Hot Wheels redlines. Kid approved.

My 13-year-old son hated trudging through flea markets and antique malls. Unfortunately for him, his mother and I enjoy going to places like that. A couple years back, someone gave the kid a Custom Barracuda Hot Wheels car at a garage sale. The Barracuda was one of the original 16 redline castings introduced in 1968. He did a little research, and found out how collectible a Hot Wheels redline can be. Now, our junking excursions are a little more tolerable for him. If we run across an interesting car that doesn’t cost a fortune (usually 12-bucks or less), we’ll grab it for him. You can be sure that he pays a lot more attention to what he’s looking at. The residual effect is that he’s amassed a nice little collection of Hot Wheels redline beaters. Last weekend, he helped me stage some photos of the cars in his collection so I could put a story together. These things are always more fun with an assistant.

Searching for car stuff at the First Fridays event in the West Bottoms

Do you like treasure hunting? Discovering that rare vintage car collectable can be pretty exciting, but traveling from antique store to junk shop can be expensive and time-consuming.

There is a trending pastime in Kansas City known as “First Fridays,” and more and more collectors are doing their shopping all in one place.

Most of this is happening on the first weekend of the month in Kansas City’s West Bottoms area. Primarily known in modern times for Halloween haunted houses, the historic landmark buildings are now homes for several antique and vintage clothing shops.

Spotlighting the good stuff at the Brass Armadillo Antique Mall

The Brass Armadillo Antique Mall in Grain Valley, Mo., is big. We're talking 42,000 square-feet big. So if you're just going out there to look for automotive collectables, you're going to have a lot to sift through.

But don't worry. I've done the work for you. I went there this weekend and found the good stuff ... the important stuff ... the car stuff. 

Find a little car collectible of your own at W.D. Pickers Antique Mall in Platte City

If you’re like me, you can turn any experience into a car experience. Going to the grocery store? Hey, there’s Jeff Gordon’s car on the Corn Flakes. Going to the doctor’s office? I haven’t read this issue of Motor Trend yet.

Naturally, the old car radar doesn’t shut down at someplace like an antique mall. There could be a stack of Picassos, but if they had an old toy poking out from behind one of them, I wouldn’t see the paintings at all. When it comes to antiquing, I have perfect automotive tunnel vision.

Picadillo. Pickin' car stuff at the Brass Armadillo

Even though we cover quite a few automotive events here, there are days that a car show, cruise, race, or swap meet just might not be scheduled. Great--then what are we supposed to do? Well, take a deep breath, we'll get through this together.

One way to spend a rainy day is to hit the local antique mall. Automotive memorabilia is pretty common within the rows of vendor spaces at most of these stores, and if you keep a sharp eye out, sometimes you can find some real treasures.

To illustrate that point, we went to one of the biggest antique malls in the Kansas City area, the Brass Armadillo in Grain Valley, Mo. The Iowa-based Brass Armadillo is actually an antique mall chain, with five locations throughout the country. The Kansas City store is a monster, with more than 42,000 square-feet and 500 dealers.