Hot Wheels has been partnered with NASA for more than 30 years, and this week came out with its first new, space-themed mini collection over two decades. The mini carmaker is helping NASA kick off another historic year of space exploration firsts with the release of the new Mars Perseverance Rover die-cast vehicle.
The product is a detailed 1:64 scale replica model inspired by NASA’s real Mars Perseverance Rover, which is expected to make its much anticipated landing on Mars Feb. 18.
The Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover pays homage to the cutting-edge instruments and technologies that will help pave the way for human missions to Mars, studying critical data about Mars’ geology and climate and eventually sending Martian samples back to Earth.
“Just as Hot Wheels stands for the Challenger Spirit in all of us with its vision of ‘Challenge Accepted,’ the Mars Perseverance Rover embodies the NASA—and scientific—spirit of overcoming all challenges,” said Mattel in a statement. ” The NASA team hopes to inspire the entire world and future explorers to forge new paths and make discoveries on which the next generation can build.”
The Hot Wheels collaboration began in the mid-1980s, and was bolstered in 1996 with the first joint project with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which builds the various spacecraft, landers and rovers. The first JPL project was a scale model Sojourner Mars Rover, followed by action packs for the Apollo Mission, the Galileo Mission, astronaut John Glenn, and the return to Mars in 1999.
Mattel says the space-themed mini collections have returned in 2021 “due to the increased interest from kids and the general public regarding Space Exploration.”