The Stars of 2016 Hot Wheels Batches K & L #5. SRT Viper GTS-R

It could have been a lot better.

When the SRT Viper GTS-R was announced as a 2015 New Model, I was excited, as I'm a big fan of the current Viper (more on that in a post very soon). However, just as would be the case with the Corvette C7.R and Aston Martin Vantage GT3 to be released later in the year, I was underwhelmed when it arrived. The upsloped chin crisis was in full swing, and on the Viper it was destructive to the point where the only angle from which the casting looks 'right' is from above. Despite this, it remains largely proportionally okay and not that bad to look at. Granted, it could have been so much better (we haven't seen an upsloped chin on a new model in a while so my fingers are crossed!) but all 3 releases so far have brought with them great decos, which means when I put them together I can let them off. A bit.

It will always be a flawed casting (unless modified, which I very much doubt) but this latest version, the Need For Speed version in metalflake blue, still is really nice. Anyway, I'll let the photos (most of which complimentary) do the rest of the talking...

The Stars of 2016 Hot Wheels Batches K & L #4. '70 Ford Escort RS1600 (feat. a brief recent history of classic British Hot Wheels)

Whatever prompted it, I'm still thrilled they actually went out and made it.

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...

The Stars of 2016 Hot Wheels Batches K & L #3. BMW Z4 M

Fun fact: The number four has appeared on the side of every version of Hot Wheels' BMW Z4 M. The 2012 First Ed. and FE Recolour both sported '4', which then became '04' for the BMW Series release in 2016 and then '44' for the 2016 Mainline release in the BMW segment.

But enough with the trivia. The usual practice at Hot Wheels is that if a car is released in the basic line, it may get a recolour. In the 2000s and early 2010s a third colour wasn't uncommon, but began to die out.  Thankfully this has had something of a resurgence this year with models like the '15 Ford Mustang GT getting three colours, and many of the cars that received Zamac treatment also getting a third colour. Two completely different versions of a car in one year though? That's rare, but is getting more and more common. In this case, after not being seen since the first two releases in 2012, the Z4 made a welcome return not only to the mainline, but also in the BMW Manufacturer set.

There's not much more to say about this one, as I probably exhausted most of it in my BMW Series post, but it is great to see it back after three years of absence alongside its 2012 debut counterpart, the M3 GT2 (maybe it's returned twice to make up for that?) and it's pretty much modification-proof due to having a metal spoiler from the very beginning.

Welcome back Z4, I hope to see you again soon...hopefully before 2019!

NB: You'll notice the black FE Recolour is absent below, as I'm yet to acquire one :(

The Stars of 2016 Hot Wheels Batches K & L #2. Lotus Espirit S1

   

The Wedge. This was the iconic supercar shape of the 1970s, and remains the definitive outline of most exotic cars produced in the period.

One of the most famous of which is the Lotus Espirit, which became known around the world through being showcased in 1977's Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me. Its appearance in the film coupled with the fact it had underwater capabilities (unfortunately these didn't come as standard, or at all in the real world) earned it legendary status.

Despite this, Hot Wheels didn't produce a casting of the Espirit S1 until 2014 (they had done an S4 Turbo). The casting made it's debut in Batch A of 2015, and just like the Aston Martin DB5 that had appeared in 2014, it was immaculately proportioned and brilliantly executed to the point where the question of whether it should have been a Matchbox was raised. I personally don't agree with that, as I'm currently loving the variety which underpins the HW Mainline. 

As was to be expected, the first release was in white, reminiscent of Roger Moore's star car, which was received well, and it has gone on to return three times; in the Mainline in 2015 it was also later released in red, and has just returned for 2016 in yellow - both stock colours that the car was actually available in (I won't lie, I love it when HW does that). As for the third? In between these two releases it appeared in the James Bond series, but I have excluded that release as it is a carbon copy of the First Edition. The Espirit has also appeared in  the Retro Entertainment line twice, one of those times as the underwater version, but due to the difficulty of acquiring them in the UK I have neither.

Overall, this is a great casting of a terrific classic car, and one that I hope keeps coming.

With that other iconic Seventies wedge, the Lamborghini Countach (shh, I know the 25th Anniversary Ed. was produced from 1988-90):