A few weeks back Hot wheels celebrated their 40th anniversary at the SEMA show in Sin City with a range of new scaled concept cars from several manufacturers. Lotus was asked as one of those manufacturers and they have finally come through with some high resolution images of their amazing 1:5 scaled concept. In the spring of 2008 a 1:64 model will be featured in the Hot Wheels line-up for all Lotus fans to own. The Lotus Hot Wheels Concept comes from the same designers who are currently working on the new Lotus Project Eagle, which is scheduled to make its show debut as a concept at the 2008 London Motor Show in July and go into production later in the year. Steven Crijns, Design Manager at Lotus Design and creator of this concept design explained; “Hot Wheels cars are barely 75mm long, so specific attention went to create a bold shape that would work well at this scale. The car needed to be recognisable as a Lotus without having to turn it over to look at the badge underneath, so I took elements from the Elise and Exige such as the headlight design, the Lotus ‘mouth’, the pronounced wheel arches and trademark bonnet graphics.” Russell Carr, Head of Lotus Design said; “This was a dream job for the design team because, for many of us, when we were children, it was Hot Wheels that first ignited our passion for cars and design. The design offered unique challenges because it has to work as a toy and we therefore had to remember how specific views, features and tactile qualities of toy cars fascinated us as children.”
