It's been six years since Playground Games and Microsoft Studios (now Xbox Game Studios) released the fourth iteration of the Forza Horizon racing game. In this industry, six years is a lifetime, and almost always translates into a new iteration being released (Forza Horizon 5 launched in 2021), but if a game is truly special, it will be remembered by fans. I personally remember it for something called the Hot Wheels Legends Car Pack.
Introduced in Forza Horizon 4 at the beginning of 2021, the pack came with six cars, based on the six custom vehicles that were made for the Hot Wheels Legends Tour, the competition that gives real-life cars the chance of becoming 1:64 scale diecast toys.
The six special vehicles the game got as a result of this pack's launch were the 1949 Ford F-5 Dually hot rod, the 1969 International-Harvester Loadstar, the 1972 Chevrolet LUV, the 2 Jet Z (winner of the 2018 Legends Tour), the 1957 Nash Metropolitan (2019 winner), and the 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk Dream Roadster.
It's this latter build, the Golden Hawk, that's of interest to us today, because it just surfaced as being for sale during an auction held by specialist Mecum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at the end of July.
This particular build is perhaps the most impressive of the entire Hot Wheels Legends Car Pack bunch for several reasons. Off the top of my head, the first would be the fact it wasn't made in a hurry for the Legends Tour, but required no less than 17 years to come together in this amazing form.
Work on the vehicle ended in 2019, and once that happened the car went on to win several awards, including first in class at the Detroit Autorama (twice, in 2019 and 2020), the Personal Choice award at the Darryl Starbird National Rod & Custom car show (2020), and judge's pick at the Eyes on Design Concours d'Elegance in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan, in 2021.
Photo: Mecum
As if all that is not enough, you should know the custom build is not simply a modified vehicle, but one that borrows elements from a long list of other cars. A very, very long list.
The vehicle started out as a Studebaker Golden Hawk, which was originally produced in 1957. The work performed on it is so extensive and so Frankenstein in nature that you'll probably have a very difficult time identifying it as a luxury two-door hardtop from decades ago.
The body of the car sits on top of the modified chassis looking entirely different from the base Golden Hawk. Not only were entirely new body panels in entirely new shapes used, but they were also sourced from a variety of production vehicles, just like it happened with pretty much everything else on this ride.
The project kept some of the original Studebaker elements, including the cowl, windshield, and door frames. The door skins, however, and the nose section, have been sourced from a 1960 Pontiac.
The hood that ties the windshield to the nose comes from a 1959 Ford Thunderbird, while the sheet metal at the opposite end comes from a 1963 Chevrolet Corvair.
Several other cars, but also a motorcycle, contributed something to the creation of the special Golden Hawk. A 1967 Oldsmobile Toronado donated the right-side headlight, the side mirrors were taken off a 1965 Shelby Mustang, and a 1988 Audi sent over the rear deck sunroof.
Photo: Mecum
The lights are not native to the car, with the ones at the rear sourced from a older Lincoln Continental, and the ones at the front coming from a… Harley-Davidson, of all things.
I'll move on to the parts that are not visible and tell you the Golden Hawk is propped on independent suspension components sourced from a Chevrolet Corvette at the front and from an undisclosed Jaguar at the rear.
The connection to the ground is made with the help of Weld Evo wheels, wearing Nitto tires that have been gifted with gold stripes to match the House of Kolor Sunrise Pearl paint pulled over the bodywork.
The exposed interior of the car shows black leather all around and cloth used here and there. There are Corbeau fixed-back bucket seats in place, a center console to separate them, and a Nardi steering wheel sitting in front of the driver. The dashboard is where the original (but refurbished) Studebaker instrumentation can be found.
The vehicle is powered not by the original engine, but by a Ford V8 with a displacement of 4.6-liters. It runs a Holley Street Demon carburetor and an Edelbrock intake manifold. We're not told the power levels for the unit, but we do know they are handled through a 3-speed automatic transmission and scream out of a side exhaust system.
As far as we can tell this is the first time this exciting vehicle is going under the hammer. We have no idea how much the owner expects to fetch for it, and it's impossible for us to give you a starting point on that, given the uniqueness of the project.
We will of course keep an eye on the auction to learn for how much the car goes, and report back once we know more.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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