The most popular Hot Wheels vehicle sold is the Corvette

What happened with Hot Ones in the 1980s for Hot Wheels sent them in the path of what they are today. In 1981, Hot Ones wheels were introduced, which had gold-painted hubs, thinner axles for speed, and additional suspension that most production Hot Wheels lacked. Ultra Hots wheels, which looked like the wheels found on a Renault Fuego or a Mazda 626, were introduced in 1984 and had other speed improvements. Hot Wheels started offering models based on 1980s sports and economy cars, like the Pontiac Fiero or Dodge Omni 024. In 1983, A new style of wheel called Real Riders were introduced, which had real rubber tires. Despite the fact that they were very popular, the Real Riders line was short-lived, because of high production costs. In the late 1980s, the Blue Card blister pack was introduced, which would become the basis of Hot Wheels cards still used today.

Two other innovations were introduced briefly in Hot Wheels cars in the 1980s – Thermal Color Change paint, and rotating Crash Panel vehicles. The former were able to change color on exposure to hot or cold water, and there were an initial release of 20 different cars, available as sets of three vehicles. The latter were vehicles with a panel that, on contact, would rotate to reveal a flip side which appeared to be heavily dented. Variations in crash-panels included front, rear and side panels, the last of whose mechanism has proven to be the most durable.

In the 1980s, Hot Wheels had gotten into a controversy with General Motors Chevrolet Motors Division. In 1982, the Chevrolet Corvette had ended the curvaceous Mako Shark body-shape design that had been in production for almost 15 years, and GM announced that the Corvette would be redesigned. In 1983, Chevrolet did not produce the Corvette, but Hot Wheels saw what the Corvette was going to look like and they designed a die cast version of the 1984 Corvette. GM was angered and almost pulled its licensing with Mattel, but this controversy helped Corvette buffs see what the new Corvette was going to look like.

In conjunction with Epyx Software, Mattel released a computer game edition of Hot Wheels for various 8-bit platforms in 1985, as part of the Computer Activity Toys series.