Father and son’s 14-year car build wins Hot Wheels event at Birmingham's NEC

"It’s amazing to win the Hot Wheels Legends Tour UK. Built together with my son Ethan, it’s part of our family and we’ll never sell it. We’ve both been huge Hot Wheels fans since we were kids. I just can’t believe it,” says Paul Foster. “Representing the UK at the next round of the competition is so exciting. Thank you to everyone for the support.”

Paul Foster’s 1982 BMW E21 3-Series combines aggressive Group 2 styling with bespoke engineering in a true life-size Hot Wheels car. The 345/35/15 rear tyres, fibreglass wide-arch kit, alloy diffuser and deep front splitter give it a muscular stance, while the race livery featuring violet, red and blue accents, is a nod to 80s and 90s BMW touring cars. An original Group 5 rear wing, now with a carbon blade, adds downforce and drama in equal measure, whilst under the bonnet sits a 420 bhp 5.0 litre Rover V8 with twin Jenvey throttle bodies. Other performance features include flame spitting side pipes, Getrag gearbox and Quaife LSD whilst GAZ coilovers and uprated Willwood brakes ensure it handles as well as its looks.

Historic race cars, JDM drifters, time attack competition cars and off-road conversions were all considered as Hot Wheels whittled a diverse array of more than 200 of the UK’s finest custom car projects down to a shortlist of seven. Two of these, the Jaguar Mark VII and BMW 3 Series, were fast-tracked to the final, whilst the Volkswagen Polo faced four other contenders in the Legends Tour’s biggest UK fan vote yet, receiving 37,006 votes. For the third time, the UK final was open to the public, taking place at the UK's largest modified and supercar show; SlammedUK’s Gravity Show at the Birmingham NEC.

Paul’s BMW will now head to the European final, one of a number of virtual regional competitions, the others being the Middle East, Latin America and the United States. At each regional final, one vehicle will be selected to compete at the Global Grand Finale where the winner will be inducted into the Hot Wheels Garage of Legends™ – a collection of the brand’s most iconic and historic vehicles and transformed into a 1:64 scale die-cast, and available to buy around the world.