Hot Wheels GT40 Mk4 casting a slice of history
I was pretty glad to see the 1967 Ford GT40 Mk4 in the 2022 Hot Wheels Main Line castings. I didn’t really get back into collecting Hot Wheels until early in 2022. (I only collect certain cars, and I’m not really a Main Line collector). The casting debuted in 2021 with red with a white-pinstripe tampo and yellow with black pinstripe tampo variants. The 2022 releases included light blue and white variations with Gulf logos and Gulf orange pinstriping. The castings from both years included 5-spoke tires.
The GT40 Mk4 was the final version of the GT40 and won both 12 Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1967. What really interests me about this casting is that I can convert it to a Ford G7, which was a notoriously unreliable entry into the 1968-70 Can-Am series that only finished one of 15 races. The G7 was based on the GT40 Mk4 chassis and body.
Even though the car was a dismal failure on the track, one of the early versions of the G7 featured a really cool bifurcated rear spoiler. From researching the car, I believe the G7 only ran test runs with the bifurcated spoiler.
Since the G7 was a Can-Am racer, it had an open wheel design. From studying a blueprint of the G7 with a bifurcated spoiler I found online, I believe I can build a custom G7 from a GT40 Mk4 casting.
During the summer of 2022, I picked up several of the GT40 Mk4 Hot Wheels. While learning about the Mk4’s history, I came across a photo of the G7 sporting the bifurcated spoiler. When I saw the photo, I knew I wanted to make a custom of that vehicle for my collection.
Sadly, I haven’t gotten around to building a custom G7 yet. But, I finally got around to freeing up a couple of the Hot Wheels 1967 Ford GT40 Mk4’s just for that purpose. So, the G7 project is on the drawing board now, but I’ve got three projects to wrap up before I get to it.
The first is a custom paint job on a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona from M2 Machines. Next are a couple of Gaslands-type conversions for the Gaslands sub-Reddit’s Nuclear Winter Wonderland 2 build competition and the last is a couple of cars I’m testing out some painting techniques on.
Boondock Bight 