A Tale of Two: Hot Wheels '71 Nissan Skyline & '69 Pontiac GTO...

Black with gold/copper wheels is such a sharp look.  Yes black cars don't bring out the details in our favorite vehicles, mini or real, but who honestly gives a shit when they look so sexy and sleek in black?

Once you have your sexy black car, what to do with the wheels?  You can go all black, making your car growlingly menacing, or you can go chrome, making it shine.  Or maybe gunmetal gray, putting you right in the middle.  And there is copper or gold.  That is where minis might separate from the real thing.  It may not work on the road every time, but it certainly does in a display case.

So when Hot Wheels released the Nissan Skyline H/T 2000GT-X in black with copper rims, we were on board.  And when we got it in hand, we were instantly reminded of another black on copper beauty, the 2005 Hot Wheels '69 Pontiac GTO Judge with Faster Than Ever wheels.  So we thought we would put them together.

These are actually easy to compare, outside of the color of the body and wheels.  The real cars come from the same era, albeit on different continents.  They are both signature cars in their respective countries, and it only takes one word to reference each car.  "Hakosuka" for the Skyline and "Judge" for the GTO.

As far as the minis go, both were designed by epic Mattel designers.  The GTO by Phil Riehlman and the GT-X by Jun Imai.  And they both look really good.

So here is our ode to muscle and j-tin, in the form of sleek sexy black.

Since we have probably discussed the Hakosuka to death here on Lamley, how about a few thoughts on the GTO:

The casting debuted in 2005, first in black, then orange, then as a Kmart exclusive in red.  The black normally sported 5-spoke wheels, but was part of the huge FTE line in 2005/2006.  Hot Wheels actually released all-FTE cases instead of making a sub-line in the basic range, like they did later.  The FTE GTO was one of the hardest models to find, as many cases didn't even carry it.

Nonetheless, the FTE completely upstaged the 5-spoke version, and in our opinion is one of the best-looking Hot Wheels models ever made.  Period.

And damn, it looks good next to the Hako...