When worlds collide
Collabs are nothing new. Fashion. Music. We can all rattle off at least half a dozen car/watch collabs. This was certainly not something I’d expect to happen at all and it was quite the nice surprise when I first knew of its existence.
Is it an obscure collab? Perhaps. But cars and watches do go together and it’s kinda only logical for that to extend to model cars, and by virtue of association, toy cars. You might think of Hot Wheels as toys. And yes, primarily they are toys for kids. But they are also collectable for... those who are kids at heart.
So how did this collab come about? It helped that IWC has a historical racing team, featuring none other than the famed Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gull Wing. It also helped that Chris Grainger just happened to be a Hot Wheels collector, and you can see his collection in an interview he did with Lamley Group. Of course, having one of the Hot Wheels designers being a watch enthusiast sealed the deal. I don’t think there would be that much crossover between Hot Wheels collectors and watch enthusiasts, but I just happen to be one of them.
Knowing about this and actually finding it in stores are two completely different things. If anyone from Hot Wheels/Mattel Australia is reading this: fix it!!
The lack of consistent distribution in Australia makes collecting and tracking down certain highly sought after models a real pain in the backside. (Yes. Highly sought after. Don’t get me started. Oh ok you did.) At the moment, in Australia, certain Japanese cars are all the rage. To give you an example, the Nissan 300ZX. This, I have never seen at retail, apart from the most recent police livery which isn't as popular.
I don’t have the time to do the rounds every single day and even then you’re never really sure if 1) the stores actually received allocation of certain boxes and 2) whether the staff at said store actually displayed ALL the cars from a case rather than keeping then and buying it themselves and scalp online to supplement their income and 3) let's say all the cars are displayed on the pegs, you’d have to be at the right store at the right time and hope and pray that it hasn’t already been cleaned out by professional collectors/scalpers.
I’ve seen this in action personally where during one of my rare rounds of all the stores that stock them, I’d see the same 1 or 2 people doing the exact same route. And all of us leaving empty handed became we were all too slow. Or just didn’t have the right “connects”. And then you have the overstock of certain cases, where the pegs would be overflowing with the same few cars and they stay on the pegs forever because anyone that wanted one, or 10, already have them, but if these stay on the pegs the stores aren’t going to refill them with something new.
But that’s a long rant way off on a somewhat related tangent. Back to the model at hand.
When I saw this I felt like I’d won the lottery. Yes it is exactly like that. It’s not an empty metaphor. I’ve seen and bought others from the set, but this particular model was a rare sight indeed. well, to be fair, any real world sighting of team transport is hard to come by. But I guess the monster trucks are the best seller, considering how much stock and variations are stocked everywhere...
So how much do I like this set? So much so that i resorted to forking out ebay tax for another one. Why you ask? Because it’s the nerdy collector in me. Must be mint in box. Or at the very least, to have one to open and play/display, and another in box to keep.
Look, I think for the majority of Hot Wheels collectors, this collab might not mean much to them. You get a nice 300SL and the truck is a brand new casting. The colour scheme is well done and it is overall a fairly nice model at the price point. I doubt many of these will go to kids as toys. For me, it’s one of those rare items where it appeals to a couple of my hobbies.
I have decided to pair the model with an IWC Ingenieur in the photo shoot. No this isn’t current anymore, but i felt this was the best iteration and style for the Ingenieur. It also should be the feature range of the watch for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team (and it was, in the first couple of years of the partnership), given Ingenieur = Engineer, and yes I get that ”pilot” in French also applies to the f1 drivers, but it’s a bit of a stretch...
Is this a review on the model? Nope. Just sharing my thoughts about an improbable collaboration between Hot Wheels and IWC Schaffhausen. I would love to see more coming from this pairing. The models aren't bad at all, especially considering the retail price it is set at, and it's likely my favourite Team Transport so far.
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