2019 Hot Wheels™ Legends Tour: Charlotte

MotorTrend

Hot Wheels® comes to North Carolina! For this stop

Transcript

00:00 Hey, Mugsy Boats here in Charlotte at the Walmart at the Hot Wheels Legend Tour.

00:04 It's a very tough challenge for me to pick out that one car that stands out from among everybody.

00:08 So, come on out and hang out with us.

00:11 Look who I got standing right next to me, the man of the hour.

00:14 Look at him.

00:15 I'm Don Miller. I'm the former president of Penske Racing.

00:29 Today we're here in Hickory, North Carolina at the Hot Wheels event.

00:34 I look for originality, free thinking, and really great fabrication skills.

00:40 And there's a little bit of that in every car here, but there are several cars that have it all.

00:46 We've looked at maybe a hundred cars, and I think we're slowly but surely narrowing it down to about five or six.

00:53 [Music]

01:03 My name is J.R. Drake. This is my 1932 North Carolina State Prison bus.

01:08 It's got a 606 big block in it.

01:10 Back in my younger days, when I was growing up, my mom would go to the store,

01:14 and we'd always get a Hot Wheel or some kind of car, but I always dreamed of having a Hot Wheel car.

01:19 That's the reason I went ahead and I built me a Hot Rod, and I've been building them since I was 14 years old.

01:24 We run Mobil 1 oil in all my engines in my Hot Rods.

01:29 I've always run Mobil 1 because I feel like it's your racing motor oil.

01:34 I do a lot with schools and stuff with the bus.

01:37 Thousands of people here today, and all the kids said, "This is it."

01:40 So let's hope it is it.

01:42 My name's Chad Martin. I built this one-off custom truck.

01:47 When I was younger, I had a papa. He used to bring me Hot Wheels all the time, every time he'd come to see me.

01:52 Even now to the day, I buy my son Hot Wheels all the time.

01:55 It started as a '36 Chevrolet sedan and went into a four-door Chevrolet Dually.

02:01 I drew this truck in 1999, and it was just a dream before I even knew I could do this stuff.

02:07 And then now I took it from paper and built it.

02:10 It's the conversation piece. That's what I love about this.

02:14 Building something that nobody's seen, and then people trying to figure out what it is.

02:18 Hi, this is Sam Smith. I'm here with my son's 1937 Chrysler Royale two-door slantback.

02:37 We own a '37 Dodge Brothers two-door car.

02:40 He dreamed up the idea of taking the big tires and the leaf springs and stuff and changing them and making one car.

02:46 He takes one of his little Hot Wheels die-cast cars and he just sets the car on top of it.

02:50 And he's like, "I think we can do this." I said, "Son, I think we can too."

02:54 We've got the four-wheel steering. We've got the rear engine.

02:57 We can actually use the car. We actually crush cars with it.

03:01 But I'm seeing a lot of cool stuff here today.

03:04 There's a lot of inspiration and thought that's went into every one of these cars that I have had time to look at this morning.

03:11 I can't wait to get around and look at a few more of them.

03:14 My name is Paul Ireson, and I built this 1969 Mini Cooper pickup truck with two engines.

03:22 I put two engines in this car because it was a bit of a bet with some friends on one night where we'd been drinking.

03:27 It's got everything on it. It's got air ride suspension. It's got the two engines.

03:31 I did the inside like an airplane cockpit, so it's like a joystick.

03:34 And you've got 11 gauges for the rear engine, 11 gauges for the front engine.

03:38 Ever since I built it, people kept saying to me, "This is a Hot Wheels car," because there's nothing like it.

03:43 It's the only one in the world. Mobile One. I use Mobile One in most of my cars.

03:46 It's just a good oil.

03:48 Yeah, I'm really excited to see the judges and hear what they say about the car.

03:52 I'm hoping this is the sort of thing that they're after.

03:55 I don't know, because there's everything here. Everyone's got the same chance.

03:59 Big round of applause to everyone who showed up to watch the show, to bring their cars.

04:04 It's been unbelievable. Thank you, thank you.

04:06 I also want to mention some of our partners that have made this happen, starting with Mobile One.

04:11 I'm sure that you were able to go to their activation there, get one of those amazing posters.

04:16 We also want to thank Mechanics Ware. Hopefully you had a chance to come here to the Pit Stop Simulator.

04:21 We want to thank Dickies and their work shirts and those amazing patches that we had.

04:25 And of course, we want to thank Walmart. We couldn't do this without them.

04:28 They gave us this amazing parking lot. Thank you to Walmart for helping make this happen.

04:32 Alright guys, a lot of cool stuff out there.

04:35 Stiff competition, really cool cars, nice builds.

04:37 So what do you guys think? What comes to the top of your mind?

04:40 I like that truck. The fabrication, quality, just unbelievable.

04:46 Take a car, build a truck from a car, and then take the thing and cut it in half, and add a foot to the middle of it.

04:53 The cool thing about that is he wasn't a professional at the beginning of that.

04:58 He didn't know how to paint, didn't know how to do anything, and he was by the time he finished.

05:02 Pretty amazing story, so definitely make a good option.

05:06 Now on the wild side, there was the Mini Cooper.

05:09 I mean, two engines can't get much more Hot Wheels than that.

05:13 It's not fitting the purpose.

05:14 It's not fitting there, but that's the point.

05:16 It's a one-seater, too.

05:18 Well, in that case, it's a Mini Cooper.

05:19 We'll go back and forth, alright?

05:22 Bring it on and say "Hot Wheels."

05:23 One, two, three!

05:24 Hot Wheels!

05:25 There we are!

05:26 Alright, now for the big prize.

05:31 The car that we selected started out as something completely different than what it had ended up.

05:36 And a lot of man hours, a lot of complete custom fabrication, a lot of creativity.

05:41 So, the winner is...

05:43 Chad Martin.

05:44 The all-steel green truck.

05:45 VG Chevrolet.

05:47 Here we go. I've got to present you this amazing award.

05:51 I started with a 1936 Chevrolet sedan and turned it into a four-door Chevrolet Dually.

05:57 It's got 24-inch semi-wheels on it.

05:59 The frame was custom-built.

06:00 The cab was actually widened to the foot, and then we turned around and suicided all four doors.

06:06 Then we had to stretch the front end 8 inches.

06:09 Then we built a custom grille that's got almost 300 feet of aluminum in it.

06:13 It's got a 24-valve, twin-turbo, 750-horsepower Cummins engine in it.

06:17 And it is a conversation piece.

06:19 From the old guys to the new school guys, anywhere it goes, I can't even walk away from the truck.

06:24 Because it's one person after the next.

06:26 Is that this? Is that that?

06:28 When I tell them it's a '36 sedan, they're like, "What?"

06:31 I actually want to build the car to the truck.

06:36 It'd be cool to see a whole, you know, where you see the car, the truck, and the bike.

06:40 I think it'd just be cool as a whole set.

06:43 I will see you there at SEMA. Congratulations.

06:47 Congratulations.

06:49 The cars are amazing. Hope you pick the right one.

06:52 We'll see you on the next tour.

06:54 [Music]

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