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Hot Wheels loses Ferrari diecast contract to Chinese company

If you're anything like this writer, chances are you've got a diecast model or two kicking around the house. And if one of those models replicates a Ferrari, chances are it's made by Hot Wheels. The Mattel brand secured an exclusive contract from the Maranello automaker in the late 1990s, but the latest word from Hemmings has it that Ferrari has ended its partnership with Hot Wheels and awarded it instead to the May Cheong Group. Unless you're an avid diecast collector, you may not have heard of May Cheong, but you may have heard of its brands Maisto and Bburago. Both brands are longtime players in the model car market, but it's the Bburago part of the deal that's particularly interesting. Founded in Italy, Bburago made a name for itself largely due to the scale Ferrari models it made back in the day. But when the Prancing Horse marque awarded the exclusive contract to Mattel, and with increasing competition from the Far East, Bburago collapsed. May Cheong swept in and scooped it up, and now the Italian model brand, along with its onetime rival Maisto, will be producing diecast Ferraris once again. Whether Bburago will use any of its old tooling to resume production of Ferrari scale models or start from scratch with all-new equipment remains to be seen, as does the matter of whether either it or Maisto will be able to produce the same quality of models as Hot Wheels has with some of its higher-end offerings. Like most collectors, this writer's looking forward to finding out. Looks like it's time to buy another display case.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO for sale in Germany at $64 million

Prices keep climbing for the Ferrari 250 GTO with virtually no end in sight. In 1969 one sold for just $2,500, but by the 1980s they were trading for hundreds of thousands, then millions, then tens of millions to the point that the last last year, one was reported to have changed hands at $52 million. But now there's a GTO for sale in Germany that could eclipse even that gargantuan price tag.
Ferrari made 39 examples of the 250 GTO between 1962 and 1962, and the item listing on mobile.de doesn't give much in the way of specifics as to which exactly we're looking at. But last we checked, there were only two GTOs in Germany, and the other one was silver. That leaves chassis number 3809GT, which was delivered new in '62 to Switzerland and participated in numerous endurance races and hillclimb events throughout the early 60s. 3809GT has been owned until now by one Hartmut Ibing, who bought it in 1976 when values were in the tens of thousands, not tens of millions. Given how his asset has appreciated so dramatically, and with less than 10,000 miles on the odometers over 52 years, we could understand how Ibing would want to cash out.
Of course we could be mistaken and we could be looking at an entirely different example - the vast majority were, after all, painted red and fitted with blue upholstery just like this one - but either way, we're looking at a price tag of 47.6 million euros. That's nearly $64 million at today's rates, inclusive of Germany's 19 percent VAT rate that adds a staggering $10 million in taxes to the pre-tax price of 40 million euros, which comes in under $54 million but would still be the most ever paid for a GTO (or really, just about any car ever made).

Hennessey twin-turbo Ferrari 458 boasts 738 hp, 0-60 in 2.8 seconds

Hennessey Performance Engineering, hot off the heels of its Bugatti Veyron-crushing Venom GT, set its sights on modifying one of the finer Ferrari models. The resulting HPE700 Twin Turbo 458 is a badder, faster 458 Italia with a twin-turbo upgrade that adds 168 horsepower to the already potent 4.5-liter V8. That's 738 hp, which, paired with the extra 134 pound-feet of torque, for a total of 532 lb-ft, is good for a 2.8-second 0-60 run.
Low-inertia ball-bearing turbochargers are used to boost the power, and an air-to-water intercooler makes sure the air surging into the combustion chambers is as cool and dense as possible. Twin wastegates and blow-off valves relieve extra boost pressure and, in addition to a new stainless-steel exhaust system, add some new noises to the 458's soundtrack. The V8 is boosted to a relatively mild 7 psi maximum and maintains 6 psi on its way up to redline. A reflash of the engine control unit brings the package together. HPE is confident enough about its wares that the $59,995 upgrade also comes with a one-year/12,000-mile warranty.
The HPE700 Twin Turbo 458 is set to be unveiled on Friday at the Concorso Italiano located at the Laguna Seca Golf Ranch, which is part of California's Monterey Car Week festivities. It also can be viewed on Saturday in the paddock at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the Monterey Historics Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion vintage car races. Check out the press release below for the full details, as well as a video of the Ferrari in action.