The Origin

If you are a Fast & Furious fan, you might know that everything started with a little article called Racer X on Vibe.

Picture taken from vibe.com/

 

Some people got inspired by the Japanese Racing Underground life and the movement it created.

They added a little bit of drama with a copy-paste plot from Point Break, a movie that Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze did in the 90s, then they brought some new faces and a new pop culture phenomenon went BOOM!

The Fast and the Furious came to life.

Picture taken from gq.com

 

From Imports to the Muscle

The whole idea came from the Japanese cars that were just recently making its way to the US market, the after-market tunning became a new religion, and hundreds of enthusiasts started converting with passion.

In the First movie, released in 2001, we see mostly these imported monsters. The protagonists are driving a Mitsubishi Eclipse, a Mazda RX-7 and the super famous Toyota Supra came later. You have 3 cars from Nissan, a Maxima, a Skyline GT-R R33 and a 240SX. There is a usually forgotten Acura Integra, and no import market will be complete without a Honda Civic (black in this case), but from Honda there is also the S2000 and even Volkswagen chipped in with a Jetta. As I said, only imports.

The American market is represented as the forbidden fruit. A hidden monster in the form of a ‘70s Dodge Charger with a Blown Up engine that Dominic Toretto is too afraid to drive.

Picture taken from legendlines.com

 

Of course, only until we reach the climax of the movie and the Charger is savagely crashed against a truck.

After that moment, Dom never drove anything that wasn’t American Muscle.

 

Hot Wheels and the F&F license

As of 2019 Hot Wheels has the license to release Fast & Furious vehicles, and they have milked that cow alright, from incredible models that we needed in our collections, to others that are arguably, absolutely unnecessary (yes, the Ford RS200 below is a Fast & Furious release).

 

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If you want to know more about these releases, check out the series of videos we have been posting in last couple of months, we are going movie by movie reviewing all the models that Hot Wheels has released from each.

Hot Wheels has released models in their Mainline and in their Basic Line, but probably their Premium Line is the most successful one, and the one that receives most of their new releases.

The winner of this month comes from all of that, it is not an import and an unexpected vehicle released for the first time in the Premium Line. Now let me tell you.... boy, did Hot Wheels delivered!!

 

The Caprice to end them all!

The Fast and Furious has gotten us used to their flashy releases, Import cars with shiny liveries, or American cars modified in incredible ways.

So, a 1987 Chevy Caprice with almost no external modifications in a Concrete gray livery seems almost unnoticeable in the movie.

I mean, it was a nice car, but it didn’t really made me look twice, at least not, until Hot Wheels decided to put it out there.

The New castings has been detailed to the extreme and with uncanny resemblance to its movie counterpart. The front and back bumpers are part of the chassis, so they look like a separate piece from the main body (because they are) and being the chassis, you don’t have to paint them, so they look like chrome.

Talking about paint, the paint job is immaculate, really close to what we see in the movie, in terms of details, you’ll see the pins in the hood and in the truck and even the door handles and the light trim around the windows.

Picture taken from screenrant.com

In the front, you have the grill and the headlights with perfect decals, and just give a look to the decals in the taillights, they are just too awesome.

The car seems to have reinforced Windshield and Rear Window glasses, that detail gives it a little bit of a stock race car look.

  

To round it all up, the casting has 5 spoke wheels that haven’t been used in years, they are painted to combine with the car and they have the red lip to bring a touch of color to this classic.

If you see them from below, you’ll realize that they are actually slimer that the usual Hot Wheels Wheels, so this makes me think that to design this car, Hot Wheels decided to take a completely different approach than they usually do, this is a more grounded and realistic vehicle and it looks really good.

 

 

A detail you might missed are the tinted windows, that they seem to be solid, however, in person you'll realize that they are just really dark, but the interior is there. Another detail that adds to the mysticism of the casting.

Solid Windows??

  

No, deeply tinted glass, but fully detailed interiors

 

To Summarize, This Caprice is the winner of this Month because it is a completely unexpected release from Hot Wheels (as I have mentioned in the past, the surprises are always nice), the execution is incredible and besides being a new model, the approach for the execution seems to be a first.

So, if you are looking for a car that is not only a famous one but also has an incredible and unexpected representation in 1:64 scale, go for this one, once you have it in your hands, you’ll come back to the Furious 7 movie and say… why I didn’t see this monster sooner?