Audio By Carbonatix

In 1999, Bruce Pascal’s mom called him. She told him she was cleaning out the house, including his old room. He needed to go over and decide what to keep or toss. Bruce brought a friend with him. As they dug through his childhood, they found a box of his old Hot Wheels toy cars. His buddy offered Bruce $200 for the set.

Bruce politely declined the offer. Instead, the Washington, D.C.-based commercial real estate professional did a bit of research…and felt an irresistible pull to the Hot Wheels collecting world.

Quickly, the Maryland man was all in. He even looked into the history of the Hot Wheels brand and Googled former employees. Once he found them, he reached out asking if they had anything leftover from their days at the company. From there, he landed blueprints, original retail displays, marketing materials, and thousands of Hot Wheels collectibles.

Eventually, Bruce and his wife, Amy, found their home literally crawling with toy cars. They agreed to move his growing collection into its own space: a 4,000-square-foot office-slash-warehouse.

Ultimately, Bruce obtained what’s known as one of the rarest Hot Wheels prototypes: the 1969 VW Beach Bomb Rear Loader in “Pink.”

It has a custom box with two brightly colored plastic surfboards to, you know…load through the back of it.

There are only two known to exist. Bruce says he owned both at one time but sold the other because it wasn’t as pristine as the prototype he retains today.

The pink Beach Bomb is worth at least $150,000.

Today, on his website, Hot Wheels Online, Bruce says he’s still buying toys. He claims to offer up to $1 million for vintage cars and memorabilia produced between 1968 and 1978. Specifically, he looks for rare “red lines,” which have a red line on the tire sidewalls.