hot wheels ferrari returns with a car that drives in loops

The return of hot wheels ferrari cars after over five decades

The Hot Wheels Ferrari car series makes a comeback after more than five decades, with die-cast models of a Fiat 642 RN2 Bartoletti Transporter and a remote-controlled Ferrari SF90 Stradale that goes through loops. During the unveiling designboom attends in the Ferrari factory at Maranello, Italy, Roberto Stanichi, the executive vice president of Hot Wheels and head of vehicles and building sets at Mattel, says that the last time the two brands collaborated was back in 1969 for the Ferrari 312P. In the venue, four glass cases reveal the 11 recent Hot Wheels Ferraris in the collection. One of them includes the revived and upgraded 312P.

Part of the collection is the duo Hot Wheels Premium Ferrari 250 GTO and Fiat 642 RN2 Bartoletti Transporter. The firetruck-looking model is historically known for transporting Ferraris to racetracks. At the unveiling, designboom interviews Ted Wu, the global head of design for Hot Wheels, who tells us why they’ve decided to produce the transporter for the recent Hot Wheels Ferrari car series. ‘In our series, we have what we call the Team Transport models, which are transport vehicles, like haulers. With Ferrari, we wanted to do a transport that is on-brand and feels like it belongs. There’s also a long history between Fiat and Ferrari, as the transporter is the one that actually takes the racing cars to the tracks, so that one just made sense to us,’ he says.

499p Modificata | all images courtesy of Hot Wheels and Ferrari

Debut of the remote-controlled SF90 stradale

It’s also the first time in the Hot Wheels Ferrari series to have a playable, remote-controlled car in the form of the SF90 Stradale. ‘We have it in both the die-cast model and the RC version,’ Ted Wu shares with us. ‘With the RC model, it’s got the ability to go through loops. It has a 320 miles per hour scale speed and has a radio control installed in the car, but at 1:64th scale. We have other RC models in this scale, but this is our first remote-controlled Ferrari.’

The head designer adds that the team needs to make modifications for the specific model because of how tight it is and to fit all the electronics inside the 1:64-scaled model of the sports car. Luckily, the adjustments allow the design team to also improve the speed of the RC version, making it its fastest Hot Wheels model so far of its kind. Alongside the SF90 Stradale, the Hot Wheels Ferrari cars series recreates some of the Italian car manufacturer’s iconic models in 1:64 scales. There’s F40 Competizione, the sports car intended to race at Le Mans instead of the F40 LM. Then, there’s 365 GTB4 Competizione. It has taken home the crown at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Daytona 24 Hours.

side view of the 499p Modificata

Hot wheels develop the cars using ferrari’s color palettes

The series isn’t complete without the Ferrari 499P. It marks a historic return to endurance racing for Ferrari. Then, the F50 that combines Formula 1-inspired technology with a street-legal roadster design. The Hot Wheels Ferrari series includes the scaled version of LaFerrari, the mild hybrid sports car of the manufacturer. As a cherry on top, the brand brings back the 312p. It’s the first-ever Hot Wheels Ferrari car released in 1969. It features a design with a silver-plate red Spectraflame paint and Neo-Classics Redline wheels. Beside it is the 499p. It has raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, sporting a silver-plate red Spectraflame paint and 10-spoke Real Riders wheels.

Our conversation with Ted Wu progresses to the materials Hot Wheels uses to produce the recent Ferrari cars series. He explains that the base materials are the same, meaning die-cast and even plastic for some of the models. ‘But there are a lot of things we’ve done, specifically for Ferrari,’ says Hot Wheels’ Global Head of Design. ‘For example, the color. Ferrari has 15 shades of red. We wanted to get the colors right, so we actually added shades to our existing palettes, like Rosso Corsa and Rosso Scuderia, to match the colors of the real-life models to the series. Then, for the 312p and 499p Modificata, they’ve got this special flair, which is essentially a shiny, candy-coated paint.’

return of the 312p model

The design team wants to get the colors right for the Hot Wheels Ferrari series. In fact, they’ve developed a paint process for some specific models like the 312p and 499p Modificata. Ted Wu tells designboom that they silver plate the scaled models first before putting the paints on. The result gives the cars a brighter, coated paint compared to when they don’t subject them to this process. ‘To be very transparent, it actually costs more to do it, but again, we wanted to do justice for this partnership,’ he says.

Aside from the new process, the design team has also developed another way to put the cars together throughout the Hot Wheels products. One of them is a new latching system that lets them add details on the already-miniscule side mirrors. It has taken Hot Wheels and Ferrari more than five decades to revive their collaboration. Ted Wu shares that while ‘it sort of ended back then,’ restarting it allows them to look back and pay homage. In this way, when the current fans own the cars from the series, they see history, respun using the new techniques and color shades to establish a new kind of legacy.

the first-ever Ferrari 312p came out in 1969