Car Lamley Group: First Look: Hot Wheels Then & Now '71 Mustang Boss 351 and Custom '12 Ford Mustang...

A new subseries for Hot Wheels this year, started with a bang. We all slowly noticed that two Camaros, a '71 and 2010 SS, had eerily similar decos ("eerily" makes this tale more dramatic. Alright, we saw they looked the same out of the gate). We soon saw that Hot Wheels was doing the Then & Now series, and we all grew excited about the possibilities. There are all kinds of HW models that could be used.

Then it vanished. We went several batches without any Then & Now models. But it is back with a vengeance, with a Challenger set in yellow, a Charger set in red, and this fantastic Mustang set.

The models chosen are interesting selections. The '71 Boss 351 started as a Mach 1 in the Garage Series

, then became a Boss in the basic range. Because of a lack of time, we will talk about that change when the feature the casting on its own.

The '12 Custom Mustang also has its roots outside of the basic range, having debuted in the High Speed Wheels line

. Once again, we will feature both in a future article. But we have featured the earlier version before here on Lamley.

So here they are, in all their basic glory, and looking fantastic. The '71 is on par with its previous basic counterpart, but the Custom '12 really outshines its debut version. It looks fantastic in blue with a Lamley favorite, the HW 10sp wheels. And in blue, the low stance and extensive detail on the mold really come out. It is a fantastic model, and surely one of the many highlights from the 2013 mainline.

So once again, we ogle over the endless possibilities of the Then & Now subseries. Hopefully we see it in 2014, with even more fantastic pairings.

Any high on your want list?

(Find these Mustangs and the rest of HW 2013 Batch L at Wheel Collectors