Building KiloWeen

KiloWheelz is a die-cast car club. Members buy limited runs of 1:64 cars, and each new car gets its own release page on the club’s site. I build those pages.

For Halloween, KiloWheelz teamed up with MiQ WillmOtt on a three-car series called Black on Black. MiQ is a designer and illustrator who has spent years drawing for the die-cast and toy world. The first car is a 1965 Volkswagen T1 Panel Van, limited to 1,250 numbered pieces, and it went on sale today at noon Eastern for Founding Members only.

Black paint, black artwork

MiQ wanted this series to look different from the loud cars he usually draws. In the note he wrote for the page, he says his first question to KiloWheelz was this:

“Can I do it differently, can I take a step back from punching eyeballs?”

MiQ WillmOtt

His answer was to paint the graphics black on black. From across the room the van looks plain black. Up close there’s a whole Halloween scene on it, with pumpkins, a raven, spiderwebs and the KiloWeen name. That looks great on a shelf, but a normal product photo flattens all of it into a dark shape.

So the page gives you a lantern

The lantern section starts with the van almost black. A circle of light drifts over it on its own, and wherever the light lands you see the artwork about twice as big. On a computer the light follows your mouse. On a phone you tap where you want to look.

Here’s the same thing working on the photo above. Move your mouse over the van, or tap it.

It’s a small amount of code. The circle of light is one element that uses the same photo as its background, scaled up and shifted so it lines up with the spot under it. When your mouse leaves the photo, the light goes back to drifting, so the section never sits still.

Founders see one page, everyone else sees another

This first release was only for Founding Members, the people who joined the club early. Everyone gets the same link, so the page checks who’s logged in. Founders see the release page, with a countdown to noon, the cart and checkout right there on the page, and a limit of one van each.

Every other member sees a different page at the same address. It explains what a Founding Member is, tells them the regular version with orange wheels opens to all members on October 12, and has a short form for anyone who thinks they should be on the founders list. If the page can’t confirm that someone is a founder, they get this version, so nobody can buy one by mistake.

Letting MiQ tell it

MiQ wrote a full note about why he wanted to make this series, and I didn’t want to boil it down to a blurb. The page shows a few lines from it next to his portrait, and a button opens the whole note. Here’s the line he ends it on:

“I now have a diecast car that I worked on in my collection that I would happily drive down any road on any given day.”

MiQ WillmOtt

Two nights and a surprise

KiloWeen comes out on two nights. The purple-wheel Founding Member version went out today, and an orange-wheel version opens to every member on October 12. A section on the page lays out both nights next to the KiloWeen poster, so people know which version they’re looking at.

Some boxes in the run also hold a chase car called the Smoke Show, and nobody knows which ones. On the page it sits behind a cloud of smoke with a question mark over it, and you have to click to see it.

The van has opening side doors and a rear engine hatch with the flat-four inside, and it ships in an acrylic case in mid-October. The club and its members-only pages are at kilowheelz.com.