Sherwood Gardens resident Willem Pretorius (63) has been collecting model cars for 43 years.
He has the Matchbox brand cars with their boxes, as well as Dinky Toy cars, also with their boxes in mint condition. These have become quite rare.
He has a limited edition gold-painted Matchbox car that is worth thousands. His favourite car is a Fiat Abarth 1000, which with its box is worth about R3 700.
His least favourite part of his collection, he jokes, is the Ford Escort collection, because they ‘spill oil’. In reality, though, he doesn’t regret acquiring any of his cars.
“I haven’t bought a single car in my collection just to buy it. I bought all of them to have a complete collection,” he said.
Another favourite is his Fiat 050 Coupe, which is worth about R1 500. He also has a Ferrari collection, two BP collectable truck models, 120 tractor models and a scale model Jaguar he built himself, using a subscription service magazine.
Overall, he has about 2 500 cars, trucks and tractors on display with more stored in crates.
His wife, Amanda, who builds miniature dollhouses and dioramas, built him a car dealership diorama for some of his collections. Someone has offered him over R20 000 for this diorama, but he refuses to sell this gift his wife made for him.
He and Amanda are also making an English village and model train track with a farmyard and mining district.
ALSO READ: Criminal investigations underway into murder of electrical contractors
Willem acquires most of his cars at swap meets at the Just Wheels Club in Dalview or Piston Ring Club in Founders Hill, Edenvale.
He also buys some of them from the Simon’s Town Warrior Toy Museum in Cape Town and the Old Car Shop in Elcedes, Johannesburg.
In his collection, he has an entire cabinet dedicated just to Fiat Abarth models. Fiats are his favourite car. His first car at 18 was a Fiat 124 from 1976.
The only regret Willem has is that he didn’t keep his toy cars from when he was a child as his children did. He wishes he could have had them as part of his collection.
