Most people grow up dreaming about owning the real version of their favorite Hot Wheels car. Matt Gabe went the opposite direction. He already had the real car, a 1967.5 Datsun 2000 Roadster, and got it shrunk down to 1:64 scale.
Gabe works for Mattel, Hot Wheels’ parent company. He bought the Datsun back in 2013 because he wanted a “fun, old convertible” that also “stood out in the Mattel parking lot.” That second part isn’t hard when you’re driving a 57-year-old Japanese roadster that most people have never heard of.
The 1967.5 model sits in a narrow production window between March and November of 1967. It paired the incoming 2.0-liter engine, good for 135 horsepower, with the outgoing low-profile windshield and flat dashboard. A transitional car in every sense, built during the brief overlap when Datsun was updating the Roadster line that would eventually be eclipsed by the Z-cars.
The miniature version happened because Gabe was invited as guest of honor to the 2024 Hot Wheels Collector Convention. That title comes with a perk: you get to choose a car to be produced for the event. Hot Wheels already had a Datsun Roadster casting in its standard lineup, so the bones were there.
Gabe pushed for an upgrade to collector-grade quality, with rubber tires and an all-metal chassis and body. The production run was capped at 4,000 units.
“I was able to convince the team to create the parts that would put it at that higher level,” Gabe said. “I designed the toy car using my car as the general inspiration (similar paint color, wheel style, and badging), but added the racing numbers to make it feel a little more Hot Wheels.”
Then the real car got modified to match the toy. Vinyl racing graphics were applied, and a hardtop was added to mirror the Hot Wheels version. The original soft top still exists but isn’t installed. The Datsun also wears front lowering springs and 14-inch Panasport wheels, both faithfully replicated on the diecast.
Both versions are now for sale on Cars & Bids. The 1:1 and the 1:64, sold together. At last check, the high bid sat at $5,000, which is modest for a running, driving piece of Datsun history that also happens to come with its own collectible toy alter ego.
The Datsun Roadster has always lived in the shadow of its more famous successor. The 240Z arrived in 1969 and rewired American perceptions of Japanese sports cars overnight. The Roadster never got that moment.
It was a proper little sports car, a genuine alternative to British roadsters of the era, but it remained a niche choice even when new. Gabe’s car captures something about the relationship between real cars and the toys that represent them. For most collectors, the diecast is aspirational, a stand-in for the machine they can’t have.
Here, the toy was born from ownership, not desire. And now someone else gets to buy both at once, the dream and the object that inspired it, sitting side by side in the same auction listing with bidding still open.
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