WORDS ANGUS MACKENZIE PHOTOGRAPHS PETERSEN ARCHIVETHE REAL-LIFE
CRAZY CARS
THAT INSPIRED
THE ORIGINAL
HOT WHEELS
I
f you’re a subscriber to the MotorTrend
app, over the past few weeks you may
have seen our new original series, Hot
Wheels Life Size, in which NASCAR and
NHRA racer Nicole Lyons gets behind
the wheel of—er—life-size versions of
some of Hot Wheels’ wackiest toy cars,
including Twin Mill, Bone Shaker, and
the Darth Vader car.
But back in the 1960s, when Mattel was
creating the original Hot Wheels models,
they did it the other way around withcars like the Custom Camaro based on
actual vehicles. What makes the Original
16 lineup of Hot Wheels launched in 1968
both groundbreaking and fascinating,
though, is that even the ones that look
crazy enough to have sprung straight from
the febrile imagination of a toy designer
are based on actual life-size cars.
So here they are, the real-life crazy cars
from the 1960s that inspired some of Hot
Wheels’ iconic Original 16.
PHOTO:^POVI^PULLINEN54 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2020