Review – Hot Wheels Turbo Turret

Cars with guns are fun! From Mad Max to Megaforce to Car Wars I’ve long enjoyed automotive destruction, and that means the Hot Wheels Turbo Turret was an instant buy for me when I spotted it at Walmart. Amazingly, I was lucky enough to find two versions of the car at the same time, so I bought both . . . and here they are!

Future Fleet

According to southtexasdiecast.com the Hot Wheels Turbo Turret shown above is the newest version of this mold. Future Fleet Turbo Turret, new this year, has fantastically bright orange wheels and tires that automatically make me think of the Jet Threat 3.0 car (review here). That orange windshield’s also a nice touch, contrasting wonderfully with the black body coloring.

Surf Patrol

Back to the southtexasdiecast.com page we find that the above khaki-colored version of the Turbo Turret was the first version released (there’s a third variant, but I don’t have that one). This colorway looks far more militaristic and modern than the Future Fleet — which looks like it should be dropped right into a Car Wars game — and is ranked number two for me when it comes to order of preference of color designs for the car.

Swivel Cannon

The below pic shows both Turbo Turret cars with their weapons swiveled to fire at unseen enemies. The red cannon swings perfectly, just tight enough that it doesn’t flop around but not so tight that swiveling the weapon causes any stress. Not all Hot Wheels cars have moving parts, but when they do it seems to almost always work wonderfully and as designed. The Mattel Hot Wheels team clearly loves their work and puts only their best efforts into designing the toy cars.

Closing Thoughts

My favorite Hot Wheels toy cars are the ones that feature their own styling and are not just based on real world cars, which dropped the Turbo Turret right into the “Phil Must Own This” camp when I finally saw it in stores. If I had to choose only one version it would be the Future Fleet, but at less than $1/each I didn’t have to choose and could happily buy both when I spotted them at the same time in Walmart.

Can any toy line out there beat Hot Wheels when it comes to value and quality for the money? I don’t think so.