'Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge' NBC Review: Stream It Or Skip It?

May 20, 2023

In each episode of Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, two Hot Wheels "superfans" take an ordinary car, one that has meaning to their lives, and transform them into life-sized Hot Wheels cars. The winner of each round gets $25,000 and a "Golden Key" to the finals. The winner of the finals gets another $50,000 and their design is made into a die-cast Hot Wheels car that will be sold to the public.

Opening Shot: We see the set of Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, and host Rutledge Wood say "Buckle up for the ride of your life!"

The Gist: Helping Wood judge the cars are two experts: Dalal Elsheikh, a Hot Wheels brand ambassador and designer for Ford, and Hertrech Eugene, Jr., a big car culture influencer who is well-known in the drift scene. There will also be guest judges, including Jay Leno, Anthony Anderson and Joel McHale. This week's guest judge is the always-enthusiastic Terry Crews. The cars will be judged on creativity, if they use the eye-popping colors and features common in Hot Wheels cars, execution and if the cars do the fun stuff the superfans promise they’ll do.

The contestants have one week to design and modify the cars, with the help of three experts called "The Car Pool," who will bring their ideas into reality. Also, in the last part of the week, the massive Inspirationator 5000, a vending machine that spits out a Hot Wheels model; the fabricators will have to include elements of that model into their designs.

The first two superfans are Jadejha, a cybersecurity engineer who takes an ’09 Camaro — the car her aunt used to pick her up in when she brought Jadejha to stay with her — and transform it into the Cyber Slicker. Jim, a custom van outfitter transforms a ’69 Dodge Charger, like the one he restored with his dad into Power Charged. Jadejha wants the Camaro to be wide, low to the ground, and futuristic looking. Jim wants one thing: He wants the Charger to be able to pop a wheelie, which requires the engine be moved to the trunk and a huge wheelie bar welded onto the rear of the car.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge has the same feel as competition shows like Lego Masters or Domino Masters. Lots of lights, lots of hyper host banter, etc.

Our Take: Listen, we could craptalk about every shortcoming we found while watching the first episode of Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge. The 42-minute episodes don't really show just how much work the superfans and the "Car Pool" put in to make the mods necessary to turn these cars into the life-sized Hot Wheels that they turn out to be. Rutledge and the judges have to wear the same clothes in the studio for seven straight days, even though they tell us the build takes a week. During the last minutes, we see the usual montage of people hurrying to finish, which makes no sense since they had (checks above again) an entire week to get those little things done.

But, hell, the show is just fun, pure and simple. We’ve all played with Hot Wheels (and Matchbox, if your family was so inclined) and have always pretended that those cars existed in real life. Yes, you likely had a few sedans where the most fun feature was the fact that the doors opened and closed. But you loved the hot rod with the engine sticking out of the hood that "rumbled" as the car skittered across your floor or on the looping track you set up, or the food truck with the massive fin on the back so it can be "aerodynamic". You made the noises, you crashed them into each other, and you loved every second of it.

That's the vibe that this show gives off; it's purely adults making cars like they played with when they were kids. Sure, there's some sentiment behind these builds; a reality competition always needs a sentimental story to help keep viewers tuned in. But we were just excited to see Jim's car do that wheelie, or Jadejah's car light up in neon green.

Are those cars roadworthy? Probably not. And we have no idea what they do with the cars at the end of the episode; let's hope they put them in Mattel's headquarters or something instead of trashing them. The budget for this contest is a monster, given the fact that they have to buy these used cars — some of which are vintage and likely not cheap — and then have all the material on hand for the fabricators to make them into the final results. But those thoughts melt away as soon as the finished cars roll onto the set.

Sex and Skin: None. We watched this with our 8-year-old daughter and she enjoyed every second of it; she even broke out her Hot Wheels case and elevated looping track while the show was on.

Parting Shot: The winner is declared and is the first one added to the list of six finalists.

Sleeper Star: The members of the "Car Pool" teams — Chris Lee, Charlie Seward, Pa'trice Frazier, Rachel Bohnet, Paul Bacon and Tony Bush Jr. — are insanely talented, and great at problem solving. Examples are the hydraulics on Jim's car and the way that the gaps in the body panels were filled on Jadejha's car.

Most Pilot-y Line: We love Terry Crews, but did they have to import the "Crews Control" button from America's Got Talent?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge is just plain fun TV, and that's exactly what you want to watch over the summer.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn't kid himself: he's a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.