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Diecast Customs Galleries: Hot Wheels 'Premium' and Playset Cars

The customs in this gallery began life as parts of special-series Hot Wheels releases. Let's face it...there's not much improvement you can make on most of Mattel's adult-collectibles lines. But in every series, there always seems to be a handful of castings that just don't cut it...at least, not without a little creative help. And since these lesser lights tend to be the peg-warmers in the series', they're often available for a fraction of the regular price at closeout time. That's when I swoop down to scoop up all I can afford, mainly to supply better-quality wheels to my mainlines customs. Eventually I decide to make something of the carcasses left when I've cannibalized the wheels. And that's the inspiration for most of these pieces. The really interesting action happens elsewhere...this is where I experiment with looks and treatments that aren't always "ready for prime time", and sometimes even come up with pieces that outdo the originals.

Redlines & Recasts This category includes customized original redlines, 25th Anniversary and Vintage customs, and other customs based on premium editions of original-redline body styles.	1968 Deora (purple) (n/a) 1993 25th Ann, Series The Demon (brown) 1994 Vintage Series '32 Ford Vicky (purple)
Classics/Since '68	2005 Classics S1 #24 T-Bucket (antifreeze) 2007 Classics S3 #01 Bone Shaker (blue) 2007 Classics S3 #08 'Pretty **itty Kitty' (green) 2007 Classics S3 #09 Heavy Chevy (pink) 2007 Classics S3 #10 King Kuda (black) 2009 Classics S5 #03 Studebaker Avanti (lime) 2009 Classics S5 #18 '29 Ford Pickup 2007 Since '68 Top 40 #24 Fat Fendered '40 2007 Since '68 Top 40 #32 Shoe Box
"Real-Rider" series' Mattel has three classes of adult collectible series': the high-end adults-only stuff like the oilcan and Redline Club cars, a midrange class which includes vehicles with Real Rider type wheels but not quite the detail and quality of the top-end stuff, and a low end which includes a nicer Tampo and nicer wheels but which aren't exactly serious replicas of real vehicles. This category includes customs made from Auto-Affinity, Ultra-Hots, Legends, Street Show, Dragstrip Demons, Delivery, "Garage" and other mid-range premium-collectible series'. Many are "recovery" projects, made from the shells of duplicate pieces which have been cannibalized for their high-quality wheels.	2003 Hall of Fame Saleen S7 (red) 2004 Auto-Affinity Steel Flame w'Trailer 2004 Auto-Affinity Steel Flame #1 2004 Auto-Affinity Steel Flame #2 2004 Auto-Affinity Steel Flame #3 2004 Auto-Affinity #4 Tire Fryer 2004 Auto-Affinity #02 Sooo Fast 2006 Ultra Hots '37 Ford Woodie (green) 2007 Street Show #13 Morris Wagon 2007 Street Show #12 Dairy Delivery 2007 Street Show #11 Altered State 2010 Delivery #26 '29 Ford Pickup (cream)
Non-"Real-Rider" series' This section includes customs based on "bottom end" non-mainline pieces from series' such as Highway 35, Speed Machines, AcceleRacers, Color Shifters, non-real-rider promotional vehicles and others.	2004 Toys'R'Us Formula 1 Racer (GP-2009) 2005 AcceleRacers Bassline 2010 Speed Machines Corvette C6R
Replica racers This section includes customs made from series' of branded race cars (NASCAR, CART, F1, etc.).	2001 NASCAR #44 Kelloggs 2002 Grand Prix Williams F1
Playset vehicles Some of the best mainline releases never make it into a blister pack. They're reserved for release only with certain playsets, or featured in the 5-packs that most adult collectors shun. Some of these are among my favorite display pieces, too, and there have been some amazingly nice mainline-type releases that adults thought were worth the price of a five-pack just for the one car. (Remember the gold-and-black "67" Camaro from the GM 5-pack a couple of years back?). Even more frustrating, some of the nicest "mainline" pieces released by Hot Wheels over the years were available only as playset cars! Some are scarcer than T-Hunts. Some of these cars are worth seeking out; others are little more than curiosities which most adult collectors won't care about. And it's precisely because some of these pieces have such dubious collector value that they're often ideal candidates for customization experiments.	200x Car Carrier 10pk 'Surreal Rider' Cobra

Rating system:

Ratings represent my personal assessments of a piece's value as an adult collectible out of a maximum five stars.
Examples:
: In my opinion, this was a 2-1/2-star piece out-of-the-box; customizing improved it by a full star.
: I loved it in its stock appearance, customizing was a mistake that cost it a star.
: Customizing didn't improve the piece...fortunately, it didn't hurt it either.
These ratings are provided as guidelines for selecting suitable candidate cars and appearances for do-it-yourself customizing. They are not to meant to indicate in any way that a given piece has any real or meaningful value relative to any other piece or to the original piece on which the custom was based. They are provided as suggested guidelines only.