As an artistic child growing up in Rector, Donald Wyckoff loved building models and collecting cars, a hobby he shared with his grandfather.
But over the course of 10 years that Wyckoff spent in the Navy as a military police officer stationed at various stops across the country and around the world, it wasn’t one he could easily indulge in.
“For those years, I just didn’t collect,” Wyckoff said.
After he was honorably discharged in 2018 and later began working as a sheriff’s deputy in Knox County, Ohio, Wyckoff found himself experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder when he was on the job, including blackouts and sometimes hallucinations.
When he’d get off work each night, Wyckoff would turn to art — specifically customizing Hot Wheels — to try to calm him.
“I started doing that every day. And then I’d post pictures online, and people would be like, ‘That’s really cool, man. Can I buy that?’ ”
Wyckoff left his job as a deputy sheriff in September 2022. He was diagnosed soon thereafter with PTSD, severe depression and anxiety.
His customization business, which started as a hobby, has now turned into a full-time job.
“It keeps me so focused,” Wyckoff, 36, said during an interview at his Mt. Pleasant home last week. “I don’t have time to think about all the bad stuff.”
‘Where it came from’
From the age of 5, Wyckoff was raised by his grandparents in Westmoreland County.
His love of cars and collecting came from his grandfather, David Austin. Austin, a pilot and avid car collector, once bought a MiG-15 fighter jet that he’d found in Poland. He had it deconstructed and shipped to the U.S. He then rebuilt it — with Wyckoff’s help — in a hangar at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport.
Each time his grandfather bought a die-cast car back then, he’d get Wyckoff a model to build, and then encourage his grandson each time he completed one.
“That’s where it came from,” Wyckoff said.
After graduating from Ligonier Valley High School in 2007, Wyckoff attended the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown for a year before deciding college wasn’t for him.
He enlisted in the Navy and became a master at arms — or military police officer.
During his 10 years in the service, Wyckoff was stationed in Virginia Beach, Washington State, Italy and Tennessee.
He did short tours at Guantanamo Bay and in Bahrain and was deployed to the Middle East on the U.S.S. Nimitz aircraft carrier for 13 months.
As a military police officer, Wyckoff didn’t see combat in the traditional sense. Instead, he responded to 911 calls on federal property where he was stationed.
Wyckoff’s PTSD, for which he qualified for full VA benefits in December 2024, stems, he said, from responding to gruesome scenes over those 10 years.
“It accumulated from that,” he said. “At the end of the day, you have to pretend nothing happened.”
Wyckoff left the Navy in 2018 and went to live in Ohio with his best friend. One night, while he was out, Wyckoff said he came upon a car with a drunk driver and called 911.
When officers arrived and learned Wyckoff had been in the military police, they urged him to apply to the Knox County sheriff’s office.
Wyckoff did and was hired the next year, working in the county jail. Included in the work, he said, was responding to drug overdoses and suicide attempts.
“It was the same stuff as the military,” he said. “Just not as gruesome.”
Wyckoff found himself sometimes blacking out on the job. He realized he could no longer work in law enforcement and resigned, turning to his customization business full-time.
Then, in 2024, when Wyckoff went to a drag race where some of his customized cars were being sold, he blacked out and had what he described as a PTSD attack.
“I thought I was shooting people, hallucinating,” he recounted.
Wyckoff’s buddy, a retired Coast Guard commander, urged him to go get help.
“So, finally, I did,” Wyckoff said.
***
In the basement of Wyckoff’s Mt. Pleasant home, he has built a customization studio.
On one side, there is a work station with a computer, knives, markers and rivets, and neat piles of Hot Wheels parts — including engines, exhaust systems and white rubber wheels.
Nearby, he has two 3D resin printers that Wyckoff uses to print replacement parts, as well as a 3D filament printer.
Across the room, he has a Hot-Wheel size paint booth with ventilation to the outside, and a small, pistol-grip paint gun he uses for his customizations.
Next to that sits a drying booth.
The customization process, as Wyckoff describes it, is tedious and exacting.
