Best Toy Parking Garages for Kids & Toddlers (Wooden Garages and Matchbox Sets!)
This group of the best toy garages for toddlers make playing with cars extra fun, particularly for little boys, who in my experience are always fascinated with them.
When my son Benjamin was very little, he loved toy cars and trucks more than anything else. I remember when we took him on a tour of a neighborhood preschool, he was mesmerized by the toy car garage in one of the classrooms. Days later, he was still saying that he was looking forward to going to preschool and hoped he would get to be in “the class with the parking garage toy.”
Here are the toy garages for toddlers that received good customer ratings and looked like something Benjamin would have loved. (In fact, he is nine years old now and I bet he would still enjoy playing with some of these!)
✅ Wooden Toy Car Garages for Kids
As a parent, I always liked wooden toys for both their sturdy quality and their attractiveness.
Melissa & Doug Service Station Parking Garage With 2 Wooden Cars and Drive-Thru Car Wash
Melissa & Doug Stack & Count Wooden Parking Garage With 10 CarsHape City Wooden Parking Garage Toddler Wooden Garage Playset
Service Station Parking Garage With Drive-Thru Car Wash
This toy car parking garage is one of the many clever and well-made wooden toys from Melissa and Doug. We had a ton of their toys when my kids were little.
Melissa & Doug Service Station Parking Garage With Drive-Thru Car Wash
Like many Melissa and Doug toys, this garage playset is portable (the cars can be securely stored by closing the garage doors), so it’s great for taking along to restaurants and doctor waiting rooms. Two unique feature are its drive-thru car wash and the gas station pump that actually connects to the car. And since kids who love cars usually also love trains, it’s a real plus that the two cars in this set are compatible with both Thomas and Brio train track sets.
The over-whelming majority of the reviews of this wooden garage toy are very positive and contain a good bit of helpful information if you’re not sure if it’s the best fit for your child.
✅ Read all 5-star reviews here.
On the other hand, there were a few people that were NOT happy with this toy at all and gave it ONE star.
Some of their negative feedback might really help you realize that this isn’t the best choice for your child.
✅ Read all negative ONE star reviews here.
Stack & Count Toy Parking Garage
Melissa & Doug Stack and Count Wooden Parking Garage
This wooden stacking car garage is another winner from Melissa and Doug, who you can always count on to make sturdy, well-designed toys with a lot of “play value.”
It comes with ten wooden cars that in different colors that have pegs on the front. You drop them into the slot at the top of the parking tower or pull them out from the bottom of the stack, and the colorful counter on the side adjusts every time you add or remove a car.
This is a great educational toy because it includes colors, numbers, counting, and fine motor skills. You could find a lot of clever ways to use this toy to interact with your child.
Amazon reviewer Runohmollyrun pointed out a way this toy garage can take on a practical use as well:
Our pediatrician suggested a chart of some kind as a way to keep track of child’s water consumption, and we use this. Every time our child finishes a glass of water, they get to park a car! It’s a fun way to stay healthy! You could use it for any reward/token system as well. We’ve been doing this for over four months and it’s still considered fun…so it has staying power (at least for our kid). 🙂
Melissa & Doug Wooden Rescue Vehicle & Garage Toy
This rescue garage set has a smooth-rolling wooden fire engine, ambulance, and police car, that each have color-coded plastic keys and park inside a 3-bay garage.
Best of all, there’s nothing to assemble, and it’s both easy to store and portable, even including a sturdy handle. (One reviewer even said that their 3-year old nephew takes this garage to bed with him every night.)
Melissa & Doug Keys & Cars Wooden Rescue Vehicle & Garage Toy
Wooden Race Track Car Ramp Racer With 4 Mini Cars
This toy has 3,200 5-star reviews on Amazon and is Amazon’s Choice in the category “one year old boy toys.”
This garage requires no assembly and includes 4 car ramps, a parking lot, and 4 toddler ramp racers.
It’s a compact toy that easily be stored on shelf (as opposed to some other garages we’ll discuss in a minute that take up half your living room).
