Great Scott! It’s now 40 years since since Back to the Future first hit theaters and turned the DeLorean DMC12 into a sci-fi icon.
“The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?” says Christopher Lloyd’s mad scientist Doctor Emmett Brown in the 1985 blockbuster. Now Hot Wheels is launching a commemorative set that includes both the DeLorean and Doc Brown’s grimy GMC Step Van.
In the movie, after hatching a plan to use a lightning strike to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity needed to send Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) back to 1985, Brown reveals a scale model of Hill Valley. “Please excuse the crudity of this model. I didn’t have time to build it to scale or paint it,” he says.
Hot Wheels needs no such excuses as the 1:64 scale models are detailed replicas of the film vehicles. The van comes complete with “Dr E. Brown Enterprises 24 hr Scientific Services” signwriting and a filthy windshield. The DeLorean, meanwhile, has all the complex exhausts and pipework for its Flux Capacitor power unit, as well as an “OUTATIME” license plate.
The van includes a working ramp so you can store the DMC12 inside, but you won’t want to. Remove the set from its outer box and you’ll find a mini diorama of the Twin Pines Mall parking lot where Marty hits 88 mph trying to escape the Libyans whose plutonium Brown pinched, triggering the time circuits of the DeLorean and sending him back to 1955.
The Hot Wheels Back to the Future 40th Anniversary Set will be released on July 24 and priced at $32. If you think you might be a little too old for toys then, as Marty McFly says, “Your kids are gonna love it.”