Hot Wheels have been a popular choice for kid’s toys for decades. One of the best parts of playing with Hot Wheels is racing them.
You can make your track long and loopy and see which race car finishes first.
You obviously want the best and fastest Hot Wheels for your collection, so what are they? Which Hot Wheels are the fastest?
Here are a few Hot Wheels that have been put to the test and came out as the winners in regards to being the fastest.
- Hot Wheels Shark Hammer
- Hot Wheels Mach Speeder
- Hot Wheels GT Hunter
- Hot Wheels FTE Way 2 Fast
- Hot Wheels FTE Cadillac V16 Concept
- How Wheels Probe Funny Car
- Hot Wheels Ferrari F40
These are some of the fastest Hot Wheels in production. How fast a Hot Wheel is will vary based on its weight, design, and how well it rolls.
How Can You Make Your Hot Wheels Faster?
If you do not have any of the “fastest” cars that Hot Wheels makes, you may be wondering if you can make your Hot Wheels any faster? You want your cars to be the fastest on the track.
How do you make your racing Hot Wheels faster?
You can make your Hot Wheels faster by adding weight, using FTE axles and wheels, polishing the axle, or polishing the chassis. All of these will help you have faster cars.
I will go into more depth about each of these in the sections below.
Add Weight
Adding weight to your Hot Wheels car can increase its speed by increasing its momentum. Potential energy is based on gravity, height, and weight.
When you add weight you gain an advantage because you have increased your Hot Wheels potential energy.
The potential energy can then turn into kinetic energy and that is the energy your toy car needs for speed. However, with forces like friction working against your car, the weight won’t add a ton of speed to your Hot Wheel, but enough to make it increase its momentum and make it slightly faster.
Use FTEs
Faster than Ever cars were released by Hot Wheels in 2005 and 2006. They resurfaced again from 2009-2012. Hot Wheels also created a series, Faster than Ever 2, and were released with different wheels.
The reason these were Faster than Ever was due to the nickel-plated axel. The nickel-plating gave the axels a smooth finish. The smooth finish means less friction which is the enemy of speed.
If you have FTE Hot Wheels, then great, add some weight for an ever faster racer. If not, then consider swapping your current Hot Wheels out with some FTE axles and wheels.
Polish The Axle
Since the axle is part of what gives your Hot Wheels speed, another way to make it lightning fast is by polishing it. Use a metal polish and apply it according to the directions.
Make sure to move the wheels to one end of the axel and hold them; this will prevent them from being hit with the polish. It is important to keep the polish off the wheels.
Don’t forget, once you have finished, slide the wheels to the other side and polish that part of the axle as well.
Polish The Chassis
As your car is being raced down the track, the wheels will be rubbing on the pinhead part of the axle or on the chassis. Whenever these two parts rub together it creates friction.
Since friction is the enemy of speed, it is important to reduce the rubbing as much as possible.
There are two kinds of chassis in Hot Wheels; metal and plastic. To polish the metal, take a file and smooth out any of the spots where the wheel will touch the chassis.
Once it’s filed down, take some sandpaper and smooth out the area. After being filed and sanded down, apply metal polish.
If your chassis is plastic, you’ll do the same steps, except there is a special polish just for plastic.
How Do You Know The Hot Wheels You Are Purchasing Are Real?
Collecting Hot Wheels is a somewhat popular hobby. Many people collect the vintage cars and some of the first Hot Wheels that were in production.
How do you know that what you are purchasing is a real Hot Wheels car though?
The easiest way to tell if you are purchasing real Hot Wheels or not is by checking the details on the package and bottom of the car. Many fake Hot Wheels have flaws in either the packaging or the inscription under the car.
Some fakes won’t even have an inscription under the car at all.
Here are a few additional tips to use when checking out some vintage Hot Wheels cars.
Packaging
The original packaging has the logo in the left-hand corner. While this might seem obvious, your eyes may not even be drawn to the left-hand side of the packaging.
Our brains focus on the more noticeable things like the top Hot Wheels logo, blue packaging, and the car itself.
Logo
This might seem like a simple thing to spot, but since our brains have seen the Hot Wheels logo for years, it dismisses the words and notices the color.
Some fakes will change a word in the logo. For example Wonder Wheels instead of Hot Wheels. Your brain may quickly pass over this because the words are still written in the red racing stripe logo.
Name of the car
The name of the car on an authentic Hot Wheels will be somewhere on the packaging. It can be written on the side or even directly under the car itself.
The description will also include the brand, model, and year of manufacturing on the package.
Inscription on the car
All of the authentic Hot Wheels are labeled on their underside. The Hot Wheels logo will be on the bottom along with the manufacturer, model, country of manufacturing, the year the car was made, and the year it was crafted.
If the car is missing any of these details, it may be a fake.
Number in collection
Hot Wheels are sold as series in collections. Somewhere on the box, it will state what number the car is in its specific collection.
For example, the 1965 Ford Galaxy is the 10/10 in its collection. A 10/10 should be on the package, if not, it’s a fake.
Knowing these things to watch out for when purchasing your Hot Wheels will save you from the headache of a fake purchase.
Final Thoughts
Do you own some of the fastest Hot Wheels out there? If not, be sure to use the above tips to make yours the fastest.
If you are into collecting, be sure to watch out for the tell-tale signs of fake Hot Wheels as well. If you are going to be spending a lot of money on a collectible it’s always a good idea to have an expert check out the car before buying it.