HW Art Cars | Bread Box

Hot Wheels is a diecast toy brand produced by Mattel that is heavily featured licensed cars, but not all are based on the real world as the designers have been given free rein to create their own concepts of how it would become a real car. There have been absurdity and wildness to the designs, and that’s one of Hot Wheels’ signature identities that separates itself from the competition. The ideas and designs stand out to also distinguish itself from its sibling brand and former rival Matchbox to be brighter, splashy, and look fast even though the vehicle is unlike you never ever seen on the road. Sometimes it is the absurdity of the design that turns off adult collectors and attracts younger kids. But sometimes there’s a casting that would catch both demographic and say this could work too.

Then there’s the Bread Box, a van design taking its inspiration from that old US Postal Service delivery vehicle its roof is shaped to look like a loaf of bread. This is where you get the idea that the casting was named the Bread Box. At first glance it does look odd with those tiny wheels it doesn’t look like it can run fast until you peer into the roof and see the engine’s location.

It is a Hot Wheels Original creation designed by Jun Imai, which was released as a New Model in 2010 sporting the livery of the US Postal Service colours in white with red & blue lettering on the side that says “HWPS” logo that includes a tagline: “Faster than ever Mail Delivery” on its debut year.

By 2015 this casting has already accumulated variations and paint jobs that you’d want to track down and collect. Back in that year, my objective was to just collect the “HW Art Cars” mini collection that featured five cars excluding the regular Treasure Hunt as Hot Wheels have slowly introduced and refined their subtheme based on the vehicles’ looks, livery, and appearance.

Art in Hot Wheel Cars

I’ve never collected a subtheme or what is now considered a “mini collection” within the basic range for Hot Wheels unless it would have something to do with JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) cars that’s the current popularity to those getting into the hobby of diecast car collecting. But that would be a daunting, challenging, and stressful interest trying to track them all down in retail.

At its best not to get caught up with the hype but focus on just getting into the way Hot Wheels are designed and presented in the HW Art Cars collection, which consist of random Original and selected licensed cars representing a single theme, “Art.” This was not the first time Hot Wheels had a subtheme related to art. There was the “Mod Bod” series that have similar concepts, and back in 2013 they also produced the “Graffiti Rides” collection.

But the “HW Art Cars” mini collection was the first that would grow the following year (2016) from five random cars to ten that would keep the consistency of the same set to this year (2023). Line-up is not the most anticipated every year though the year 2015 was the genesis that made it look interesting.

A Box Shaped like a Bread

The Bread Box has been utilized and most used casting beside in the mainline assortment for Hot Wheels. Its shaped and flat panels are great for the specific livery that it could be fictional to the licensed ones that can be noticed on both sides. The shaped curvature roof that has a see-through window on top is one of its features,

The interior doesn’t say much as this version is in orange to match up with the metal body and the chromed plastic base to stand out. The wavy colourful art is the personality of this casting, which has round dots in some that remind me of the Australian Aboriginal Art that is quite distinct. The windows are blue tinted and it doesn’t hinder the view of the interior.

Comparing it to another Bread Box released in 2014 shows how the livery design works for this casting. The colour matching depends on what the base plastic colour would be versus the interior, and at the same time how the body would match it all together.

This was quite a ‘win’ for Hot Wheels design and not overly absurd on how it was put together, and can be anything aside from being a soup-up delivery vehicle. This is also an uncommon thing to see the set of wheels having different colours as opposed to the usual uniformed types. It’s also a good thing that the plastic tires are black.

I’m not a fan of multicoloured wheels that are already bordering on absurdity. Unless those sets of tires are brown because they’ve been driven through the mud. The secondary colour of this version had yellow wheels and the metal body comes in orange, which doesn’t look realistic to be taken out on the road compared to this version that’s tricked out the fancy for being just a van shaped like bread.