Shortly before Christmas, last year, my wife bought her grandnephew a belt with 12 slots to insert different models of nice-looking Hot Wheels cars. Diligently, every week she bought one car and placed it inside the belt slot. After the 8th car, her wallet dried up and the purchases stopped.
She wrapped the belt with the eight cute little cars and waited until December 24th and gave it to Santa Claus. “This is for my grandson, Abdiel,” she said with a wink in her eye. “Be careful to give it to him early morning tomorrow.”
As promised, Abdiel got his cars on Christmas Eve and immediately started to play with them. He banged them against the wall, stepped on them, crashed them against each other and other activities children do while they play. The cars supported the attacks and stayed in one piece, albeit with several scars.
By chance I stumbled upon the model cars yesterday afternoon in one of our closets. Of the eight original cars, only six were left attached to the plastic belt.
Out of pure curiosity, I randomly picked two of them to take a close look. They looked remarkably the same as the original cars with its windshields, body shapes, lights, wheel metal rings and so forth. No wonder this is a multi-million dollar industry.
Below are photographs of the two model cars that I took out of the belt. Here we go.
Photograph of a Ferrari 360 Modena (red car) and a Lotus Project M250 (green car) Hot Wheels model cars used by our grandnephew to play. (Credit: Omar Upegui R.)
In this picture you can easily detect the bruises on the body of the toy cars. (Credit: Omar Upegui R.)
For those of you who are fans of collecting these models, I gathered a few facts about these race cars for your ready reference.
I. The Ferrari 360 Modena
The Ferrari 360 Modena is a mid-engine midsize two-seater sports car produced from late 1999 until 2005. The 360 replaced the Ferrari F355 and was itself replaced by the fairly similar Ferrari F430.
The Ferrari Modena 360 is the first car Ferrari have produced with an all aluminium chassis, shell and suspension wishbone. Its lighter weight ensures improved performance and the V8 400bhp engine ensures that the drive is as powerful as the experience.
II. Lotus Project M250
The Lotus Project M250 is a two-seater, mid-engined, high performance super car which possesses world leading aerodynamic down force combined with unrivaled chassis stiffness to give a unique driving experience. By being exceptionally lightweight, project M250 achieves sensational performance: a true Lotus.
A major achievement in the M250′s design is that it has excellent aerodynamic properties ‘straight out of the box’. Lotus engineers and designers have used the knowledge learned from designing competition cars to create a shape with an extremely well balanced aerodynamic package.
Yesterday was a fun experience taking pictures of these babies and researching information about them. It brought out the little boy inside the body of a 62 year old man. Good Day.