It begins with drilling out the rivets from the bottom of a Hot Wheel, and then taking the car apart.
He puts the metal body through a stripper and sands it down. Then Wyckoff picks the color automotive paint he wants to use — or mixes his own — and finishes the customized paint, before putting on the decals he designs and prints on waterslide decal paper.
He then applies clear coat, and after waiting what seems like an excruciatingly long time to dry, puts the car back together.
“I’m all self-taught,” he said.
It can take as long as two to three days to finish a car, with about three hours of active labor on each one.
When Wyckoff first started, he’d sell each car for $25.
“I was losing money,” he said.
But as he has scaled up his work, Wyckoff now charges between $60 and $100 per car.
He also creates custom cards — the cardboard backing that holds the blister pack in place — for the Hot Wheels he customizes.
In addition to taking custom orders, Wyckoff’s business also includes 3D printing car parts and printing waterslide decals for others who do customization work.
He has sold his products on eBay and now through his online store, as well as on Facebook.
Wyckoff also takes larger custom orders for businesses or law enforcement agencies who put their department logos on the cars.
Mike Lacey, who sells diecast customizations online and through an online auction site, has been ordering from Wyckoff for two years.
He estimates he’s purchased at least 150 cars from him.
“The whole market is really crazy right now,” Lacey said.
A lot of what he buys from Wyckoff are remakes of the original Hot Wheels.
“They’re more affordable,” said Lacey, who is based in Dallas.
An original Hot Wheel collectible might cost $2,000, but Wyckoff can make a replica for $100, Lacey said.
“The market is whatever they’ll pay for it,” he said. “He cards them up and makes them look like the original.”
The packaging notes that they are customized cars so as not to trick the buyer, Lacey said.
Hot Wheels — and the customizations — are growing in popularity, he said, because the 1:64 scale cars remind people of playing with them during their childhood.
Hot Wheels hit the market in 1968, and according to Mattel, the maker of Hot Wheels, are the No. 1 selling toy in the world.
In a 2023 interview with Toybook.com, Robert Stanichi, senior vice president of Hot Wheels at Mattel, said that more than 6 billion Hot Wheels have been produced, and the company sells 16 cars per second.
For Wyckoff, those sales mean even more work for him.
He has served more than 3,000 clients over the last three years.
There are conventions across the country that feature the kind of customization work Wyckoff does. He travels to some of them, selling the cars he’s made, as well as the decals and parts he creates.
“I always plan to make a stockpile for a convention,” he said. But then, Wyckoff said, he inevitably sells them out beforehand.
Wyckoff’s favorite Hot Wheels customization he’s ever done was to design a ‘55 Chevy Gasser to look like his grandfather’s MiG-15.
Then, on the backing card, he included his grandfather’s picture and the pilot’s poem from his tombstone.
Wyckoff gave that one to his grandmother.
“My grandma loves it,” he said.
The most expensive Hot Wheel customization Wyckoff has ever sold was a two-car set featuring the Rat Fink design from the 1970s. It sold at an auction for $350.
Among his most frequent customization requests: Chevy Silverados, Chevy ‘55 Gassers and ‘67 Camaros.
Wyckoff is also a collector.
Before he moved back to Westmoreland County, he said he had more than 10,000 Hot Wheels lining the walls of his home.
He sold most of those off and now keeps his favorites, including 52 cars of the Hot Wheels Gasser collection, in display cabinets on his office wall.
***
Although Wyckoff continues to receive active treatment for his PTSD, he can’t remember a night when he has not had terrible nightmares.
Wyckoff does not sleep much, averaging just over two hours per night.
“Whenever I’m doing this kind of stuff, I zone out,” Wyckoff said. “I can sit from sunup to sundown. It’s therapeutic.”
Working on the cars, he said, keeps his mind focused.
“I don’t have time to think about all the bad stuff,” Wyckoff said. “It keeps me feeling good about myself. I get happy that I can make something for somebody.”
There’s a satisfaction, he said, in knowing that he’s doing something for someone.
“Seeing them smile makes me feel like I’m still helping them in a way.”