It goes without saying that Hot Wheels were part of many of our childhood toy collections. But one Potomac man has proven that the toy cars are not just for kids. Bruce Pascal, a 57-year-old real estate agent and Hot Wheels connoisseur, has a collection worth well over $1 million—the world’s most expensive collection of Hot Wheels.
Pascal’s collection boasts more than 7,000 items, including 3,500 Hot Wheels cars and about the same number of paper items, like original blueprints and ad displays. Hundreds of his Hot Wheels are rare vehicles and prototypes that were never released to the public.
Pascal’s most prized Hot Wheels car is his pink Volkswagen Beach Bomb Rear-Loader bus, which in its current condition he estimates to be valued at $150,000. Only two of its kind were ever produced, making it one of the rarest Hot Wheels in the world.
Pascal began building his impressive collection as a seven-year-old in 1968, the year when Mattel first introduced Hot Wheels. The speedy, brightly-colored toy cars that came with plastic orange tracks and various racing accessories, were an immediate hit among young children across the country.
As a kid, Pascal was drawn into the Hot Wheel craze and quickly amassed a small collection of his own. At only about 70 cents a piece, the affordable fun of Hot Wheels was hard to resist, but Pascal’s interest in the toy cars gradually waned as he reached his teenage years.
However, thirty years later, his childhood passion was reignited when his parents gave him a box of about 40 Hot Wheels they found after cleaning out his old bedroom. Pascal soon decided to become a collector and his Hot Wheels collection has grown ever since.
Over the years, he has scoured the Internet for rare models and reached out to hundreds of former Mattel employees to obtain blueprints and prototypes. Pascal is certainly not alone in his passion for Hot Wheels, as he has found an international community of over 50,000 Hot Wheels collectors who share his same enthusiasm.
While balancing his day job and his passion for Hot Wheels can sometimes be difficult, Pascal always finds time for collecting. His collection was featured on Maryland Public Television’s “Chesapeake Collectables” on February 18. Pascal also recently purchased a 4,000-square-foot warehouse, which he plans to make into a private museum to display his massive collection.
Article by MoCo Student staff writer Anna Chen of Richard Montgomery High School.