Hot Wheels obsessive forced to sell models to pay for cancer treatment builds extension to park 13,000-strong collection

A Hot Wheels obsessive, who built a house extension to park his 13,000 toy cars worth more than 65,000 US dollars (£52,000), has said the hobby means more to him than money, after selling some of his extraordinary collection to pay for cancer treatment.

Steve Mason, 69, from Columbus, Ohio, in the US, began collecting model cars in 1960 after his grandmother, Elsie Mason, bought him a Matchbox VW Beetle for 49 cents.

Collecting the miniature vehicles soon became an obsession for Steve, creating race tracks up to 50 feet long which sprawled out on to his driveway and, in 2015, his collection grew so large he was forced to extend his home with a 16ft by 24ft toy room.

The extension is filled from top to bottom with diecast models, a name given to the many different brands of toy car, including Hot Wheels, Johnny Lightning and Matchbox, but Steve said his wife Doris was “happy to have her living room and spare room back” thanks to the building work.

Steve, whose two sons Jeremy and Sean also collected Hot Wheels, said the lifelong collection has pulled him through “confusing, depressing times” – and sales of some of his cars helped pay for his treatment for bladder and kidney cancer in 2006.

“It’s an amazing hobby which has helped pull me through some dark, scary, confusing, depressing times,” Steve said.

“I’m not sure what will happen to my collection in the future, but I just want people to know how much enjoyment there is in a hobby such as this.

“Not only for the dollar value, but for the sheer fun and enjoyment of collecting and keeping your youth alive somehow.

“I just wanted to play with cars and so I took what money I had left saved up and built a room on the side of my garage.”

Steve’s grandmother started buying him toy cars when he was five, some of which would later help pay for his house and medical bills.

He said: “She kept buying me more and more for being a good boy, or at Christmas and on my birthday, until I accumulated five full cases of them.

“Then a new series came out called Models of Yesteryear and she bought me another two cases of those.”

Steve’s interest in toy cars dwindled during his teenage years and his grandmother died in 1975, although he continued buying them here and there when he stumbled upon a “cool one”.

It was 20 years later, while helping his grandfather move house after he decided to get remarried, that Steve rediscovered his Matchbox collection in bin bags under the basement staircase.

Steve said: “I noticed a trash bag sticking out from under the bottom step, but didn’t want to crawl in there because of the bugs and spiders.

“But I worked up the courage and found my old Matchbox car collection.

“I was just ecstatic, it was like winning the lottery.”

The discovery rekindled Steve’s childhood passion and he began looking for more Hot Wheels as well as other diecast brands.

“My house became the neighbourhood hang out for little boys who loved to come down and race their cars on my tracks,” he said.

“We would have races all weekend long and just have a ball.

“I kept extending the track and the next thing you know, the thing was almost 50 feet long, running out of my garage and down my driveway.”

He continued to grow his collection over time, but was diagnosed with bladder and kidney cancer in 2006, resulting in him having a kidney removed and forcing him to scale back his home remodelling business as a result of high treatment costs.

“I went through a living hell for quite a while,” Steve said.

“They would operate on me and then say ‘You can’t work for three months – but pay us’.

“The medical bills were adding up pretty quickly and I wasn’t covered for some of the medication,” he said.

With no other option, Steve was forced to sell his dream home as well as some of his most valuable Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.

“It was a really tough process because I didn’t want to sell my cars, especially those older ones,” he said.

“I was forced to sell my home and move into a smaller one.”

Moving to a smaller place, Steve quickly realised that he did not have enough space to store his collection, which had grown to about 13,000 cars, and so decided to build a toy room on the side of his garage.

Steve said: “I had cars all over the house, even on the walls in the bathroom.

“My wife was happy to have her living room and spare room back, let’s put it that way.”

While Doris does not share Steve’s diecast obsession, she has always been supportive of his hobby, even helping him to grow his collection on occasion.

“We’d be out shopping and I would come running up to her with a handful of cars and say ‘honey can I?’ and she’d be like ‘yeah…’.” Steve said.

“She’s even come home sometimes with a handful of Hot Wheels for me.”

The value of Steve’s collection has increased over time, especially the original Matchbox collection bought by his grandmother in the 1960s.

He said: “Some of those vintage cars are now worth between 200 to 300 dollars in mint condition.

“I recently had my collection insured and the value was estimated at more than 65,000 dollars.”

One of the most expensive Hot Wheels cars is a small Volkswagen bus with surfboards sticking out of its back known as The Beach Bomb, which is reportedly worth about 150,000 dollars.