Dad Builds Son His Own Parking Garage

Each parent knows that toys are like rabbits: every time you turn around, they seem to multiply by about a thousand. It just comes with the territory: children = mess. There’s very little you can do about the growing Barbie collection and the invasion of the GI Joes. Unless, of course, you’re willing to get extra creative.

Amit Jain, a father who was overwhelmed by his son’s toy car collection, decided to put himself in the driver’s seat and take control of tidiness. He turned to Instructables, a website that specializes in user-created and user-uploaded do-it-yourself projects. It was launched in 2005 and has become increasingly popular among crafters and builders.

Jain wanted to create something that would display his son’s impressive collection while giving him easy access for times when he wanted to play. And, of course, keeping a child’s room tidy is the stuff parental dreams are made of.

After ruminating over a few different avenues, Jain decided to create a wall-mounted shelving unit in the shape of a transport truck. He did this using plywood, wood glue, metal brackets, and imagination. He divided the wood into slats and squares to help contain the toys.

The most difficult task, perhaps, was making sure all of his son’s cars had their own parking spaces: Jain outfitted the new shelving unit for the entire collection. He even left a little extra room for future purchases. It was probably a wise decision, since Jain’s wife has admitted to bringing home a toy car nearly every time she goes on a shopping spree.

While 150 toy cars are quite a bit for a child (especially when he doesn’t even have his license yet!), it’s certainly not odd to find these in the rooms of young ones. Toy cars have always been a mainstay of childhood, probably even yours.

Matchbox first came into existence in the early 1950s. Born in the United Kingdom, the initial cars cost around 18 cents. Since their invention, over three million cars have been sold (and, no, not all to Jain’s son).  The wide-ranging choices include over 12,000 different styles of vehicles.

In the early 1970s, Matchbox was all the rage and at its height of popularity, but the invention of Hot Wheels drove their business down.  In fact, it fell by nearly 75 percent. Still, Matchbox was highly profitable – the company was sold in 1982 for 33 million and sold again ten years later for 106 million. Considering the company started with a 1,000-dollar investment, it’s fair to say they were a complete success.

Matchbox merged with Hot Wheels in 1997 and both are now owned by Mattel. Matchbox continues to be one of the largest toy brands in the world.

For those who collected these cars as young children, there’s always a chance of a large payday if you held onto something valuable enough. Rumors about rare finds circulate among collectors. One story involves a man who bought a Matchbox from his neighbor’s garage sale for ten dollars only to sell it for 10,000.