Your pride and joy could be immortalised as a Hot Wheels model

A lucky car enthusiast could see their own vehicle immortalised as a Hot Wheels die-cast model as part of a new competition being run across the globe.

Originally launched in 2018, the Hot Wheels Legends Tour is coming to the UK for the second time and allows car enthusiasts to submit a video of their car before October 1. Then, a judging panel including car designer Ian Callum CBE, will pick out the car that best ‘captures the Hot Wheels spirit’, with the judging broadcast live on October 14.

Ian Callum, Design Director of eponymous design and engineering business, CALLUM, said: “From an imposing stance, full of presence, vivid colours and an impression of speed, Hot Wheels captures a creative freedom that inspires the rebel spirit in a car designer,”

“Hot Wheels take me back to a misspent youth when I wondered why real cars couldn’t be this way. Well now I know they can and are. They inspire an excitement that we all need in our lives.”

Once selected, the winner of this round will go up against winners from the US, Japan, Mexico and Germany prior to the outright global winner being announced. They will see their car faithfully reproduced in 1:64 scale.

Hot Wheels was first created in 1968 when Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler challenged his design team to create a toy car that was ‘cooler and performed better than anything else on the market’. Today, Hot Wheels is the number one selling toy worldwide.

“With so many passionate enthusiasts and talented car builders and restorers, the UK has a truly diverse car culture with a thriving modified and performance scene,” says Ted Wu, Head of Hot Wheels Design at Mattel.

“We’ll be looking for the very best, whether that’s a pre-war British hot rod, a ‘70s or ‘80s ‘restomod’, an extreme custom hot hatch build from the ‘90s or one of today’s bespoke hypercars, we want to see the finest cars the UK has to offer. And who knows? Your pride and joy could well become a small-scale legend.”