For my 138th post is a look back on the 4th Car Culture release for 2016.
As we are nearing the end of 2016, Hot Wheels announced that they will be releasing the Track Day series for the next Car Culture.
Ever wonder how Mattel came up with this name for this series? A track day is an organized event in which non-members are allowed to drive or ride around established motor racing circuits. So with this name Hot Wheels came up with another 5 car set that is geared towards racing. One of them and the most elusive one of them all is the 5/5 Datsun Bluebird 510.
I’ve written about the history on how this model came to be last year.
So what made this model difficult to find? Seems like almost every car collector who collects imports or JDM are looking for this specific model and if you so happened to be in a store when they just loaded this on the pegs, better grab it or you may never see it within a day or less.
I’ve even read on one website that someone commented that it was the Lamleygroup that started the hype. I for one think that there may be some truth but no matter how much hype someone makes if people are not interested in a particular model it’s not going to create a buying spree.
So this model was inspired by the East African Safari Rally and other companies came up with their own version. I’ve collected them as well and here are the comparisons.
Besides the Hot Wheels is M2's first release of their Auto Japan series. As I looked at it the resemblance is slightly much closer to the 1:1 compared to Hot Wheels. However the Hot Wheels model seems more solid and refined compared to M2.
Here we see the Hot Wheels with the Tomica TLV which has a more realistic look and very refine as well.
Hot Wheels did the right thing by using the Real Rider Steelie wheel as those are the type of wheels used in racing during those days.
Whether hype or not, the former peg warmer is now the hottest seller.
