The Ford Escort, even in it's RS1600 guise, is/was far from Hot Wheels' usual trends. Not long ago, Hot Wheels was hugely US and muscle-car orientated; rightly so, as the USA is it's biggest market and country of origin. But now there's a difference. Over the past few years HW has embraced more and more of the car culture scene, and this is evident in many areas such as the huge influence of the 'JDM craze' of the past few years and the continuation of brilliant European stock and supercars in HW's lines. But British classics? That was something no one really saw coming. They were normally left to Matchbox of course, but Matchbox had been going through a bad few years, a horrible lack of licensed models from which they're only now returning to form.
So, in 2014, Hot Wheels made an Aston Martin DB5, mainly to cash in on the 007 opportunities but did it debut in silver? Nope. That was left to the second version, instead it appeared in iconic British Racing Green, which is starting to appear more generally with Hot Wheels models:
The shock wasn't that Hot Wheels had made it, the inevitable 007 tie-ins took care of that, but that they'd done it perfectly:
Some could be heard saying 'It should've been a Matchbox!', and it was the same story with the Lotus Espirit S1 and the Escort. However, they were vastly outspoken by the rest of us, the majority, the happy collectors who were just glad to see these cars being done and done right.
Hot Wheels' ticket into producing the Escort was of course when an RS1600 appeared in Fast & Furious 6 with the late Paul Walker at the helm, but since that terrific debut the possibilities have been explored further. Firstly we saw a great recolour in stock RS1600 white with blue stripes, but it's this year's releases that have been the icing on the cake:
The also iconic Castrol rally livery, in red, with white wheels. If this isn't reassurance that HW's designers are well cultured, what is?!? And now of course it has been recoloured in white, which is another great version. Every version has had a chrome interior to allow chrome bumpers (anyone who doesn't find that remotely cool has soul issues) and I can't wait to see what HW will do next with this casting on current form...
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