Parents loved the durability and simplicity of this toy — but several pointed out that the cars are small enough to possibly be a choking hazard for a one year old.
Wooden Race Track Car Ramp Racer With 4 Mini Cars
Nesting & Sorting Cars and Garages for Toddlers
This car and garage set is a developmental toy intended for two, three, and four year olds. It includes 7 stacking garages and 7 wooden cars. (The garages themselves are not wooden, but are made from thick painted cardboard — which is a good thing, because your child will want to knock down the stacks.)
Kids can match and stack the pieces according to color, size, and number.
Parents loved how this toy promotes practice with numbers, colors, and size relation.
Amazon reviewer Sarah N. is an early intervention specialist who has high praise for this toy:
By profession I am a Certified early intervention specialist and work with children from birth to 3 years old with developmental delays and disabilities. I found this toy by accident but am sooooo happy that I did.
This toy is a great motivator for boys and girls alike ranging from 12 months to 3yrs. Stacking the blocks is a great way to work on fine motor skills and counting. Having the kids match the cars to the garage works on number identification and color matching. The kids also work on impulse control and practicing waiting to knock the tower over.
This toy is made well with wooden cars that withstand lots of crashing and thick cardboard boxes that can withstands and 2 year olds CRASH. This is a great buy and very versatile for clinicians and parents alike.
Nesting & Sorting Garages & Cars
BRIO Wooden Parking Garage with Ramp
My mother was always very impressed with the quality of Brio toys, and this Brio wooden parking garage is very durable and able to stand up to any toddler abuse.
It has two cars, a car trailer, two rail ramps, a road ramp, and a gas storage tank. It even has numbered parking spaces, which I think is a nice touch.
Brio Wooden Toy Garages for Toddlers
The garage comes completely assembled. All you have to do is set the tower in place and snap on the red slide. Kids can crank the red handle to raise the car to different levels, and then have them ride down on the slide.
Another plus is that, at only fifteen and a half inches tall, it can easily be stored on a shelf as opposed to just constantly sitting in the middle of the room because it’s too big to be “put away.”
This toy connects to any and any Brio wooden railways, trains, and vehicles, so you can creatively expand it over the years if you choose to.
✅Click here to see a photo of this toy garage in action!
Plan Toys City Series Parking Garage with Elevator and Ramp
Plan Toys City Series Parking Garage with Elevator and Ramp
There’s a lot going on in this garage play set. It has ramps, an elevator and helipad, a car and figure, and a gas station and car wash. It’s sized so that Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars fix on it as well.
It’s also worth noting that the manufacturer, Play Toys, prides themselves on being of environmentally responsible and strive to reduce waste and save energy when creating their toys.
✅ Toy Parking Garages with Ramp and Elevator
I still remember being about 5 years old and being fascinated with a toy in my church nursery where you cranked the car up the elevator, then let it roll down the ramp.
Here are some garage playsets where your kid can enjoy that same fascination. (And hey, maybe it’ll bring back fun memories for you, too!)
VTech Go! Go! Smart Wheels Park and Learn Deluxe Garage
Toy Garage and Ramp for Toddlers
This garage set includes one tow truck and the two AAA batteries that you need for it, although you will also need two AA batteries for the garage, a screwdriver, and about twenty minutes of time to fully assemble it. There are nine different points on the tracks that you can roll the tow truck over to hear different phrases, music, or sound effects. There are also three different songs that you can hear by pressing the button on the truck.
One possibly downside to this set is that it takes up a lot of space and isn’t easily transported once you set it up. It would probably work best in a big playroom area where it stay for long periods of time.
✅Click here to watch a 5-star video review of the V-Tech Park and Learn Garage.
Click here to watch a negative ONE star review of the V-Tech Park and Learn Garage.
KidKraft Mega Ramp Racing Set
This large playset stands at just over two feet tall and does require some assembly.
It’s a great toy for two closely-spaced siblings to play together. For example, one child can play with the straight ramp while the other uses the spiral slide.
Another nice touch is the traffic light at the bottom that goes from red, yellow, then green to count down when two cars race down the straight ramp. One child can push the button to start the lights, while the other child can race the cars.
