I can hear him rummaging through boxes in the other room. Finally, he comes back.

"How many of one car do I really need?" Ken Green says as he slides a stack of five diecast cars across the kitchen table. They glitter fiercely through the thick plastic of their racy blue and red packages.

He walks back to an office-cum-shrine to all things Hot Wheels — with stacked tubs of cars that line the walls, autographed cars and caps and cards and photographs, the clock that strikes with growl of a different muscle car every the hour, a partial track built high on the wall and bumper to bumper with cars on their way to nowhere.

Then the big, tanned man in a black sleeveless T-shirt and work pants returns with two more fistfuls of the same car (the Myers Manix), of the same color (blue), and lines the packages up with their brothers. He counts them. Sixteen.

There may be more. Somewhere. Like most Hot Wheels collectors, Green's not even sure how many he has or what exactly he has in all those tubs and boxes. Perhaps he doesn't want to know.

His friend John Glavach, who sits across from him in Green's Lehigh Acres home, has more than 4,000.

"I mean, really," Green says again, "how many do I need?"

That's the epiphany, isn't it? The curious moment that all uber collectors eventually come to. The how-much-is-too-much dilemma may goad some into quitting their pursuit of the Next Great Thing. For others, it simply narrows their focus to one special kind of something.

"I know some guys who only collect First Editions," says Green, 60. "Or they only collect Redlines or Treasure Hunts."

He shakes his head, slowly, like he's just heard that a friend fell sick.

More than likely, though, it's a question that's filed away, like those cars.

"Yeah," starts Mike Strauss, a California collector who is legendary for creating a national Hot Wheels convention in the mid-'80s. Now 1,200 to 3,000 collectors make the pilgrimage to the twice-yearly events.

Strauss stops to consider the question: Who, I asked, collects this toy of little boys?

"Yeah," he says again, "it takes all types. But you have to be a crazy."

A half a million strong

On Saturday, the Southwest Florida Hot Wheels Collectors Club will meet for the fourth time in an office building in Bonita Springs.

Cars will change hands. Packages will be pawed through and examined. Mostly, though, there will be talk in a language of the search, of the hunt and of the minute details only they (and the family they inevitably convert to the gospel of Hot Wheels) truly understand. They crow about finds, discuss the upcoming limited edition release and dream out loud about what they've seen and want, but don't have.

Eventually, though, they'll have a 50-foot, four-lane track on a wood base, complete with speakers blaring appropriate sound effects, a remote control starting gate, a computer monitored finish line and a computer program that will manage incoming data and translate it into tangibles like times and rankings. Eventually, they'll have multiple races and winner-take-all challenges. Eventually, it will be really, really cool.

Green, who started collecting via his grandson, settles into a chair at the computer hutch in his and wife Donna's office. He pulls up the club Web site that Glavach, 64, has engineered. A retired software designer, Glavach, in fact, designed pretty much all the technology that will turn club meetings into Vegas meets the Daytona 500.

Glavach lives with his wife Sharon in Naples, but works full-time at the Southwest Florida International Airport. That's where he met Green, who is his boss. They both work security.

"People would say to me, you need to talk to John," Green says, "and people would tell John, you need to talk to Ken."

"We just started talking in the break room every day," explains Glavach, a man with long proportions and an earnest manner who started collecting after seeing his daughter's collection on a visit to Illinois. "About the cars."

Green nods.

As many as 15 have attended club meetings so far, coming from Naples, Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres. Most are guys. Most are middle-aged, although there are a few in their 20s. There are some kids, too.

"Generally, they're guys who grew up with Hot Wheels in the late '60s and early '70s, predominantly in their 40s and 50s," says John Ludwig about collectors. He's a marketing manager with Mattel, which owns Hot Wheels. "They're of an age that they can have a hobby.

"We also have some younger guys now, getting into it when they have kids. It's a way for dads to connect to sons and kind of a way for dads collect to their own childhood."

Ludwig says more than 250,000 collectors are registered with the company's official site (www.hotwheelscollectors.com), but estimates that there are closer to half a million collecting today. Most are in the United States and Canada, but there are a growing number in Japan, Australia and England.

Collectors come in all level of commitment, of course, but the company considers a serious collector one who has more than 1,000 of the two billion cars the company has made since its launch in 1968.

"And a number of collectors," he says, "have more than 20,000 in their collections."

For people like Green and Glavach, who collect everything product and every color variation Hot Wheels makes, it wouldn't be hard to eventually find yourself with a five-digit collection.

Recognizing the commitment of the burgeoning adult market, the company began expanding the breadth and depth of available products by the mid-'80s. Today they release 180-220 different models a year, each in multiple colors.

Over the years, store shelves have been stacked with Mainlines, Sizzlers, Real Riders, First Editions, the unpopular Hot 100 line, Track Aces, Segments, the Faster Than Ever series, the elusive Treasure Hunts and a handful of Mystery Cars. Hot Wheels also produces motorcycles, radar guns, lunch boxes, hats, 1/18th scale vehicles and the emblematic orange tracks in 50-foot bundles.

Online auction sites have fueled the fervor, filling in the gaps between clubs, swap meets and conventions. A recent Ebay search pulled more than 24,000 Hot Wheels-related objects.

Although some collectors specialize in vintage lines like the Redline cars, which were produced until 1977 and sport tires with emblematic red lines on the tires, most seem to start their collections in buying new, combing the pegs in stores like Kmart or Toys R. Old cars can sell for thousands. The new cars are still cheap, the vast majority costing 97 cents.

