One thing to consider as you look at the results is to remember that each individual car is different. Meaning that you could have two of the exact same car, and one will be faster than the other. That is kind of the fun thing about racing, is trying to find that really fast one. It's almost like trying to find that Super Treasure Hunt for collectors. That being said, there are certain castings that generally are faster than other castings. To really establish that scientifically, I should probably get 5 or 6 of each casting and then race them all and give them average times, but that is just not financially feasible for me. So, take these findings with a grain of salt, but hopefully they will lead you in the right direction as to some fast Hot Wheels cars.
Corvette Grand Sport Roadster - 1.8426 seconds
The Corvett Grand Sport Roadster weighs 35 grams. It was the fastest car that I tested from the 2015 mainline. I am confident that this is a fast casting and not that it just happened to be a fast car. I had a few of these castings and they were all fast. This casting has also performed well in my 2016 Fastest Hot Wheels car tests.
Bentley Continental Supersports - 1.8442 seconds
In real life, the Bentley Continental Supersports is a lightweight version of the Continental GT. It was once the fastest Bentley ever made, with a top speed of 204 mph. It lived up to it's pedigree in the Hot Wheels version as well, being the second fastest car I tested. The Bentley weighs in at 36 grams. I don't know if this was just a fast car or if the casting is fast as well. I never did get another of these to test out. We will be testing out the 2016 version in a few weeks though, so I'm interested to see how it performs.
Pharodox - 1.8727 seconds
The 2015 version weighs in at 35 grams. It was the third fastest car I tested. Pharodox definitely has potential to be a fast car with those big wheels in the back and low profile, but other versions of this car have not performed as well for me, for example it's 2016 showing. In my gut, I feel like I just got lucky with this particular car and it over-performed. However, this casting in general could still easily be in the top ten.
90 Honda Civic EF - 1.8768 seconds
The Honda civic finished in fourth place in my tests. I feel pretty confident in this car making the top ten. I did race any more of this casting, but I have heard from multiple sources that their 90 Honda Civic EF's were fast as well.
RD-03 - 1.8770 seconds
RD-03 made a good showing and rounded out the top five fastest Hot Wheels cars of 2015. It finished just a hair behind the Civic...literally. If you look at the times, you'll notice that it was just 2 ten-thousandths behind. Side by side that is almost impossible for the naked eye to distinguish at the end of a race.
1971 Buick Riviera - 1.8780 seconds
1971 Buick Riviera finished 6th in my testing. It definitely has potential to be a fast car as it is a bit heavier than some of the other car on this list, coming in at 40 grams, as well as a bit longer. Length usually translates into a higher center of gravity in the starting gate which means a bit more potential energy.
Cockney Cab II - 1.8871seconds
Hot Wheels began producing the Cockney Cab II in 2005. The 2015 version weighs in at 38 grams.That was good enough for the 7th fastest Hot Wheels car from my 2015 testing. I did get to race a few others of this same casting and this particular car seemed to be consistent with the other Cockney Cabs that I tried.
Battle Spec - 1.8918 seconds
Battle Spec is a car from the animated Hot Wheels Acceleracers movies. The Hot Wheels version of Battle Spec weighs 36 grams. It finished eighth in my 2015 speed tests. I only bought one of these cars so I don't know if this is par for this casting, or if it is and under or over-achievement.
Rrroadster - 1.8921 seconds
Rrroadster was one of the lightest cars to make the top ten, weighing only 29 grams. It finished in 9th place. Rrroadster may look familiar, as it is the preview design of another Hot wheels car, Fast Felion.
Ford Shelby GR-1 Concept - 1.8934 seconds
The Ford Shelby GR-1 Concept first came on the Hot Wheels scene in 2005. It's been in production since then and the 2015 version weighs in at 33 grams. It rounds out the top ten fastest Hot Wheels cars of 2015, finishing in tenth place.
Well, there you have it, the top ten fastest Hot Wheels cars from 2015. One observation that I might make is that the top two cars were quite a bit faster than the rest. Both of them were in the 1.84s while the rest of the top ten were in the 1.87s to 1.89s. About .02 seconds separated the last 8 cars, but .03 seconds separated the first 2 cars from the last 8 cars.
What did you find? What were you're fastest cars from 2015? Let us know in the comments below!
Do you think a car's time may also be affected by how soon it is freed from the starting gate? If a car's nose is slimmer/sleaker, it seems it may be quicker out of the gate and into free fall faster? By the way this is really cool the track you built and how you are documenting the results. I appreciate your page. I have been thinking about this for 40 years and love building straight downhill tracks to see what cars are really the fastest (kids of course being my excuse now spending hours racing hot wheels as adult, they love it too). I think the way to truly find the faster of 2 cars is to have them race until 1 car wins from both lanes.
ReplyDeleteis there a timing system would you recommend for a build like yours?
ReplyDeleteReally it comes down to how much you are willing to spend. Probably the cheapest timing option is a Dragtracks system
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is only accurate to two decimal places. Which means there would have been a lot of ties in the ten cars listed above.
The next best option price wise I think is the Derbystick timer. It is what I used for the cars listed above. The one thing that has been a drawback for me is that you have to have it hooked up to a computer. It's not a big deal, but sometimes it gets to be a little bit of a hassle. What I'd really like is a stand alone timer but they are more expensive. I highlighted several timing systems in my post on building Hot Wheels Tracks.