A Brief History of Hot Wheels: Some of the First Tesla Castings

We've pointed out the genius behind the Hot Wheels marketing department many times before, and there are plenty of conclusions to draw from it all. In recent years we've seen an increase in Japanese sports car castings from the diecast manufacturer. That was a reaction to the increasing demand from the younger audience that grew up with the Need for Speed franchise and the Fast and Furious Saga. Each year you'll see new 1/64th scale designs based on current trends and market analysis. The question is, where does Tesla fit in here?

We all know that the company's first project was the Tesla Roadster. We saw a prototype of the vehicle in 2006, but the first delivery took place in 2008. Care to guess when Hot Wheels launched its first Tesla casting? That's right, it happened the same year that the Roadster came out. For today's story, we'll be looking at all the different models that have come out since.

And by the end of it all, we should get a pretty solid idea of how much collector's interest has increased in these tiny EV replicas. Given that there are quite a few of them out there, we will be splitting the whole thing into two parts. So without further ado, let's have a look at some of the early Teslas created by Hot Wheels.

2008 Tesla Roadster

Phil Riehlman designed the 2008 Tesla Roadster for its release that same year, and the First Edition featured a fitting Electric Blue paint job. The fact that Hot Wheels came out with two more variations of this casting that same year should give you an idea of how big of an impact it had back then. The second one was finished in Metallic Watermellon, while the team went with Metalflake Silver for the third one.

They all shared one common aspect: the 10-spoke rims that were inspired by Blacque Diamond's BD11 design. The last appearance of the Tesla Roadster in a Hot Wheels series happened back in 2019 when it was presented as a replica of the car that the company had strapped to a SpaceX rocket and sent into space. There are two iterations of this design out there, but just one of them has an astronaut inside.

A few years before that, the Spectraflame Dark Red Roadster made its way into the Super Treasure Hunt series. And you might remember that we discussed that topic in our 2016 STH retrospective. If you plan on getting a complete Tesla Roadster collection, you'll have to find a total of 17 variations of it. With any luck, you should be able to get all of them for about $300 or less.

Tesla Model S

It would take a few more years until Mattel would come up with a new Tesla casting. The new Model S came along in 2012, but production was fairly slow in the beginning. When the car manufacturer reached a production volume of about 1,000 cars per week in 2015, Mattel took notice and made its next move. Ryu Asada was assigned the task of designing the 1/64th scale version of the Model S for its 2015 release.

And collectors were given the chance to purchase two different variations that year: one in Anodized Silver and the other in Red both of which featured PR5 wheels. In 2019 the casting was elevated to Super Treasure Hunt status. The last iteration to come out of the factory was the Hot Wheels id: Speed Demons model in Spectraflame Red, and we can't help but think that we'll see a new version of this vehicle in 2023.

Once again, if you plan on having a complete collection, you'll need to purchase a total of 10 items, neither of which should be prohibitively expensive. Of course, some think they can become rich overnight by asking as much as $2,500 for a First Edition Model S, but common sense dictates you shouldn't spend anywhere near that amount for a mainline car.

Tesla Model X

Hot Wheels unveiled its third Tesla collectible in 2017, and Ryu Asada was once again at the helm of the project. The Model X was featured in the Factory Fresh series, displaying a Pearl White paint job and RA6 six-spoke wheels. There aren't as many variations of this casting as you might expect, as Mattel only released four of them between 2017 to 2018.

That's quite a big gap if you think about it, but it doesn't necessarily mean we won't be seeing it in the future. If you insist on collecting this model, you might be happy to know that there's a Matchbox alternative to it as well. But we won't be talking about that today. All four iterations of the Hot Wheels Model X shouldn't set you back more than $50, so at least there's that. We'll be back with part two of our Hot Wheels Tesla analysis soon!