Glavach makes almost daily trips to stores, usually around 1:30 p.m., after getting off from his eight-hour shift. Green makes frequent trips as well, referring to a handwritten list that's folded around his wallet and held with a rubber band (his wife keeps one in her purse). Some collectors, he says, go so far as to keep nationwide locator maps of toy retailers so they can hit stores while traveling.

Like many collectors, the two don't take their purchases out of their packages: They'll cull greater resale or trade later. Instead, they pack them in tubs marked with the year released (Green) or inventoried in boxes (Glavach). Most never make it to a shelf or table to be admired.

It's all part of the constant churning of hunting, hunting, hunting. Some may become fodder for a trade or sale later. Or not.

"We tell everyone we work with that we work to support our habit," Green says. He laughs. "Sometimes we spend more money on cars than we make in a week."

The fundamental thing

A few words: The rear-loaded Volkswagen Beach Bomb.

Regarded by many to be the Holy Grail of Hot Wheels collecting, the first rendition of this bus featured surf boards sticking out the back. It was deemed too thin for the tracks, though, and was redesigned with the boards on the side. Only 30 of the original cars, which were given to employees, are known to still exist.

The redesigned car can be worth as much as $900 now. The original is valued at least $15,000 and the rare pink Beach Bomb (pink is the most coveted color in any model because it was regarded a girl's color and few were made) sold for $72,000 about 10 years ago.

"Yeah, some people say (the Bomb) is a big deal," says Mike Strauss, the California collector and creator of the Hot Wheels newsletter and conventions. "I have eight of them."

Eight. When I mention that to Green and Glavach, they have the unfocused awe of Christmas morning.

Strauss maintains he doesn't have any idea how many cars he's amassed, although it's been reported he has more than 30,000 — some so valuable they're kept in safety deposit boxes. If he doesn't admit to knowing the size of the collection, he does have a sense of their value.

"Over a million," he says easily ($1.5 million, one story reported).

That kind of dedication is unusual, but the focus isn't. It used to surprise Howard Rees, one of the original Hot Wheels designers and now a frequent guest at Strauss' conventions.

"I think, first of all, it's a very innocent kind of hobby to have, to have a love of cars and most of them do."

There's silence on the line. "But they can get obsessed," says Rees, 65, who is known for designs like the Cockney Cab, the Noodle Head and the Peeping Bomb. "They come up once and a while and say, I found this car and only paid $3,000 for it. 'Wow, how nice for you.' " He laughs. "I used to throw that car in the trash can for three points. Where's the trash can now?"

"I've always been a collector," explains Strauss, widely considered the father of modern Hot Wheels collecting and author of the preeminent price guide to the brand. "They were giving away the cars from Shell dealers and I had been accumulating them. I had a bunch of cars and I decided to just start collecting."

It was a different world for collectors then. There were no official clubs and Hot Wheels enthusiasts found each other by word of mouth or perhaps wandering at a toy shows where the cars might be wedged between the Barbie doll booths, the Beanie Babies and the Steiff bear resellers.

Strauss says he wanted to talk with people who understood his language, the minutia of detail that's the currency of any collectible. So, he started the newsletter one year and the convention the next.

"I tell you I got a Beach Bomb and you say 'So what? What's a Beach Bomb?' ... Whereas collector: 'Wow, you have one of those?' It's more exciting."

D.W. Steve Stephenson, 70, remembers the first conventions. They came on the cusp of his first "What-have-I-done" epiphany. Today his garage is stacked with boxes five feet high and about 30 or 40 deep. "The things," he says, "hold 250-300."

Stephenson lives in Washington state with his wife, who tolerates his collection. ("Just barely, she says.") He laughs when I ask how many he has. "I'm afraid to figure it out. Way too many."

It's all about the search, he says. About the one he doesn't have. About the cars you can't afford. It's about nostalgia and childhood and youth and being a man.

Strauss pretty much agrees. But he's not really foraging anymore. At 63, he has all he wants.

"I sold off a bunch," says the former gourmet food seller who focuses on his Hot Wheels concerns full-time now. "I might be selling pretty soon."

But why?

"I'm getting old," he says slowly. "I don't think I want my wife and kids to have to sell them when I'm gone. They don't know enough about the cars."

He stops for a moment. "I've been at it 22 years. It's not my life, although some thought it was." He laughs. "It's never been my life. It's just a lot of fun."

Walking the line

The 16 blue Myers Manix lie nestled on the table in front of me. Outside, the sky darkens with an approaching afternoon storm and the overhead light sets the Jeeps sparkling with the manic glare of hard candy under glass.

The three talk about where they want to take the club ("We want to do charity work like Mike Strauss does"), about which car they're going to take on the next trip (they'll photograph it on every stop — a la Flat Stanley — and post the images to the Web site), about the must-have list Green has already started for the October convention in Anaheim, Calif.

The convention. "Late at night, you walk through the halls (of 20 floors of the hotel)," Green says, "and the doors are open on every room and every room has cars for sale."

So, the multiples of the Manix and other cars, they're for trading or resell?

No one answers at first. Donna Green shakes her head, a small gesture with almost no voice.

"No," Green finally says, "we haven't sold any yet."

"We're going to, though," Donna says. It's more of a question than a statement.

"The women, they're always trying to get us to sell," he says. They laugh.

It's hard, though, isn't it? Once you've found it, once you have it, to let it go is tough — even for a price.

He nods. "What's the purpose of a collection if you sell some of it?

But is there ever a point where you say, this is enough? Or do you just go on finding more space for the Next Great Thing?

He smiles.

"That's the whole trick. You find the car and you're happy. Where," he asks, "do you draw the line?"