Lionel Racing has officially reopened pre-orders for NASCAR die-cast, thanks to a 90-day pause in tariffs between the United States and China. However, this pause will still see a slight hike in prices for Lionel’s NASCAR die-cast.
Pre-orders are back 🥲
➡️ https://t.co/8gGkJjxwn4 pic.twitter.com/1ObjgHisnR— Lionel Racing (@Lionel_Racing) May 13, 2025
The company previously announced that they were putting pre-orders on hold on Apr. 28, stating they will be in effect “until the current tariff situation settles down.” However, prior to this announcement, Lionel had not offered a pre-order since Apr. 6, when they offered Denny Hamlin’s Race Win Throwback from Darlington.
Monday, the Trump administration announced a 90-day reduction in tariffs placed on Chinese imports, dropping the rate from 145% to 30%. The company announced that pre-orders had reopened on Tuesday Morning on X, offering pre-orders for Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson’s Kansas race wins.
While this is a reduction, prices will still increase on die-cast produced by Lionel. For example, a 1:64 scale die-cast, which once cost $10.99, now retails for $11.75 under 30% tariffs, while a 1:24 Elite Race Win, once $125, now costs $135.
During the pause, Lionel Racing posted a long list of notable race win die-casts and paint schemes that would be available for pre-order once they reopened. At press time, these die-casts, including Denny Hamlin’s Martinsville race win and Chase Elliott’s NAPA Gold paint scheme, were still not available for pre-order on the Lionel website.
Lionel initially announced tariff-related price hikes on Mar. 27, which was originally going to see a 5% “Tariff Surcharge” added to each item purchased. This quickly changed with the frequent changes in tariff rates, resulting in a pause in pre-orders.
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