10000 Free Cars and some Real Hot Wheels

Volvo gives away ten thousand free cars while Ford offers up the latest Mustang for a buck.

The Deals just keep on coming

With the economy in a tailspin, LotPro.com has come up with some unbelievable car deals. The only problem – you can’t drive any of them.

Volvo Cars gives away 10,000 vehicles

In collaboration with noted Swedish toy manufacturer Viking Toys Ltd, Volvo Car Thailand announced that it would be giving away over 10,000 model cars of the Volvo XC90, XC70 and C30 to underprivileged pre-school Thai children through a partnership with both governmental and non-governmental organizations in Thailand. Called the “My First Volvo” project, the program was, according to Paul Stokes, president of Volvo Car (Thailand), “an obvious route to turn a commercial decision into a way to give a little something back to the youngest members of our society, particularly those from a less affluent background who need every ray of sunshine and every chance to smile.”

Hot Mustang from Mattel

Ford’s latest Mustang model will be the most affordable and, unfortunately, also the smallest. As the latest ‘stang to be immortalized as a Hot Wheels® model, the 2010 model will be, like the others, 1/64 the size of the original. Weighing less than a pound, the two vehicles do share some similarities.

The same digital data that Ford’s designers use to create the original car is used by Hot Wheels designers to model the toy version. According to Alec Tam, director of design for Hot Wheels (whose background is in car design), “We share Ford’s CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data, but we reinterpret it into a format that works for us because there is a lot of extraneous information that we don’t necessarily need for a 1/64 model — like a headlight lens or a door handle or a trim piece.”

Modifications are made for safety (no outside side mirrors or sharp edges) as well as for performance. According to Tam, “The real full-size vehicle wasn’t designed to work on our tiny little orange track. I don’t think Ford planned for the car to go through a loop,” (ya think?). “We have to adjust certain things on the car so that it will perform well on the track.”

While certain things, such as the mirrors, are eliminated in the name of safety, other design features, such as door handles and the nose, are actually larger so the new version can easily be differentiated from the older model. Once a resin model is created and final approval is given, the tooling process begins so that engineers car create the interior, windshield and chassis. Once the production prototype is approved by Ford, the vehicle is sent to production.

This year, a limited number of vehicles was given out at the Ford stand at the L.A. Auto show, while the production version should be at retailers today.

Tags: c30, Ford, hot wheels, la auto show, mustang, Volvo, xc70, xc90