Full-size hot rods aren’t the only cars to be found at SEMA: the world’s biggest provider of pocket-sized hot rods is also a perennial participant. This year, Hot Wheels teamed up with Ford to create a unique van designed just for lovers of all sizes of toy cars.
The Hot Wheels Transit Connect has been modified by the Ice 9 Group with a wide-body kit that includes the roof. The van is four inches wider at the front and six at the rear, and sports a new front fascia similar to that of the Focus RS. Massively flared fenders with black and orange wheels, rally-style hood vents and the Hot Wheels logo on the rear panels give the Transit Connect an unmistakably toylike look. The side-exiting exhaust pipes are functional. The sliding doors are now gullwing doors, revealing an interior upgraded with Recaro seats, a secondary floor with tool-storage drawers underneath and a pair of Hot Wheels orange tracks laid into the bed to form a drag strip. The bulkheads have storage space for a pair of tablets, while a 55-inch flatscreen TV is mounted in the bulkhead behind the front seats.
The Hot Wheels Transit Connect’s 2.5 liter four-cylinder engine has enough power to tow a one-ton trailer, so there’s a custom trailer out back designed to carry Hot Wheels’ 1.0 EcoBoost-powered Rip Rod, designed and built in 2012.
True to form, Hot Wheels will produce a 1/64-scale toy version of the modified Transit Connect, so collectors can have a version to take home.
