This Mad Creation From Chile Will Be Immortalised As A Hot Wheels Toy

Yeah, we know it’s still only November, but we’re thinking about Christmas – more specifically, about whether there’s a better stocking filler than a Hot Wheels car. We don’t care if you’re technically a quote-unquote adult, we defy you not to feel childlike delight at getting hold of everything from the latest supercars to some wild fictional creations in 1:64 die-cast form.

Perhaps not in time for this Christmas, but probably for next, these scores of beautifully realised miniature cars will be joined by the car you see here. It looks like a Porsche 962 that someone’s put through a slightly hot wash, but it’s actually the homebrew creation of a collective of Chilean car enthusiasts, and it’s just won this year’s Hot Wheels Legends Tour.

The Legends Tour started in 2018, and it travels the world in search of the most unique modified and homebuilt cars, pitching them against one another with the ultimate prize being the winner’s immortalisation in 1:64 scale.

Called ‘La Liebre’ (‘The Hare’), this year’s winner started out as a way of promoting a series of Cars and Coffee events in Chile. Somewhat implausibly, it began life as a locally-built Ford Falcon, although we have to assume that basically none of that car is left in it.

The engine, fed by that massive intake that juts out of the bottom of the windscreen, is a 5.7-litre Chevrolet V8, custom-built for this application and pushing out around 600bhp. That drives the rear wheels through a five-speed straight-cut gearbox, which we assume is very quiet and refined. No, wait, the opposite of that.

The chassis, modified beyond recognition, now consists of a steel tube-frame setup with an integral roll cage, and it’s all clothed in that custom fibreglass ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Group C Racer’ body. The whole shebang weighs around 900kg, so we suspect it’s quite a lively thing to drive.

Ted Wu, senior vice president and global head of design, vehicles and building sets at Mattel, said: “Not only is it an extremely impressive build, but it was created to help grow the car community in Chile and inspire others to participate. That’s what makes this vehicle, and the team behind it, deserving of the win and entry into the Hot Wheels Garage of Legends.”

In being recreated in a form that’ll survive being smashed at high speed into a skirting board, it’ll join the likes of a gasser-style dragster built from a Volvo P1800, a monster truck based on a Mazda Scrum kei truck, and the 2JetZ, essentially a fighter jet cockpit on wheels with a boosted Toyota Supra engine stuck up its back end.