If you thought the stash of 30k model cars was insane, then you should take a look at this. Bruce Pascal estimates his collection to only number in the thousands (3,500), but that it’s worth over a million dollars! He owns many rare prototype cars and there’s even a VW bus that’s worth over six figures! Bruce wants to change the stigma behind diecast collecting. No one laughs when you say that you collect artwork or automobiles, but that’s not always the case when they find out you have hundreds of Hot Wheels at home.
Check out the video above to see some of Bruce’s most prized possessions. It’s worth a look even if you are among those people who think toy car collecting is juvenile. Heck, this might even make you change your mind…
Source: Road & Track
Pretty cool. Gave my old hot wheels to my little girl. They are all over 40 years old but they are beat to hell so I’d rather her enjoy them. Now my boxed American Grafitti set sits on my desk though!!!
That is cool, I wish I still had mine from the 60s but they were lost to fire when our house burnt down when I was 16. They were in the attic along with all my HO cars, comic books and everything else I had. 35 years later my son turned 16 and my wife decided to throw his away because there was no grandsons to pass them to just girls. Well I had to go dumpster diving to save them I was pissed. Well they are now hidden in the garage and i will see that he gets them back when he has kids.
This happened to me too, except by the time I discovered they were gone, it was too late to recover them. I lost mainly Tekno, Dinky and Corgy Toys, and had many of them, as well as accessories, like an Esso fuel station with pumps and posing figures, English telephone booth, road cones, etc.
how bout them cubs!
We have a big cardboard box full of my youngest son’s Hot Wheels from the 80’s in our attic. Told him to take them numerous times but their still up there and he has 2 son’s to pass them down to. OH and yes they were played with and played hard.
In the graphic above, I see a lot of hot wheels that I have. There was a five pack in the 80s with the yellow Bugatti, red or black Mercedes, blue rolls Royce, white talbot logo…
I received two of them.
I probably have about 100 hot wheels from The 80s and early 90s, and about 150 in packages from the late 90s.
I really liked this little video tidbit. Learned some things I never knew,and could see the passion in the man’s face. Isn’t that sort of why most of us are into the classic collector car hobby? It does bring out the kid in you. And I know I wouldn’t mind going back to my youth and be a kid again,even for just a short amount of time. Well done!
The best part of my childhood was blowing my weekly $2 allowance on 2 new HotWheels or Matchbox cars. My mom could drop my brother and I off in that part of the store and come back and we hadn’t move D a muscle. Just looking at new cars. Good memories.
I didn’t realize that hot wheels and hammers was a common thing but it is true.
When I was about 10 years old in the late 70’s I had a good friend that had tons of hot wheels to play with and one night my two brothers and I invited my friend to bring his cars and some track over for the evening and we would with the cars. We played to the point where we had the track going from a coach to the floor and across the basement. At some point we thought it would be fun to take the worst cars and soot them down the track and one of would see if we could hit it with a hammer. At some point my friend had to go home but he said he would leave the cars so my brothers and I could continue to play with them. Guess what we did the next day.
My brothers and I had to go shopping with our mother to but my friend all brand new hot wheels cars. Basically we had to fill his old suitcase that he used to carry the cars it.
We continued playing alright there wasn’t one car left that wasn’t flattened by us little bs. To this day that still bothers me what we did to those perfectly good hot wheels and how my friend felt when he found out. Good thing our friendship survived that but it makes you think about the things you will do for a short period of fun.
That’s what makes the ORIGINALS so valuable – we PLAYED with them. Now we COLLECT THEM in the blistercards, never to see the light of day. I buy them with the intention of opening each one and rolling across something. Desk, table, etc. I have thousands of them myself, mostly in a storage space (grrr). Nothing particularly old or valuable.
But they are so easy to buy. What’s a buck? Or 6? For a few well chosen cars.
I have 4 on my desk now. 2 BMW 3.0 CS; a BMW 2002, and a demo derby wagon. Just moved to new office and will probably bring more in. Office mate has probably 100 in a display case he made plus a stash in his desk drawer as well. Love the Hotwheels and Matchbox cars. I love all the toy cars.
I bought my son a full set of 2000 First Editions (birthyear) and recently gave them to him. He thought it was cool. All those were unopened.
Photo is my “barn find” 57 GMC truck. I detail painted it and am very happy with it.
Who made the die-cast metal cars with the hard skinny rubber tires? That’s what I used to have as a kid (until my Mom sold the entire collections for five bucks at a yard sale). I’m pretty sure they pre-dated Hot Wheels.
Matchbox by Lesney and tootsie toy come to mind.
The Original Dinky Toys.
Oh and Corgi.
Aurora. They were called Cigar Box cars and used the bodies from Aurora Thunderjet 500 HO scale slot cars.
