Rare Hot Wheels, Matchbox car: What they're worth now

The world’s favorite toy cars, Hot Wheels and Matchbox, are celebrating anniversaries this year: Hot Wheels just turned 50 years old, while Matchbox cars are 65.

It turns out some of them would have been a better investment than most collectible real cars.

The champion — now and probably forever — is a toy Hot Wheels never even sold because design problems derailed it. A pink 1969 rear-loading VW Microbus Beach Bomb would fetch $100,000 to $150,000 from collectors, according to Neal Giordano, founder of the North Carolina Hot Wheels Association, and author of books and price guides on die-cast cars.

In a goof countless auto engineers will sympathize with, the rear-loading Beach Bomb’s design looked great, but it was a disaster on the road: Its high center of gravity caused it to fall off Hot Wheels’ orange track as it raced around curves.

Read more:

See the 50 most valuable Hot Wheels and Matchbox toy cars

Hot Wheels’ first edition of toy cars from 1968

The Microbus is so rare there’s not even a picture of it on the list of 50 most valuable cars U.K. insurance buying website gocompare.com published to celebrate the anniversaries.

Here’s a look at the Beach Bomb in another color: 1969 Hot Wheels VW Microbus Beach Bomb

In addition to color photos of the other 49 vehicles, the site includes fun facts about each toy.

The top 10 vehicles, by value, are:

(1969) Rear-loading Volkswagen Microbus Beach Bomb (pink): $100,000 to $150,000 (1961) Magirus-Deutz Truck, Matchbox (tan/orange): $11,822 (1966) Opel Diplomat, Matchbox (sea foam green): $6,682 (1965) Dodge Wreck Truck, Matchbox (green/yellow): $5,911 (1971) Olds 442, Hot Wheels (purple): $4,682 (1969) Custom AMX, Hot Wheels (blue): $4,357 (1971) Bye Focal, Hot Wheels (purple): $3,849 (1968) Mercury Cougar, Matchbox (cream): $3,803 (1968) Mercury Station Wagon, Matchbox (yellow): $3,700 (1971) Evil Weevil, Hot Wheels (purple): $2,913

The prices above are converted to U.S. dollars from the website's English pounds.

Pink cars tend to be the most valuable, because the color was less popular with little boys, Giordano said. Alternate colors of some toys Mattel issued in the late 1970s can also be particularly valuable.

The 10 that appreciated most since introduction are:

(1961) Magirus-Deutz Truck, Matchbox (tan/orange): 71,684% (1966) Opel Diplomat, Matchbox (sea foam green): 48,487% (1965) Dodge Wreck Truck, Matchbox (green/yellow): 41,285% (1971) Olds 442, Hot Wheels (purple): 35,554% (1968) Mercury Cougar, Hot Wheels (blue): 29,618% (1971) Bye Focal, Hot Wheels (purple): 29,219% (1968) Mercury Station Wagon, Matchbox (yellow): 28,818% (1969) Custom AMX, Hot Wheels (blue): 28,416% (1981) Ferrari 308, Matchbox (red): 28,365% (1971) Evil Weevil, Hot Wheels (purple): 22,115%

While vehicles still in the original packages can fetch more than toys a child actually played with, Giordano said rare ones are collectible regardless.

Congratulations if you just learned have a fortune in unopened toy cars, but don’t you wish you’d played with at least a few of them when you were a kid?

I know I’m glad I did.

Contact Mark Phelan: mmphelan@freepress.com or 313-222-6731. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan.