Polestar and Hot Wheels collaborate for 2024 design contest

Polestar is joining forces with Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand for its 2024 design contest. 

This year’s contest brief invites designers to surprise the judges with submissions propelled by the imagination of their youth. 

Weaving Polestar’s design DNA into their vision of the ultimate Hot Wheels collectible promises the most extreme edition yet of the Polestar design contest.

The winning design is planned to become part of the Hot Wheels offering, available for purchase across the world, as the first Hot Wheels x Polestar vehicle to be produced as part of a wider partnership with Polestar production models.

Entrants are encouraged to be as imaginative as possible and push the boundaries of the performance and design of the vehicle in their final submission. The only requirement is that Mattel should be able to translate the final design into a 1:64 Hot Wheels die-cast vehicle, and visuals showing the vehicle’s interior design and immediate surroundings should be included as part of their submission.

“Dreams have the power to inspire and transport us beyond what we thought possible. This is a chance for all participating designers to push that Polestar envelope and let their imagination run riot,” Polestar head designer Maximilian Missoni says.

Entrants shortlisted ahead of final selection – by both Polestar and Hot Wheels design professionals – will be coached one-on-one by Polestar’s design team to refine their submitted designs towards final selection.

Launched in 2020, the Polestar Design Contest challenges aspiring professionals and students, to create exciting visions in line with the Polestar brand and design. Since the first contest, the competition has highlighted top talent around the world, with many of the students going on to work for the Polestar Design team or in the wider professional design industry.

“Both Polestar and Hot Wheels dedicate time, energy and skill to ensure design is at the core of our vehicles,” Mattel global head of vehicle design Ted Wu says. 

“The Hot Wheels design team has always challenged the conventional approach and the Polestar Design Contest allows the design community to showcase their skills and wow us with something we have never seen before, and we cannot wait to see the submissions,” he says.

Since its start, the Polestar Design Contest has featured a variety of vehicles and cutting-edge concepts and draws entries from students and professional designers across the globe. The designs have included a car that tackles local pollution with on-board and externally visible air filters, an electric-and-helium airship, prosthetic springboard blades to aid walking, and KOJA, the micro-space tree house by Finnish designer Kristian Talvitie that was brought to life in full scale at the Fiskars Art & Design Biennale in Finland.

 In 2023, Polestar debuted the Synergy concept car, winner of that contest’s Performance theme, during the IAA in Munich, followed by Mattel’s Hot Wheels Legends Tour stop in El Segundo, California. The single-seat electric supercar is as much a story of collaboration as it is design, with two exterior and one interior design winners selected from over 600 initial entries, who then spent six months working together with the Polestar Design team to turn three distinct dreams into one cohesive reality.

“I believe this year’s Hot Wheels collaboration will push the design community to work outside of their traditional comfort zones by balancing the minimalist Polestar brand essence with the extreme Hot Wheels aesthetic. But while we’re expecting some of the most extreme submissions yet, we don’t expect to be any less inspired by the quality, quantity and diversity of entries we receive,” Polestar interior design manager Juan Pablo Bernal says.

Bernal was the founder of the Polestar Design Contest and is the curator of the @polestardesigncommunity Instagram page.

The competition opens for entries on March 5, 2024, and the submission deadline is April 16, 2024. Polestar expects to reveal the winner of the contest in Q4 2024.