Honda Racer: Honda USA Designs Commemorative Hot Wheels Scale Model

To celebrate Hot Wheel’s 40th anniversary, Mattel invited six major automakers to send their design propositions for a commemorative line of 1/64 scale toy cars. Honda on its part created the “Honda Racer” you see in the picture above. Designed by the Japanese carmaker’s US studio in Torrance California, the Racer is inspired in color and shape, from Honda’s early participation in Formula 1 and in particular, the 1967 RA 273 racecar.

The key element to the design of the two-seater race car however, is that the body is in the shape of the Honda "H" emblem. Even though this is 1/64 die-cast scale model, the Honda Racer has been designed to be equipped with a 2.0-liter displacement V10 VTEC engine that sits between the piloting team. -Continued

"The Honda Racer combines the excitement of Honda's racing heritage with Hot Wheels' reputation for speed, power, performance and attitude," says Guillermo Gonzalez, senior designer of Honda R&D Americas, and designer of the Honda Racer. "The core concept is built around our idea for an 'ultimate racecar' and leverages the design freedom made possible by a scale model car."

"Sure, it is awesome to play with the cars on the orange track again, but I discovered that designing a Hot Wheels car is very different and in some ways more liberating than designing a production car," says Gonzalez. "For example, the primary design constraint is that the car had to fit on the orange track and perform a loop. Aside from that, the possibilities are without limit."

The Honda Racer Hot Wheels die-casr model will be arrive on store shelves in May 2008. See Mitsubishi's Hot Wheels 40th Anniversary die-cast model here, and Lotus', here.