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Gary Laase's Table Top Car Show Built on 50+ Years of Collecting

If there’s one thing in the enthusiast world that has stood the test of time, it is collecting die-cast or model cars. Whether it’s a collection of toy vehicles, monster trucks, RC cars or even a vintage set of historic metal or plastic collectibles in any scale, the model car hobby continues to draw fans generation after generation. Gary Laase of Riverview, Florida, has been collecting for over 50 years now, and has quite an impressive collection to show for it. Check out Gary’s tabletop car show below, then consider sending us your own Ford Performance Tabletop Car Show along with photos, your name, hometown and a brief description of your collection to: ClubHub@Ford.com. We hope to hear from you soon!

I’m Gary Laase of Riverview, Florida, and I started my model car collection back in 1965 in Germany. My dad was in the U.S. Army then, and I still have several of my Matchbox cars from that time period -- including a Ford GT40 and Mustang 2+2. I started liking cars, and especially fast cars, while living there. We would drive on the Autobahn in our 1964 Mercury Comet while Porsches and big Mercedes zoomed past.

“We moved back to the United States around Memorial Day of 1967, and that’s when I listened to my first Indy 500 race. I was hooked on speed, and A.J. Foyt became ‘my’ driver. It got to the point that I rejected a plan to get married on that weekend, and later we even named our son Austin Jacob (A.J.). The wife never found a good girl’s name for A.J. so we got lucky that we had a boy.

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"Around that time my dad wanted a new car. We went to the Ford dealership in Fremont, Nebraska, to look at what was in stock. I knew the newer Mustang was just out, and I wanted to go with him to see the recently redesigned pony car. What we found there in the showroom was a DeTomaso Pantera. It looked so cool and so fast just sitting there, and I was now completely hooked on Fords.
“All the time my die-cast collection kept growing, thanks to Woolworth’s selling Hot Wheels and Matchbox 1/64th vehicles. I would spend my allowance every week on new ones, and I still own many of them that I bought as a child, including several ‘first editions’ of the Hot Wheels. My father built the wooden cabinet for my collection in 1969 or 1970. It was quickly filled, and I’ve kept for the 50 years since. My collection has not stopped, nor has my attendance at racing events where I always pull for the Fords.

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PHOTOS / COURTESY GARY LAASE

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https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/f...ollecting.html

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