Tuesday, January 5, 2021

The Diablo

 Pressing on in the celebration of the bull! We skip a couple models, the Silhouette and the Jalpa to bring us to the next Hot Wheels…The Diablo. First, let’s get an overview of the real car. Introduced in 1990 and remained in production into 2001, the menacing sounding Diablo was a model of the times. The 1990s saw a slight rebirth of muscle as manufacturers pushed little bits at a time. Where the Countach was edgy and made a bold statement, the Diablo reverted back to the more rounded shapes of its predecessors. The Diablo was a rounded edge wedge with minimal lines that took some styling cues from the Countach and added a few rounded bits. There were several versions of the Diablo including a GTR racing version, and the re-introduction of the SVJ back into the lineup. The diablo featured a V12 rear mounted and normally aspirated. It was a popular sports car for its time and gave us a vision of where the brand might be heading.

Lamborghini Diablo

The Diablo is a must for the evolution of Lamborghini but is possibly the worst casting for the Hot Wheels line-up of Lamborghinis. The Diablo was introduced in 1991 and ran until its final run version in 2003. Oddly enough, the final run version is the nicest version of them all. The lines of this casting are there, the fold out lights are cast into the bodylines, the taillight is close but not close enough when compared to the earlier Countach release. From a side view, the Diablo casting does not mimic the real car at all. Several of the releases featured wild decals and most had plastic wings that never matched the body color. The final run featured a black accented spoiler that looks great, it should have been the standard even though the real cars spoiler usually matched the body color.


In general, the Diablo casting just didn’t hit the standards of other castings of that era which may be why the Diablo is very easy to find and is always below market value. If the Diablo casting was still around today, it would be a peg warmer. To end this post on an upbeat moment, if you are a Lamborghini collector, the Diablo is easy to locate and there are a couple releases that will be a nice addition to that collection. The Diablo is also pretty good on the tracks so you can still do well racing them.

Thank you,

Collector Quentin

I own the actual diecast pictured in this post. However, all packaging artwork, Mattel or Hot Wheels logos, paint descriptions and wheel descriptions in regard to the Hot Wheels versions are copyrights of the Mattel toy company.

 

 Lamborghini and model names are property of Audi AG, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group.

 

https://hotwheelscollectors.mattel.com/

https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/models 

https://hotwheels.fandom.com/wiki/Hot_Wheels 

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