It was with great sadness that we received the news of Gary’s passing in October of last year. A collector since the age of 12, Gary was passionate about documenting the model cars that he loved. In 2001, Gary taught himself HTML and created one of the first diecast resource sites, GarysCars, which over the years helped more than 250,000 diecast collectors. A diecast historian, Gary documented about 2,000 model cars including lesser known brands such as Corgi KIKO, Playart, and Tri-ang Minix. In fact, many diecast collectors will have an intimate knowledge of Gary’s kitchen table as his photos have a very distinctive background.

About ten years ago, Christian reached out to Gary to get his advice on how we should go about documenting items in our database. Christian and the team greatly admired him for his willingness to help and share his incredible knowledge. As we continued to work together, he shared the desire to add his entire database to the hobbyDB project. Over the last three years, Gary added more than 4,000 models to the hobbyDB database and had plans to add thousands more.

After we received the sad news that Gary had succumbed to a long-term illness, we knew that we had to help keep GarysCars accessible to collectors worldwide.

In partnership with Gary’s Mother and Partner, we’ve memorialized Gary’s legacy in the diecast community by offering a permanent place for his data to live – everything from Matchbox to Lego.

Gary’s site was his life’s work and his hobby helped him through some difficult times. I am so pleased that, thanks to hobbyDB, Gary’s information will be preserved for other diecast collectors to use and enjoy – Jacqueline (Gary’s Partner)

The Gary Hirst Memorial Site is a tribute to the legacy that Gary built. He was a dear friend to many collectors, some of which he never met, but had grown close to over the years via email.

I am so happy that Gary had so many friends in his hobby and am proud about this site and to have been his mother – Sheila (Gary’s Mom)

The Hirst family would love it if you could share your favorite memories about Gary in the comments of the Original Obituary

All data that was originally on the GarysCars site is can now be found on these hobbyDB pages: