. From 2004, until he left Mattel in 2018, he has designed hundreds of cars for the diecast lines.
In 2012, he left diecast to lead HW Innovation and RC Design, and returned in summer 2014 as Manager of HW Diecast Design.
A few of his favorite designs include: Mad Manga, Nissan Skyline GT-X “Hakosuka”, Nissan Skyline 2000GTR “Kenmeri”, Datsun 510, ’71 Datsun Bluebird Wagon, Mazda RX-7, Toyota 2000GT, Datsun 620, BMW 2002, ’66 Dodge A100, ’69 Mustang Boss 302, ’77 Pontiac Firebird T/A, ’83 Chevy Silverado, Porsche 935/78, Porsche 911 (993) GT2, Driftsta, Datsun Fairlady 2000, Custom Datsun 240Z “Fugu Z”.
Aside from HW’s, he enjoys spending time with his family, running 5K’s, skateboarding, and tearing up L.A. streets with his modified Datsun 510 Wagon, 260ZG, and Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2.
With the release of the Ant-Man movie today, its fitting that we received an Ant-Man Hot Wheels in this current wave of Marvel cars in the Pop Culture line. For some reason, Hot Wheels likes to use the old comic graphics versus the new movie graphics for its Pop Culture line–they do […]
Some Hot Wheels grab all the headlines. The hobby, more often than not, is about the next “new” thing when sometimes all we need is to go back through our own collections to have a further appreciation for the cars we already have. That was my mind-set when creating […]
Hot Wheels designer, Jun Imai is extremely talented and his love for Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) cars is no secret. His own ’71 Datsun Bluebird 510 Wagon was made into a Hot Wheels vehicle in 2013. So it may come as a little bit of a surprise that his […]
The “Nationals Convention” is typically in the spring and is in the eastern United States, while the “Collectors Convention” is in the fall in Southern California. Both conventions have been put on by the Hot Wheels Newsletter–15 years for the Nationals & 29 years for the Collectors. The 15th […]
ORANGE TRACK DIECAST 