I still have my Matchbox cars from the early 60’s on, some of my Hot Wheels cars (including the special edition Chrome Camaro, Sizzlers, Sizzlers Charging Station, along with lots of track and accessories), my Aurora HO and AFX cars, and even a couple of Cigar box cars still in the box. What can I say other than I was a pack rat.
We had a ton of fun playing with all of these cars growing up!
Neat video! Educational too. When Hot Wheels first debuted, my weekly Saturday allowance of $1 and change and trip to K-mart provided I had gotten my homework and chores done during the week. Decisions decisions! Still have the ones I bought new back in the day with a grandson to pass them on to.
If he can’t create a Hot Wheels museum no one can.
I still have lots of my old hot wheels and match box cars plus totes and totes of cars from the 90’s till now .I have slowed down quite a bit ,I only but the ones I reallly like now.Lately I have been buying vintage match box from the 60’s /70’S .When my boys were born I filled a shoe box with cars from the year they were born and put them away ,Did the same for my nephew last year ,Just got a brand new niece a couple of days ago And I’m already lookin for a shoe.box. Its crazy I just cant stop……Lol
I still have my Lindsey/Matchbox collection from my dad. they are in cases but not individual boxes, yes I played with them.
Still not worth that much money but they were much better made and detailed than Hot Wheels which I also had tons more of.
Hot Wheels were made to move and came with tracks and playsets. Big difference between what the functionality of these were created to do.
I still have some of my Shell Redlines from the late 60’s. Back then when you filled up with Shell they gave you a Hot Wheels coupon. After you saved up enough, you could turn them in for a Hot Wheel. When it was time for my parents to fill up the car, Shell was the station I lobbied for.
Back in the late 50’s early 60’s we did not have the Hot Wheels but I do recall we had the matchbox cars, my 6th grade teacher had her desk lined with these cars and she would buy and bring in a new MB car or truck and she did a show and tell on these from time to time. I still have my larger scale all metal Hubley cars from the early 60’s, got these at Christmas time from Mom, she knew then how much I liked the cars. I have a big lot of the early Hot Wheels I have picked up over the last several years at yard sales, flea mkt. etc. Not sure the value or what I really have in the lot, need to research some day. I like the collection shown here, very nice!
Is there a way to get in touch with Bruce, I’d like to talk to him about a few things Hot Wheels related, I don’t have as many as he has, but I might have just shy of a thousand HW myself. If anyone has any contact info on Bruce, please contact me.
This will garner some thumbs down, but I never had 1 Hot Wheels car. We were into HO slot cars at the time and Hot Wheels seemed kind of lame. I mean, HO slot cars were real race cars, that you could drive and tweak to beat your buddy, it was great fun. Spent away many an hour doing that.
Hey, I raced our HO slot cars, too! lots of fun. Now my Grandkids have some hot wheels, but just got a pretty nice slot car track, too… so the fun lives on.
I still have my HO slot cars in the travel case I used when I went to race at friends houses. We set up some pretty amazing tracks growing up.
I told my nephew he couldn’t have my Matchbox cars. I was saving them for my boys, he said, suppose you don’t have boys. He was wrong, four boys and two girls. Tough cars and trucks, still around, but showing lots of wear and tear. Now saving them for the grandkids.
Original owner 1968 Charger….I didn’t like the Cuda color so I bought this blue Charger. It runs the small wheels on front I took off the “InstaT”….ended up with some buddies as well as they let them go….cost me a little more but I think I have a good one or two out of them….
Great memories. I recall the Aurora HO cars had “optional” drag slicks availabe. Also, if memory serves, you could buy liquid traction enhancer to get those high performance tires to bite on the hard plastic track.
I’m a Matchbox regular wheels collector. I still have a bunch from when I was a kid (late 60’s) and have acquired many of the same except they are all pretty much mint in box. I have a few of the kingsize matchbox too. Charger, Cougar and also kept my hot wheels including my first which was a purple Barracuda, favs are the Spoilers – still have a bunch Cougar and Boss Mustang are favs.
I wish my mom hadn’t pitched my sets of hockey cards from the late 60’s early 70’s, but a did keep a few hundred doubles from those years.
Currently I have about 8,000 hot wheels, matchbox and pocket cars. I sold about 2,500 about a year ago to downsize. But I still keep buying more. I can’t help it!
I used Match Box cars for my HO train set, no hot wheels around then. Always kept the boxes and put them away when the layout was taken down after Xmas. Favorite piece was the gas station. It came in a large match box! Still have to this day along with the grey wheel Match Box cars!
too cool. this is the art work in my office at a car company. yes i am a car nut.
Having been a vintage toy dealer in the Washington, DC area for many years, I’ve come to know Bruce as well as his parents; Paul & Brenda, all of them really fine people. What you probably don’t know is Bruce’s parents have an incredible private antique toy and Americana collection/museum here in Maryland.