Custom Hot Wheels '69 Dodge Charger Is a Tiny Work of Art

I'll have to break the "curse" someday soon, as I'm starting to feel ashamed. I guess this is a result of not having a family car when I was growing up. My dad never liked cars and thought I should focus on other ways to earn a living. Still, it's never too late to learn. I'm fascinated by custom diecast cars, and it's likely the easy way to start working with my hands.

Plenty of modified Hot Wheels items will appear on eBay and other platforms. But most of the time, it's just cars that lost their mainline wheels in favor of some Real Riders ones. It's the easy way out, but some people still think it's enough to raise the price from $2 to $30 or more. In today's video, you will witness another Tolle Garage kind of transformation.

The last time I checked in with the artist, he had completed a Wide Body Camaro ZL1. Since that moment, he refurbished a Honda S2000, finalized a Matchbox Optimus Prime project, and custom-painted a Hot Wheels Dodge Challenger. His latest challenge is one of my favorite muscle car castings: the '69 Dodge Charger 500.

You shouldn't mistake it for the '69 Dodge Charger, which had an opening hood for many years (but Mattel took care of that, sadly). This Phil Rielhman-designed casting has been around since 2015, and the iteration inside this video was part of the 2022 Muscle Mania mini-series. Taking it to eBay, you'll see several custom models, but upgrading the wheel setup and paint job isn't always the way to go.

What the man behind Tolle Garage does takes time and skills, and it's a pleasure to see him working. I can't imagine how cool it must be to drive a car with a blower sticking out through the hood. And it's great to see that's where this tiny project is going. Of course, wheel fitment is crucial, and Hot Wheels collectibles are rarely perfect at that.

It feels like working on the wide-body kit is the most difficult thing to achieve here. Once you see the new color, you can't help but think that a Fast & Furious vibe is going on. But the final result looks so much better than Toretto's car. I don't think the artist plans on selling this, and even if he does, the price may seem enormous to most people (Jakarta Diecast Project usually sells these for over $500 apiece). So, if you're not keen on spending a small fortune on it, you might as well start customizing your models.