Inside the Hot Wheels Mountain Drifters Set, 1/64 Scale Touge Warriors Are Revealed

Mattel came up with the Hot Wheels Slide Street Car Culture set in 2021 and that was a hit! With clear influence coming from the Formula Drift series, a total of 5 cars made their way onto shelves and collections across the world. The set contained a Nissan Silvia S14, a 2020 Toyota GR Supra, a Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno, a Pandem Subaru BRZ, and the 2020 Ford Mustang RTR Spec 5.

Hot Wheels started this year with two Car Culture sets, namely the "American Scene" and the "Deutschland Design", so it was only natural that they'd come out with a set of Japanese-exclusive vehicles soon.

This new set, called the "Mountain Drifters", contains a total of 5 cars. If you're lucky enough you might even get your hands on the chase car - which is based on the Nissan Skyline R34. The LB-ER34 Super Silhouette Skyline is a new casting for Mattel and it's reminiscent of Nissan's early '80s race cars.

While the standard car is finished in red, you can identify the rarer chase model by its black paint. Now, it feels rather strange to have a car like this included in a set called "Mountain Drifters", but then again it's not the only one here that has that effect.

The only vehicle in this set that is a perfect match for the name is the Toyota Corolla AE86 Sprinter Trueno. With its anime-inspired livery, this is what you'd call a real Itasha vehicle. The Hot Wheels AE86 has only been around since 2020, but this design might just be the best one yet. The Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 is back again after first being revealed in the "Modern Classics" set last year. Now featured in Dark Blue, it may be well suited for the touge, but when was the last time you saw one of these going sideways?

Drifting a Honda NSX is far from impossible, but it's no everyday occurrence either. Either way, the Championship White Type-R featured in this set looks stunning, to say the least. A car like this could set you back as much as $150,000 these days if you can find one first. The last item in the "Mountain Drifters" set is the 1995 Toyota Celica GT-Four and it's finished in yellow.

While I imagine this would make the perfect winter-touge drift car – something you'll see in Initial D as well, it might not be as keen to go sideways in real life on a grippy surface. But then again, collectors will probably be happy to spend $44.99 on this set, regardless of the above-mentioned fact. I just hope they won't all be confined to their blisters forever.