Review - Hot Wheels Total Turbo Takeover track set

The Hot Wheels Turbo Takeover track set is part of the Hot Wheels Track Builder System which includes a variety of sets and individual pieces of track. The pieces can all be combined together, allowing children to design, create and customise their very own track challenges. The Turbo Takeover set includes two loops, a pull back button to start the car off and a battery powered booster to speed the car around the second loop. It also has a plastic piece that flips up into the air when a car hits it and a slope with 'rocks' that fall down one at a time when the car passes underneath.

The set was pretty easy to put together, and Harry (5) can easily manage to build and customise it. The set includes instructions for a couple of different layouts, and it can also be combined with other sets from the same range. We don't have any of the other sets but I've seen some of them at friend's houses and I can imagine that you could build some pretty spectacular layouts with all the pieces that are available!

The Turbo Takeover system is pretty good as a standalone set though. The battery powered booster takes 2 D batteries (not included) and it really does fire the cars along. The pull back initial launcher has three different settings and the booster has two speeds, so you can try out different combinations to see what works best. The pieces of track are smooth and flexible and feel sturdy.

We did find that the set didn't work with many of Harry's cars, and even Hot Wheels branded ones wouldn't always stay on the track. As the set only comes with one car, it would be nice if there were a couple more included. He didn't seem to be bothered though, especially as you only need one car at a time to use it. I liked that the set was easy to dismantle and doesn't take up too much space to store.

The fun with this set for Harry was more in the designing and building of the track rather than the actual running of cars around it. He also liked playing with it just pushing his cars around it, not using the booster pieces.

He enjoys watching Hot Wheels videos on YouTube, and he had fun making his own video of the set. In this short video Harry demonstrates the set and shows a car being fired around the basic track layout:

We received this set to review.