Mario Kart Cars Made From Boxes

Making the cars for our Mario Kart Halloween costumes was the most intimidating part of the costumes for me.  I thought they were going to be really complicated to make. Thankfully, I was totally wrong! These Mario Kart cars made from boxes were incredibly easy to make and would be perfect for any Mario Kart themed Halloween costume.

Box Mario Kart Cars

To make your own Mario Kart cars out of boxes, you will need:

• Cardboard boxes that are large enough to stand in. Ours were a combination of Amazon boxes that we had and Home Depot moving boxes.
• Cardboard scissors. You definitely need scissors but the cardboard scissors are optional. I highly recommend them if you are making more than one car. They saved my hands from hurting and cut cardboard like butter!
• Spray paint. The colors you will use will depend on what character you are recreating. Each car has white for the sides yellow for the insides of the tires, and black for the tires. There are two other colors that each character will have as well. One color goes on the front of the car and the other goes on the side. Do a quick internet search to see what your character’s car looks like to know what other colors you need.
• Hot glue and hot glue gun
• Silhoutte Cameo (use the code GLAM for the best deal!)
• Mario Kart car emblems. I was able to do an internet search for each of the emblems I needed and was able to find them from various graphics sellers, like this Etsy shop.
• Permanent adhesive vinyl in the colors you need for each emblem you are creating. Use the code girlglam for 10% off.
• Ribbon that matches the top of the costume you are wearing.
• Painter’s tape

How to Make Mario Kart Cars

First, you are going to measure how tall you want the base of the car to be. Ours are about 5-6 inches. You are going to cut three of the 4 sides of the box off, leaving just those 5 inches of the base around the box and then one full side of the box.

Next, cut off the bottom of the box so that you will be able to put your legs through it. The next step is deciding how far up the front of the car needs to be. You will be folding it back at about a 45 degree angle, so bend back the front and decide if you want to trim down the top of it or not. I ended up cutting off about 2-4 inches from each of ours, to give us plenty of room inside the cars.

Assembling Mario Karts out of Boxes

Find something round that you can trace onto your other cardboard that you cut off. These will be used for the tires and the insides of the tires. I had three different sizes that I cut out. The back tires are larger than the front tires, so I traced two different sizes for the tires and then I got another circle that was small enough to fit in both of them that I cut out for the rims. There will be 8 circles total that you will need to cut out for each car.

Next, you’ll fold over the front of the car to where you will want it to be. Take another piece of cardboard and line it up to where that is and trace the angle you will want. Cut out the piece of cardboard so that it will be able to sit inside of the bottom and line up with the angle of the front of your car.

Painting Mario Kart Cars

Start by painting the sides of the car. These are typically more vibrant colors, so by starting with the sides, you are able to not worry about getting any over spray onto where your white side stripes will be on the front of the car. Ignore the fact that the front of the car is already painted in this photo. I took it after I had painted both sections!

Next, tape off where you want the white stripes to be on the front of the car and spray paint them white. Once the white paint has dried, lightly tape over the white and paint the middle section the color that you will want it to be for your character.

Paint all of your side angle pieces white, the tires black, and the tire rims yellow.

Assembling a Cardboard Mario Kart Car

Cut out the words, Mario Kart out of vinyl and round them slightly with the Silhouette Studio software. You will want two of them for each of the tires. Apply it onto all of the black tires.

Once the words have been applied, glue the yellow rims to the center of all of the tires, using hot glue.

To apply the side supports onto the cars, glue it to the inside of the side of the car. Put more glue on the top of the piece and press down the top of the car on it, holding it there until the glue dries. To make it even stronger, go along the sides of the spot where the side support and the top meet and add more glue while holding it there until the glue is able to dry.

Cut out each of the emblems or the front, using the adhesive vinyl. Each each of my cars were different sizes, so the emblems all had to be different sizes as well. Measure each car to know what size you will need your emblems to be.

Glue the tires to the side of the cars, using hot glue. Put the larger tires on the back and the smaller tires on the front.

For the straps, have the person who will be wearing the car hold it up to where they want it and measure how long you want the straps to be. Glue the ribbon under the front of the car and have it crisscross in the back and glue it to the back of the car. This allows the person wearing it to wear them like suspenders.

Mario Kart Car Costumes

If you want to take them to the next level, you can add balloons to the back. Mario Kart battles are our favorites so we felt like this was the perfect addition for carts, but it is totally optional! We just tied a bunch of balloons to the backs of our cars and they worked nicely!

I hope this helps guide you so that you can make Mario Kart cars of your own! I think these would be perfect for a Mario Kart themed birthday party too!

If you missed our Mario Kart Halloween costumes and Mario Kart treat bag, don’t forget to check them out as well!