A recent post over at io9 on sci-fi movie flops mentioned the big screen Speed Racer as one of the all-time money losers in Hollywood history — which, alas, is true — but also kicked off a defense of the 2008 release as, well, not a bad film. One of the things that made the movie shine were the numerous and stunningly original car designs created for the racing scenes.

As part of my creation of Speed Rally (and tracking all of the Hot Wheels released in conjunction with the film), I cataloged every vehicle in the movie — even those that were on the screen for less than 2 seconds. While this might seem excessively geeky, it is also an showcase of the work that went into the creation of the cars by dozens of artists. Due to the frenetic speed of the action, many of these designs flashed by too quickly to be seen, much less appreciated.
Unfortunately, due to the cinematic crater left behind by the Brothers Warner and Wachowski, the film quickly disappeared, the toy line did poorly, and these brilliant designs were buried. (One of the saddest things I saw online was a plea by a graphic designer who had worked on the movie for months, and was seeking a single rare Hot Wheels of the car he had created for Speed Racer — even after all his hard work, the execs at Warner Bros. had stiffed him when it came to getting him a token of his effort.)
Anyway, here is the first of several posts looking at the cars of Speed Racer:
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