My Custom Hot Wheels at Hot Import Nights Australia

December 15th saw the annual Hot Import Nights show being held at Olympic Stadium in Homebush and for the first time in it’s history it featured custom and exotic cars in more than one scale, more than two in fact but I’ll get to that soon enough.

I arrived early…very early in fact because although the show was scheduled to start at 3pm I was going to need a few (hundred) hours to set everything up. And when I say everything I quite literally mean it, because there were three individual diorama settings, over 40 trees, countless figures and a even more bits and bobs that required setting up before the main doors opened. My management of time was not helped by the fact that I was surrounded by millions of dollars worth of exotic and import automotive porn I must say. I’d be setting up and then, OH MY GOD look at that widebodied tramampoline nomnomnomnom etc etc and #nekminnit I’m at the other side of the hall drooling over an old school Celica and a tidy AF R32.

They also set me up next to the 1/10 Scale RC drift cars which was awesome. They had their own custom/drift comp and the cars being drifted around the track included a couple of sweet KE70 Corolla wagons, a few Datsun 240z, an RWB Porsche and a beautiful array of modern and classic JDM goodness. They made it look so easy as the drifted around the turns and I honestly thought it was until they let me have a go and… well let’s move on shall we, there’s dioramas to setup…

3 Custom Hot Wheels Diorama Scenes on Show

I already had the massive diorama table with the backdrop which you have all seen used in countless photos here on mch.com and this table was the same one that was brought to the show (minus the backdrop of course). I actually enjoyed the fact that I had to painstakingly remove every tree and every lamp post from the table because OMG you should have seen how much dust was caked all over it! The lights actually work but I didn’t bother rewiring them for the show because, well I couldn’t be arsed quite frankly. But one large table wasn’t going to cut it and so I decided to finally put together one of the Hot Wheels Diorama Kits that I sell on the website (Check them out HERE)
It was actually surprisingly easy to make although I will admit that it was certainly time consuming as there were no shortcuts, not if you wanted clean lines and a great looking building at the end. I took the Bog Boyz Garage and added some Hot Import Nights branding as well as the logo for Hi-Tec Oils, the major sponsor and then pulled out every tool and mechanic figure I could find ready to add to the garage scene.

My Custom Hot Wheels on Display at Hot Import Nights Sydney 2018

I made sure Aussie cars dominated this scene, although you’ll notice it’s an Audi that is having the most trouble LOL

The third and final diorama scene was without doubt the best of them all and was created by me…asking someone else to make it 😀
Months earlier I had been talking with Ruben aka @riskycat_creations as he had kindly offered to make me a diorama of my choosing. I jokingly said that I would love a Randy’s Donut store and parking lot but when he replied saying “yeah no problem” I quickly turned serious and was like “no friggin’ way?!? Can you really?” …and the rest as they say is history. But wait, the story gets (heaps) better!

Ruben was also a big fan of Miss HIN 2017 Melissa Grace and he made a 1:64 figure of her (shown on left) and asked if I could potentially get a photo with her holding and/or playing with herself. …THE TINY VERSION OF HERSELF PEOPLE (sheesh, get your minds out of the gutter :p ) I made sure to pass this request to Dennis (the organiser) and he said that definitely had to happen (what a legend). Of course when Melissa did walk past the Hot Wheels table she was fascinated by the whole thing and so getting a few photos of her appreciating the scale model of herself as well as the Randy’s Donuts and the rest of the custom display was not a problem at all. To be honest it was the least I could do considering the time and effort Risky Cat put into creating it all and getting it to me on time. Thanks again mate, it’s deadset amazing and I just hope some of these pics can do it justice.

The Amazing Randy’s Donut store and parking lot as created by @RiskyCat_Creations

@MyCustomHotwheels, @RiskyCat_Creations & @MelissaGraceX at @HotImportNights.Au

Some of the photos I took of Melissa enjoying the dioramas and the mini version of herself. Oh and sidenote, there’s an excessive amount of @ symbols in the above title.

HIN Dioramas and Custom Hot Wheels Picture Gallery.

That’s all for the 1:64 scale stuff but stick around and let me share with you some of the 1:1 scale goodness on display at Hot Import Nights 2018…

The Life Sized Custom Cars from HIN 2018

Some of anyway

What’s in Store for 2019?

I have been speaking with the event organisers and we are hoping to put together a custom Hot Wheels contest as part of the show. Stay tuned and watch this space as I work with HIN Australia to make this happen!