For a Brief Shining Moment You Could Take an Uber Ride in a Hellcat MOPAR Based on a Toy Car Based on a Character in the New Star Wars Movie

This is a bit like a Tinker to Evans to Chance double play, but as part of a promotion for the upcoming “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” movie from Lucasfilm, folks in New York City on Friday were able to order up a free Uber ride in one of eight Dodge Chargers trimmed in Star Wars Stormtrooper white and black livery, with a few Hot Wheels stickers for good measure.

The cars, including SRT and Hellcat versions, were loaned to Uber and Mattel by FCA. The cross promotion involved four different companies: Lucasfilm, Uber, Mattel and FCA, and it was timed to coincide with “Force Friday”, a synchronized introduction of the licensed toys tied to the film, which opens just before Christmas.

Technically speaking, since the ridesharing vehicles are also meant to promote the licensed Force Awakens toys from Mattel, the Chargers are not actually based on Stormtrooper characters in the movie. They’re based on a toy car based on the movie soldiers. The producers are also licensing Mattel to make HOT WHEELS® STAR WARS™ Character Cars, Hot Wheels cars ostensibly based on characters in the movie.

I’m not quite sure if the Character Cars represent what those characters would drive, if they drove cars, or if the Character Cars represent what those characters would be if they were cars. Perhaps the latter if you consider how many licensed toys have been sold of the anthropomorphic autos and trucks in Pixar’s Cars.

In the past, Mattel has licensed car companies to make full sized Hot Wheels cars, limited edition production cars with Hot Wheels trim that can be bought from dealers. However, like many Hot Wheels cars, the HOT WHEELS® STAR WARS™ Character Cars are flights of fancy, not obviously related to any actual cars, so I’m pretty sure that those eight Stormtrooper Chargers, with their white paint, and black rims, will be all the full size HOT WHEELS® STAR WARS™ Stormtrooper™ Character Cars there will be.

A spokesperson for FCA said the Stormtrooper Chargers were a “one time promotion”, separate from the promotional agreement announced last month between the automaker and Lucasfilm. That “partnership” was described as “an expansive, historic promotional campaign” for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, but so far no details of the promotion have been released.

There’s also been no word on what Chrysler plans on doing with the Stormtrooper Chargers after the promotion ends, but my guess is that someone with both MOPAR and Star Wars collections would pay a pretty Galactic Standard Credit to get a Stormtrooper Hellcat.

Photos: Chrysler and Mattel