Polestar plays with Hot Wheels in miniature cars

Polestar launches its 2024 design competition in collaboration with Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand.

The Chinese-Swedish manufacturer relies on one of the best-selling toys in the world for its communication. This year’s competition invites designers to surprise and excite the judges with proposals inspired by the imagination of their youth.

The winning design should become part of Hot Wheels’ range, available for purchase worldwide. It will be the first Hot Wheels x Polestar vehicle produced as part of a broader partnership with the brand.

Madeleine de Proust x Polestar

Participants are encouraged to be as imaginative as possible and to push the limits of performance and design in their final submissions. The only requirement is that Mattel must be able to translate the design into a 1:64 scale Hot Wheels die-cast vehicle. Visuals showing the vehicle interior and its immediate surroundings must be included in their project.

Participants will be shortlisted before the final selection by professional designers from Polestar and Hot Wheels. They will receive individual coaching to refine their submitted concepts for the final evaluation.

Imagination Prize

Since its inception, the Polestar Design Contest has showcased a wide variety of vehicles and concepts. It attracts entries from students as well as professional designers worldwide. Among the winners are a pollution-fighting car equipped with visible air filters, an electric helium-filled airship, prosthetic blades to assist walking for disabled people, and KOJA, a treehouse brought to life on a large scale during Finland’s renowned Fiskars Art & Design Biennale.

In 2023, Polestar launched the Synergy concept car, which won the Performance theme of this contest, at the IAA in Munich. It was showcased at Mattel’s Hot Wheels Legends Tour in El Segundo, California. The single-seater electric supercar is as much a story of collaboration as of design, with a trio of winners consisting of two outdoor designers and one interior designer. They were selected from over 600 entries and spent six months working with the Polestar Design team. Their three visions came together into a coherent reality.

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