Mustang Dark Horse: Finally Some Modern Muscle In The Hot Wheels Lineup

It’s about time we saw some proper modern muscle in the Hot Wheels lineup.  It used to be common for every new muscle car facelift or generation to get not only a new casting, but a whole rainbow of recolors.  In recent years, the number of modern-era muscle cars in the Hot Wheels lineup has declined as the JDM and Euro cars have taken over the lineup.  What precious few muscle cars do enter the lineup are too often ruined by unrealistic decos, like the Challenger Demon and Shelby GT500.  I love a GT-R or a Mercedes 500E as much as anyone, but I’m stoked to see a brand new muscle car enter the lineup! 

Not only is this Dark Horse a cool new casting, it also wears a stock deco (with unusually good printing accuracy by Hot Wheels standards).  Unfortunately, when the Hot Wheels gods giveth, they also taketh away, and my model has a wheel error on the card-side of the casting, and a base that’s barely attached. 

This casting is impressively well executed, looking almost Matchbox-like in its proportions.  The wheels that are not errors fit nicely in the wheel arches and Camaro-like hip line on the quarter panel is nicely modeled.  The Dark Horse looks low and aggressive, while still having the visual heft you would expect from a muscle car.

I particularly appreciate the heat extractor in the hood, which is actually a piece of black plastic, a technique not often found on new Hot Wheels models, especially in the mainline.  The graphics on the front end look great, especially the headlights, which really pop against the black printing.  In fact, the only thing that’s bothering me about this casting is the shape of the grille.  Only the rectangular center section shows through to the honeycomb mesh, when the actual grille is supposed to be trapezoidal, with intakes to either side of that rectangle.  The black printing does an effective enough job of disguising it, but if this casting ever gets released without the black graphics at the front, it will look completely wrong. 

It’s hard to find fault with the rear end design of this car though, as it looks absolutely fantastic.  The brake lights are perfectly printed (a rarity on Hot Wheels Mustangs) and have a 3-dimensional look that I much prefer to the flat brake light printing of the Matchbox Mustangs. The rear wing is appropriately enormous, the exhaust tips are well modeled, and it even gets a proper rear license plate!  It’s a greatest hits list of all the things I love on a great diecast model, and it’s great to see it on a $1 mainline.  

This really is a standout model, with printed detailing on 3 sides, perfect proportions, and a factory deco.  Last year, I called the Audi RS e-tron GT the perfect mainline, and I would shower this model in the same high praise.  So many mainlines lately have felt compromised in some way by their price point, but this Dark Horse is exactly what I want a mainline to be – a perfect little model of a very cool car for a very affordable price.  It seems other collectors agree, because this model has been unbelievably difficult to find in stores.  It’s worth the effort of tracking one down though…this is as good as it gets.