This past summer, you may have read about the Hot Wheels Legends Tour stopping at major cities across America and even in some cities in far-off lands bound by different constitutions. That tour has ended, and now Hot Wheels has announced the 2022 Legends winner: a 1992 Autozam Scrum owned by Craig Meanx of Beaumont, Texas.
While you furrow your brow and scratch your head, lemme explain: Autozam was a Mazda-owned brand in operation from 1989 to 1998 that specialized in kei-class cars, which are microcars indigenous to Japanese streets though sold elsewhere as well. The Scrum was a kei forward-control microvan and pickup that you likely have seen in online images, if not at JDM shows. Though a modern iteration is currently sold by Mazda today, both that and the Autozam versions have been badge-engineered Suzuki Every and Carry models.
Craig was crowned winner of the 2022 Hot Wheels Legends Tour during the fifth-annual Global Grand Finale held virtually at Jay Leno’s Garage on November 12th. Nicknamed “Texas Toot,” the custom Autozam will be commemorated as a 1:64 die-cast Hot Wheel as well as inducted into the Hot Wheels Garage of Legends.
“I wasn’t expecting to win, so this is a dream come true,” says Craig with pride. “I wanted to create something that no one else had. I didn’t have previous experience with this sort of fabrication, so it’s awesome that it came out the way it did and to have everybody enjoy the truck.”
The stock kei car was imported from Japan in 2020, upon which Craig did his thing to make what you see here a reality. Texas Toot features fabricated a five-foot hydraulic lift, Chevrolet 454 big-block, TH400 transmission, 12-inch drop reverse rotation FTI transfer case, 250 shot nitrous kit, train horns and massive custom welded 30 x15-inch wheels. All this was done in Craig’s garage.
“The competition was strong in 2022, but turning a Japanese mini truck into a monster truck was hard to beat,” says Mattel’s Vice President of Global Head of Design for Vehicles, Ted Wu. “As the first truck to be crowned since the inception of the Hot Wheels Legends Tour, we hope Craig’s passion project inspires builders and fans from around the world to set big goals and follow their dreams. I cannot wait to see what this super-sized mini truck looks like in 1:64-scale.”
The Global Grand Finale featured ten finalists, including “Misfit,” a 1963 Ford Anglia that won the Hot Wheels Legends Tour UK. Build by Michael Charalambous, it features a home-built chassis and supercharged BMW 3-series E30 drivetrain. Misfit was the only European finalist among the ten.
