Ryu was born and raised in Osaka, Japan (1978-1997). He came to the United States to attend the University of Oregon, studying English and Physics (1997-2000). In 2000, he pursued a degree at the Art Center College of Design — The same design school where Phil Riehlman, Mark Jones, Bryan Benedict, Jun Imai, and lots of others went to.
Upon graduation in 2004, he started he started his professional career at Mattel as a Matchbox designer where he designed and worked on (what he estimated to be) about 150+ diecast cars, among other things, over 8 years with the Matchbox team (2004-2012).
His very first Hot Wheels design was the Gearonimo (a 2009 New Model), which he design while still with the Matchbox team (working as a guest designer). He went on to produce three more Hot Wheels castings while still working for Matchbox: Formula Street (based on one of his school project at Art Center), Honda S2000, HW Jump Truck (both full size and 1/64).
In 2012, he joined Hot Wheels team and started to manage basic cars. His very first Hot Wheels project as an official HW designer was ‘67 Chevy C10 (a 2013 New Model). Since 2012, its estimated that Ryu works on about 20 to 30 New Models each year.
Sometimes as collectors, we get too caught up in buying and selling the latest Hot Wheels releases — so much so that sometimes we forget that the Hot Wheels brand once catered to us as kids. I get that some collectors only collect the replicas of their favorite […]
Is it a distant relative of the Hot Wheels Farbs? Is it Matchbox-inspired? Or is it derived from an old Japanese toy? Well, back in early January, when Hot Wheels designer, Ryu Asada, posted this car on his Instagram account, I immediately thought this could be a modern-day, mainline Farb — […]
If you’re a fan of authentic car graphics on an ever-growing rainbow of colors, you’re in luck with the brand-new, #’15 Jaguar F-Type Project 7 from the 2017 #HW Exotics Series. This #Exotic #Convertible casting appeared just two years ago as a #2015 New Model in the Track Aces […]
The #Baja Hauler is one of the newest Hot Wheels to date. It just started to show up at retail here in the United States as part of the “H” case assortments. At first glance, this #Unlicensed Hot Wheels truck is definitely some sort of #Off-Road Vehicle, then […]
You have to love what the Hot Wheels team is doing with their #Porsches as of late. After not having the licenses for Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari for the last few years, they’ve brought on #Magnus Walker and his brand #Urban Outlaw to give some of their Porsches that #Race […]
In the Hot Wheels mainline, for every realistic car there always seems to be one that is a little wacky. Whether its of the #’Tooned variety, is strictly a “track car”, or just clearly isn’t from a licensed car manufacturer; some of these “Hot Wheels Originals” or #Unlicensed Hot […]
Way back in April, after the 16th Annual Hot Wheels Nationals Convention in Indianapolis, this image surfaced as it was in the finale sneak peek slide show at the convention. The hype for this release has reached insurmountable levels as collectors have licked their chops for just under seven […]
