Hot Wheels Is Taking the Fight to Lego With New Mattel ‘Brick Shop’ Car Toys

Watch out, Lego. The Mattel Brick Shop has arrived. In a collab with its Hot Wheels brand, the all-new non-diecast product portfolio debuts with seven building sets that feature not just plastic pieces but also real metal parts.

Lego and Mattel have enjoyed each other’s company in the toy space for decades. The former was founded in 1932, the latter in 1945. But you wouldn’t ever call the two companies direct competitors. Lego started off making wooden toys before evolving into its current role as king of interlocking plastic bricks. Mattel, on the other hand, makes everything from dolls, cards, cars, and novelty toys like the Magic 8 Ball. 

In the realm of cars, the toy giants are keenly separated by material: Lego is plastic, Mattel is metal. Well, Mattel now wants to do both. 

Available to pre-order and arriving in stores this summer, the new Brick Shop offers three lineups, or series, of car build sets. All fall under the Hot Wheels banner; each set includes a 1:64-scale die-cast of the same model.

The Hot Wheels Premium Series is the top trim. The first vehicle offered in the series is a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. The 1:12-scale Gullwing kit has 1,600 pieces, including functional doors, metal bits, licensed decals, and spare parts for added customization. The $119.99 kit comes with an assortment of stickers and two sets of metal wheel covers. The accompanying die-cast comes with its own display case, too.

The mid-tier Hot Wheels Elite Series is priced at $49.99 and includes about half the number of pieces found in a Premium Series set. Three vehicles are available in this series: a Corvette Grand Sport, a 1990 Acura NSX, and a Custom 1962 Chevrolet Pickup. The Vette set has 918 pieces, the NSX has 876, and the truck comes with 858. All are 1:16 scale models and include extra parts, brand-name metal wheels (think Rays and American Racing), and functional features. No display case for the matching die-cast, though.

Priced at $19.99, the Hot Wheels Speed Series is a 1:32-scale build kit that pretty much offers the same features as the other series but with much fewer pieces (i.e., 200-ish). Don’t worry, they’ll still have working doors and other authentic car details. The entry-level sets include a Maserati MC20, a custom 1962 Chevy Camaro, and a Cadillac GTP Hypercar. 

Mattel notes that pieces from the Brick Shop builds are interchangeable and can also be combined with “other name brands.” It’s an interesting, if not obvious, mention considering the bricks are likely built to a certain spec. If you want to merge a Lego Speed Champions build with something from the Mattel Brick Shop, let your scale-model SEMA Show dreams come true.

Mattel did its homework with this new project. The pricing is fair, and the available Hot Wheels sets are interesting and varied. Also, the Brick Shop launch sets don’t seem to overlap with anything Lego currently offers. Lego has a number of Mercedes-Benz cars, but none of the Gullwing. Lego does have Camaros, but they’re race cars, and a non-racing Camaro Z28 of its Icons line is currently listed as a “hard to find” out-of-stock set. 

The Mattel Brick Shop will steal some consumer dollars from Lego, but it’ll probably be more of a blip. After all, there are only seven Mattel options versus the 89 Lego car toys and sets currently listed. But Mattel can pull ideas from real cars or its own in-house universe for future kits. 

Lego also can’t match the uniqueness of implementing metal pieces, but the brand has plenty of collabs of its own, like Formula 1 and NASA. Lego might not have anything to worry about just yet, but I’m sure the team isn’t ignoring Mattel’s brick kit efforts, either. From a consumer standpoint, though, it’s just another avenue to lose my money. In a good way.

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