For as long as I’ve been collecting Hot Wheels—and that’s basically been my entire life—I’ve always been surprised to learn how the rabbit hole of this hobby is so much deeper than it may appear. Forget your premium Car Culture castings you might catch on the pegs at Target (if the scalpers haven’t gotten to them, anyway). Mattel sells rare, online-only Hot Wheels at a higher quality than the rest, in unsurprisingly limited numbers. And while many of these releases haven’t caught my eye, the next one—a GMC Typhoon—is right up my alley.
Maybe it’s the photography, the subtle luster to the paint, the wheels, or the fact that the printed graphics all appear to be applied properly and straight in the right spots. Look, when Hot Wheels’ bar for quality is so low most of the time, something like this Typhoon truly stands out. The hood even opens, revealing a surprisingly intricate engine bay.
Now the catch here is that you need to be a member of Hot Wheels’ Red Line Club to nab this or any other exclusive, RLC Members Only castings. The membership thankfully only costs $10 for the year, which isn’t too bad, but that makes this $25 (before shipping) 1:64-scale replica of GMC’s legendary performance SUV a bit more expensive than it looks on paper.
Fortunately, the Mattel Creations site has some other tiny cars that anyone can buy, like this Elite 64 Porsche 928 Safari that looks sick, is still in stock, and is even priced $5 cheaper. Somebody grab this before I do, because I really don’t need more Hot Wheels in my life. My apartment is small, and my shelves are already full. If you want real FOMO, here’s a Midnight Purple Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 riding on little TE37s that you definitely can’t order anymore.
And yet, sweet as those are, something keeps me coming back to this Typhoon. If I had to guess, it’s probably because I don’t have anything like it in my collection, which mostly just consists of exotics, JDM, rally, and race cars from the ’80s and ’90s. Also, I passed a Typhoon on the way home from a hill climb on Sunday, I’m not kidding. Maybe the universe is trying to send me a message. The little GMC is set to go on sale at 12 p.m. Eastern today, so anyone who wants one will have to act fast.
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