The Most Beautiful Car in the World? Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale

That is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot on the car world.. the most beautiful automobile... Everyone knows how Enzo Ferrari called the Jaguar E Type the most beautiful car he'd ever seen, and certainly most car enthusiasts have their own opinions on the matter. 

However, I would put the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale down as the most beautiful.. Just look at it! Every curve is so careful and delicate, but exudes such a powerful stance. It's a truly tiny little car, but you'd never know it by looking at photos. To me, it looks larger than life, one of those cars that just eliminates time completely, it looks as fresh now as it did when it was first shown in 1967. Alfa Romeo only made 18 examples of it, a road-going version of the Tipo 33 sports prototype race car. 

I had the pleasure of seeing one of those 18 in person at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance back in 2017. It was as close as I've ever come to a religious experience, it is just too stunning to put into words!

And how lucky we are now that Hot Wheels has decided to produce a 1/64 version! In the newly revamped Boulevard series for 2020. I'll have to be honest, not many of the rest of the cars in that series have excited me much, but this one certainly makes up for it! Perfect stance, wheel choice, detailing.. the designers at Mattel really nailed it. Certainly one of the best models of the year. 

Anyways, it's been quite a while since I've been active on this blog! Hopefully we can change that now. Look forward to lots more content coming soon!

Hot Wheels Mazda REPU Custom

Another Japanese pickup for today! I love the JDM kick that HW is on lately, some really top notch models coming out. I'm trying to slowly stray away from mainlines, but some of these new castings are just too good to pass up in any form, the Mazda REPU included.

Hot Wheels Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Custom

As a lover of Italian cars, naturally one of my favorite modern supercars is the Alfa 8C. I've been lucky enough to see a couple in person, and trust me they are absolutely breathtaking cars. Hot Wheels did a version of it, and it's only been used a handful of times.
I decided to try out my favorite color combo of grey and red on it, and man did it turn out nice!

Hot Wheels Datsun Fairlady 2000 Custom

Got two to share this evening. I've been utilizing my day off to do some painting!! Lots more to come I now have about 25 cars painted and waiting for detailing haha. I'm hoping to get about that many more done to keep me busy over the winter when I can't paint :)

First is another Datsun, the recently released Hot Wheels Fairlady 2000 casting. I really like this one, and was anxious to see how it looked without any racing liveries, just clean. And I like the result!

Hot Wheels Datsun 620 Pickup Custom

I can't believe it's taken me until now to get an example of this casting up on the workbench! It's one of my favorites, I have every version released so far in my collection.

Nothing too crazy with this custom, just a repaint and a wheel swap. I think it came out pretty well!

Hot Wheels Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk7 Custom

WOW it's been a while since I posted here (or have done any customs for that matter). Work has been keeping me sooooo busy. But I've got a lot of stuff in the queue to be finished and posted!! Starting with this Hot Wheels Mk7 Golf GTI that I made to give to a buddy of mine as a copy of his car.

Hot Wheels BMW 3.0 CSL Street Custom

Here's my take on one of the best recent HW releases, the BMW 3.0 CSL! These have been my favorite BMW model for as long as I can remember. They are just the ideal car to me, elegant styling, great performance and just an overall classiness that modern cars can't touch.

HW has done nothing but racing spec ones so far, and they've made some very nice ones... But I decided to see what I could do with a street version.. And I am absolutely thrilled with how it came out. 

Hot Wheels Range Rover Classic

Here's another favorite customizing pasttime of mine, making HW products much nicer!! I've done a Range Rover like this before, but I sold it a while back. And one can never have too many fine old British cars in one's collection!

The Range Rover Classic is one of those vehicles that is just cool. Maybe not the most reliable thing in the world, but undeniably cool! I'd love to have one.

Hot Wheels Ferrari 599 GTB Custom

Generally speaking, "modern" Ferraris don't really get my blood pumping too much. Sure, they're striking to look at and absolute technological marvels. But to me, the classics have, and always be where my passion lies. I like simple, restrained, and elegant styling paired with a classy refined interior, a manual gearbox and a gloious sounding engine. That's all I need in a car. Ferrari has moved on a bit from that haha. Which is ok, as they're certainly selling more cars than ever!

A lot of old school Ferrari enthusiasts consider the F40 to be the last "real" Ferrari, since it was the last car that Enzo himself personally oversaw the development of. I like that sentiment, but I go a little bit farther and include the gorgeous 355 and 550 in that list of "real" Ferraris. Which then brings us to the feature car, this 599 by Hot Wheels. It's not my favorite Ferrari of all time, I still prefer the 550 to it. But what makes this car special and included on the "real" list, is the fact that it was the last Ferrari to have a 6-speed gated manual option. What a crying shame you can't get that anymore!!

I like how this custom turned out, I have always felt that the 599 looks amazing in dark metallic blue. What do you think?