This Hot Wheels Car Is Worth More Than the VW Bus That Inspired It
Alex Reale
· 3 min read
There are some iconic
Hot Wheels
toy cars out there. From the Rodger Dodger
to the Funny Cars, the brand has given us best-selling miniature car models for decades.And a couple of them cost much more than you’d expect. It’s only a quarter of an inch tall, but the rear-loading Hot Wheels Pink Beach Bomb is worth even more than the Volkswagen Microbus that inspired it.
Here are more details about the rare toy car, and why it’s so expensive.
The Hot Wheels Pink Beach Bomb
Only two of the Hot Wheels Pink Beach Bomb cars exist. The Pink Beach Bomb is a spectacular magenta, a bold complement to the tiny orange and yellow surfboards that extend from the trunk. But this toy car is way too valuable to race across a mini track in your house.
Bruce Pascal owns one of them. According to
Car and Driver
, Pascal has a 7,000-piece Hot Wheels collection, which was valued at $1.8 million in 2018. Pascal’s crown jewel is the Pink Beach Bomb, which was valued in 2016 at a whopping $150,000.A collector’s gem
This mini VW Bus was built in 1969, and its pink hue tells a familiar marketing story. The company only created a few models for young girls, because they assumed that boys wouldn’t want a pink toy.
These two Beach Bombs, which were the first prototypes, weren’t even offered to the public. The original Pink Beach Bomb would fall over because of weight imbalances caused by the surfboards.
Unique and unavailable are keywords in the world of collectibles, however, so it’s clear why Pascal would want to track down the two rarities to add to his collection. He sold one to a fellow collector and the other remains in his home, in a special box that protects it from weathering. Even tiny cars need a garage.
The real-life Volkswagen Microbus
You’d be hard-pressed to find a real-world VW Bus that’s more valuable than a Ferrari 312P, as is the case with their Hot Wheels counterparts. The $150,000 price tag is pretty steep. Minus Bruce Pascal and his collector pal, we all have to experience the VW Bus at scale.
VW appears to be leveraging the nostalgia and enthusiasm for rare collectibles like the Beach Bomb. In 2023, U.S. customers will see the launch of the ID.Buzz, Volkswagen’s redesigned, electric take on its iconic van.
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