The Matchbox Road Museum in Newfield, New Jersey is a one-man collection of more than 50,000 Matchbox cars, trucks, and related toys, packed wall-to-wall inside a converted three-car garage. It’s open by appointment only, run by its founder and his fellow collectors, and it might be the single densest concentration of tiny die-cast vehicles on the planet.
If you drove down Pearl Street in Newfield without knowing what you were looking for, you’d probably miss it entirely. That’s part of the charm. This isn’t a slick, air-conditioned attraction with a gift shop the size of a supermarket. It’s a backyard obsession that grew way, way out of control, in the best possible way.
What Exactly Is the Matchbox Road Museum?
Tucked into a quiet neighborhood in Gloucester County, the museum sits in a town just north of Vineland, roughly halfway between Philadelphia and Wildwood. From the street, you’d only know you’d found it by spotting the giant Matchbox model and “Matchbox Road Museum” letters on the side of the converted three-car garage.
Step inside and the scale hits you immediately. One visitor described it as walking into the owner’s brain, with walls on both sides and directly in front floor-to-ceiling with Matchbox cars, flickering like synapses in your peripheral vision. That’s not an exaggeration. The building itself is only about 2,100 square feet, which makes the volume of toys inside feel almost impossible.
Who Built This Thing? Meet Everett Marshall III
The museum is the work of one person: Everett Marshall III, a lifelong collector and Newfield’s former mayor. He started gathering Matchbox cars as a kid, and the hobby eventually outgrew his house. The museum traces back to 1992, when Marshall turned his collecting habit into a 2,100-square-foot location holding over 60,000 Matchbox-related items.
Marshall is famously precise about his own collection. As he put it himself, “I pretty much know where everything is and what I have and don’t have.” Considering the sheer volume packed into that space, that’s a genuinely impressive feat of memory.
He’s also careful about not overstating things. Rather than claiming an official world record, Marshall has said, “I never say I’m the largest [collection], because you don’t know that. I would say that I have the largest public display of Matchbox toys in the world.” It’s a small but telling detail — this is a guy who cares more about accuracy than bragging rights, even when he’s sitting on a collection most people can’t fathom.
What You’ll Actually See Inside
This isn’t a random pile of toy cars in bins. The collection is organized with real intention. The cars are arranged to document the evolution of Matchbox, displayed in numerical order, including known variations. For serious collectors, that kind of organization is basically a research library you can walk through.
The museum also holds one-of-a-kind Matchbox prototypes and pre-production design models from the company — pieces that never made it to store shelves, let alone into anyone else’s collection.
More Than Just Cars
Here’s the part that surprises most first-time visitors: this isn’t strictly a car museum. Matchbox, as a company, dabbled in all kinds of products over the decades, and Marshall has chased down plenty of it. He’s mentioned finding things like Rubik’s Cubes, Skip-Its, and Ginny Vogue dolls that carried the Matchbox name. One of the stranger finds is tied to the brand’s failed attempt to take on Barbie with Christie Brinkley dolls — a product most people, even hardcore collectors, have never heard of.
Marshall explained why he keeps hunting for this oddball stuff rather than just more cars: “People will come in and see things like that in the museum, and they’re amazed that it was actually part of Matchbox at one time… so those are the kinds of things I look for now, not necessarily vehicles anymore.”
Where Did Matchbox Even Come From?
If you want context for why any of this matters, it helps to know the brand’s backstory. Lesney Products, the British company that created the Matchbox line, launched its first small-scale diecast vehicles in the early 1950s, and the brand became a global phenomenon within a decade. Walking the aisles of this museum basically means walking through seventy-plus years of that history, laid out car by car.
How Do You Actually Visit the Matchbox Road Museum?
This is the part you need to plan around: there are no walk-in hours. The museum is strictly by appointment, and multiple sources confirm you need to call ahead before making the drive. As one recent visitor guide put it bluntly, getting the most out of a trip starts with calling ahead, since the museum does not maintain standard public hours, and relying on online listings has led plenty of people to a wasted drive.
When you do book a visit, don’t expect a hired tour guide reciting a script. Instead, your host will likely be one of Everett’s long-time friends and fellow Matchbox enthusiasts, who all share his obsession with well-made tiny metal vehicles. It’s less a museum tour and more like getting invited into a friend’s garage by someone who happens to know everything about the subject.
Address: 15 Pearl St, Newfield, NJ 08344
Hours: By appointment only — call ahead
Good to know: Marshall now splits time between New Jersey and Florida, so advance notice really does matter here.
Is It Really the World’s Largest?
You’ll see the museum described online as the record-holder for the world’s largest Matchbox car collection, with one listing claiming more than 50,000 items gathered over the last 40 years in a one-story, 2,100 square-foot building. Whether or not that title is official in the Guinness sense, nobody’s rushing to challenge it. As far as anyone has found, this is the only museum in the world devoted entirely to Matchbox products.
Why It’s Worth the Drive Down Pearl Street
There’s something genuinely moving about a museum that exists purely because one person refused to stop collecting. No corporate sponsor, no entrance turnstile, no gift shop pushing overpriced merchandise. Just decades of patient hunting, cataloged by hand, housed in a garage in a small South Jersey town most people drive past without a second glance.
If you grew up racing tiny cars across the living room floor, or if you just appreciate what obsession looks like when it’s done with this much care, it’s worth the phone call. Just remember to make that call first — the cars aren’t going anywhere, but you’ll want someone there to let you in.
NOTE TO THE ADVENTURER: This guide is meant to spark curiosity for what lies beyond the horizon — not to serve as a guarantee. Roads fall into disrepair, buildings are torn down and rebuilt, and properties change hands; 'tis your responsibility to do your own research before setting out. Always heed local and regional law, and always respect ground that isn't your own. Take every entry here as a suggestion, not a decree. This guide's contents were gathered with the aid of artificial intelligence, and like any scout, it will from time to time lead you astray. You assume all risk in following its counsel, and neither this blog nor its author is liable for any loss, injury, or misfortune that results.
