Everybody loves Hot Wheels, but it’s for some reason still rare for an automaker to fully embrace the little toys that create thousands of loyal customers for them. Recently, of all places, Honda Japan set up a homage to Mattel’s diecast cars at their Tokyo headquarters, displaying life-sized classics alongside their 1/64-scale counterparts.
As part of the showcase Honda brought out several vehicles from their Collection Hall to accompany the Hot Wheels. Those included a Super Cub, a second-gen CR-X, and a City Turbo II race car. The City (lead photo) was particularly fitting, as the color scheme matched exactly the Hot Wheels car and the packaging as part of the Japan Historics 3 premium series.
The Super Cub and CR-X were displayed before the more traditional packaging of the regular line, though unfortunately the colors did not match exactly. Plenty of activities for kids were also part of the event, allowing young one to build their own tracks, race Hot Wheels down an existing course, or color pictures of cars to their hearts’ content.
We can’t help but think about how much our pal Ryu Asada would have loved this event. He was a die-hard Honda head, and as a designer for Hot Wheels was responsible for bringing many of these castings into existence. We wish he could have seen this. Honda described this event as a “trial exhibition” so perhaps a more comprehensive display with a similar theme is in the works.
Images courtesy of Honda.
Many different variations of the City and Civic are near my bench at home.
And the 600. All are my faves. Thank you Honda, thank you (Ryu) and Hot Wheels.
Tryna think here, does Detroit have ANYTHING remotely close to these type of events?
This is right across the street from the Aoyama-itchome subway station, very centrally located and easy to get to, and a worthy place to put on the list to make a short visit to if in Tokyo. The ground floor which is where this display is seems to rotate displays constantly. When I was there last month there was a special Honda Super Cub club meeting and display over a two day period where a couple of hundred Super Cubs of all ages, shapes, and variants from inception to modern day were arranged on the forecourt and inside, and a few days later the inside floor featured about half a dozen current Honda cars, four current motorcycles and several gorgeous vintage models. There’s also a decent gift shop and a full featured cafe right on the floor inside. There’s enough to keep anyone, even a non-car person, interested and entertained for a short visit, budget from half an hour to two hours to see and do everything possible at this location. it’s nothing like what Toyota’s MegaWeb was in size and scope but a fun visit that you can convince a spouse or work colleague/friend to make a short detour to, depending on your reason for being in the city.
very cool!!!!!!!!!!!