Bruce Pascal, an avid Hot Wheels collector, was only 7 years old when these car toys hit the market in 1968.
“It’s hard to explain the craze today, but Hot Wheels was huge. All of my friends were saving up to buy all the Hot Wheels they could,” Pascal told Volkswagen in a recent interview.
After a childhood full of racing his hot wheels, Pascal stored them away in a cigar box at his mother’s house. But his love for classic cars continued into adulthood and 30 years later, in 1999, he came across this dust-covered cigar box.
“That excited feeling I had as a boy was rekindled instantly,” said Pascal. “My friend offered to pay me $200 for the cigar box. I declined and held onto them, but it was his offer that made me start researching the value of Hot Wheels and pursuing collections as an adult.”
Eager to grow his rediscovered collection, Pascal reached out to other Hot Wheels collectors and took out ads in a newspaper. He even got his hands on a 1969 Mattel employee telephone book and called former workers to see if they wanted to sell any of their rare cars.
“He collected everything he could, including Hot Wheels memorabilia like blueprints, original drawings, sales brochures and wood models,” Volkswagen said in its announcement.
His collection started to grow by the thousands, but he had his heart set on obtaining a very special and rare Hot Wheels – a pink Volkswagen Beach Bomb prototype.
“When Volkswagen and Hot Wheels first collaborated to make the model, it had a narrow body and surfboards hanging out of the back window. It was unable to stay upright when it rolled, so Hot Wheels redesigned the model, making the sides more weighted and moving the surfboards to the sides of the vehicle.
“These redesigned models made it to production and were sold with a sticker sheet of flowers to decorate the vehicle, epitomizing the 1970s ‘flower power’ era,” said Volkswagen.
The original Beach Bomb prototypes were extremely rare to find since only employees had access to them.
“I already had heard about (the Beach Bomb) in purple, green, red, light blue and gold. I even heard about an unpainted model,” said Pascal. “But pink was extremely hard to find. Most Hot Wheels models were marketed to young boys, who the brand assumed didn’t want to play with pink.”
Only two of these pink Beach Bomb prototypes are known to exist, which only made Pascal’s desire to have one even stronger. He tracked down the owners, made his offers, and acquired both pink Beach Bombs.
Pascal sold one of the models to another collector but kept the one in the best condition for himself.
“I won’t say how much I purchased it for,” said Pascal, “but it is worth an estimated $150,000 today.”
You’ll find Pascal’s pink Volkswagen Beach Bomb, his most prized possession, displayed in a dark, Plexiglass case in his Hot Wheels museum in Maryland.
“I want other people to experience the Beach Bomb. I’ve found so much joy in learning about classic cars and Hot Wheels, and I hope I can spark some of that in other people. It’s a treasure to find these rare models,” Pascal said.
So cool! I’d love to get a hold of some of the old rare models from when I was a kid.
It’s always the things we don’t think to hold onto as kids that become valuable. I held on to my baseball card collection, but didn’t even see the hot wheels as becoming monetarily valuable one day. In the future, it’ll probably be old cell phone models worth money. Lol
Better hold on to our old flip phones :). I wish I took better care of my toys as a kid haha.
Good story. Any chance the town the museum is in could also be mentioned. Covid is currently limiting a lot of travel, eventually visiting such a place could be fun.
I,m trying to find the most expencive hot wheels cars ive wanted to find cars and my sport.So hope i will be able to get the car.
Just seen this guy on Pawn Stars trying to sell that rare one of a kind hot wheels. Rick offered him 70 Grand.
Smh.