Hot Wheels

Hot Wheels is a die-cast collectible toy car range produced by Mattel.

History with Thomas & Friends[]

In 2020, a vehicle based on Thomas called Loco Motorin' was introduced as part of the Hot Wheels basic line in the HW Metro Mini Collection. The vehicle was designed by Kevin Cao - who had previously worked on other Hot Wheels products - and was first announced at the Hot Wheels Collectors Convention on 5 October 2019. It was released in 2020 as part of the 75th anniversary of The Railway Series. The cast would later be re-released without the Thomas & Friends emblem.

In 2022, a Thomas-themed Monster Truck would be released in the Monster Trucks line. The cast was repurposed from an existing model, Loco Punk (formerly called Derailed). The back of the card reads: Truck Type: Character, Strength: Off the rails, Crash Attack: Buffer Buster.

In 2024, Mattel announced they would be launching three new FAST channels on Samsung TV Plus, one of those channels being Hot Wheels Action, while the channel primarily focuses on Hot Wheels, the announcement also states that Thomas & Friends will air on the channel.^[1]

Trivia[]

The packaging for the 2020 models featured the 75th anniversary logo.
Loco Motorin' has a moulded back loop to couple with the Push Along range. Even when the cast was re-released without the Thomas theme, it would keep the back coupling.
Interestingly, Hot Wheels had previously made a vehicle based on Thomas' basis - the LB&SCR E2 class - called the Super Stoker as part of their Rapid Transit range.
- The Rapid Transit range featured couplings which would later be updated for the Collectible Railway and Adventures die-cast ranges.