There’s a new contender for the 2021 Hot Wheels Legend Tour! The DUB stop of the highly anticipated virtual tour was on May 20th, as judges voted on who would be contending for such Legendary status. Hosted by Jarod DeAnda and Collete Davis (who was also a judge), DUB’s co-founder Myles Kovacs was on the judging panel, which also consisted of Kevin Geraldez, Ralph Benitez from Hot Wheels, and Alex Vega from Miami’s The Auto Firm.
There were 10 unique customs picked out of hundreds of entries battling out to be the winner of the DUB stop, but only one would reign supreme and go off to battle winners from previous and future tour stops. The judges based their decision on three things: Authenticity, Creativity, and Garage Spirit. While the entries were all pretty badass and worthy of being immortalized as a die-cast, it was the 2020 Lulu that all the judges loved and crowned the winner. Built by 70-year-old Paul Kalenian, it was loosely based on Mickey Thompson’s 1963 Harvey Aluminum race car, the first mid-rear engine Indy race car.
According to Kalenian, he had a picture of Mickey in his Indy car as a kid and always wanted his own, so he finally went at it, building one himself. LuLu is a lightweight heliarc welded, all-aluminum monocoque/ bulkhead design chassis with a GM LTG 2.0L DOHC Turbo Four / transaxle crate motor structurally mounted in a mid-rear engine position.
Lulu has all independent coilover suspension on fully adjustable QA1 shocks and springs, maintaining low unsprung weight with light Wilwood scalloped rotors, and 4-piston calipers. The lightweight rear suspension is mounted with bell cranks to a horizontal structural cross member. She took a total of seven months to build and is a fully street-legal ride. Kalenian is currently working on LuLu 2!
