Published on 12:00 AM, November 29, 2017

Collectibles

FD RX7 and Honda City Turbo: 2017s HotWheels JDM invasion

It has been a few revolutionary years at Mattel's Hotwheels as the designers have started dishing out JDM pop culture cars to the hungry petrolheads. If I had to pick that one car that marks the JDM invasion, it would be the KPGC10 Hakosuka Skyline debuting in 2011. The R32 came earlier in 2002 but it really didn't catch everyone's fancy that much initially. It later went on to demand ridiculous prices among the collectors. But it was the Hakosuka that cemented the love affair quickly followed by the later rise in popularity of the Datsun 510 released even earlier in 2009.  And now, it seems the publica simply cannot get enough.

This year ends with the release of the FD RX7 and the 1985 Honda City Turbo. These are notable for two reason. The FD is the best casting I have seen in 1:64 scale. And it is super accurate in proportions. The Honda on the other hand is a quirky little car denoting the madness of the 80's tech superiority in JDM cars. It was an inexpensive little car with a lot of techno wizardry. The small 1.2 litre engine could pump out 108bhp for car weighing just over 7000kg. Insane. It was nicknamed the Bulldog as it looked like one. And now you can have from Hotwheels. Admittedly, I have not seen one in the market in Dhaka yet but it is out in Malaysia where I got one from.  It comes with the new DDisc wheels popular with the custom modelling crowd. Details are spot on except the scale is a little bigger than 1:64.

While the JDM invasion has a lot more coming, these two really stand out as the year draws to an end.