One nice perk about this playset is that if you already own Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars, they both work perfectly with it.
✅Click here to watch a video demo of the KidKraft Mega Ramp Racing Set in action.
Disney Pixar Cars Piston Cup Garage With Elevator
My son was crazy about Lightning McQueen and Mater when he was about three or four years old.
This plastic garage playset has two levels, a working elevator, a pit crew service stop, and details that are true to the movie. It comes with one car, Jackson Storm. It does NOT come with Lightning McQueen.
This set also gives you the ability to connect with other “storytelling sets,” like this car wash set or the Race Around Radiator Springs set.
Most reviewers loved this set, for the simple reason that their children or grandchildren loved this set.
Disney Pixar Cars Piston Cup Garage With Elevator
✅ Matchbox Toy Garage PlaySets for Kids
Matchbox Rescue Headquarters PlaysetMatchbox Mission 4-Level Garage Playset [Amazon Exclusive]
![Matchbox Mission 4-Level Garage Playset [Amazon Exclusive]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41tVJV8ZnoL.jpg)
My son Benjamin was a huge Matchbox fan when he was younger. His favorite Matchbox playset is no longer available, but there’s still plenty out there for today’s toddlers to have fun with.
Matchbox Mission 4-Level Garage Playset
This playset is Amazon’s Choice in the category of “Matchbox garage.”
It includes:
- A spiral ramp and working elevator
- A car wash
- A car repair service station
- One Matchbox tow truck
Before I say anything else about this set, let me warn you: many reviewers (even ones who loved the set) commented on how time-consuming it was to put together, especially putting on all the labels and stickers.
In fact, one reviewer said he watched a couple movies during the time it took to put on all the stickers!
So if you purchase this set, I would suggest two things:
- Assemble and set up everything when your kid isn’t around, so they don’t get impatient and so you don’t get frustrated
- Assemble the entire playset first, and then add on the stickers. Otherwise you’ll go crazy trying to figure out what goes where.
Amazon reviewer DereliqueMB said this playset gave new life to all the Hot Wheels car lying around their house, and added some advice for assembly:
My kids have always liked Hot Wheels, but I noticed that after a short amount of time, they got tired of them and everything just ended up under the couch or in a dusty corner.
Enter this Matchbox Garage, now every car seems to be in high demand.
This is a great toy that has seen regular use for the past several weeks from my 2 and 4 year old. In fact, this is one of very few toys that they actually seem to enjoy more when playing together. So overall, I’m very happy with this purchase.
Now for some tips that hopefully will help someone else..
First, don’t bother with the assembly instructions — I just used a tutorial video on YouTube and just kept pausing and playing it which really made it easy.
Also, I noticed that the elevator did not work very smoothly at all — it went from the bottom to the top but it made kind of a “click” midway. With a car loaded on the elevator, that “click” point was actually not allowing it to reach the top — it would just hit that point, the elevator would drop about a half an inch, you’d go up, then drop, and so on, so you’d be stuck there at level 2 as you endless turned the crank. I was about to return it, but then I thought about the time I spent putting it together plus making sure the stickers were perfectly aligned… so I decided to try to fix it instead.
And fortunately it’s an easy fix. Just unscrew the elevator crank at the top, pull out the rod, and then examine it for any imperfections in the shape of the plastic rod. Right at the midpoint where it was getting stuck, there was kind of a circle that jutted out a bit, which was likely part of the manufacturing process. I took a sharp knife to it and gradually shaved it away till it was smooth.
Once I put it back together, the elevator functioned flawlessly, the kids loved it, and Daddy was a hero.
Matchbox Mission 4-Level Garage Playset
Matchbox Rescue Headquarters Playset
This playset is a combination fire station and police station that includes:
- A real-sounding microphone for calling in the emergency vehicles
- Dual ramps that launch vehicles from back to front, as well as side ramps
- Accessories lik flames, road cones, and road barriers
Amazon reviewer Lee4Kids said this was a particularly amazing toy for twin boys:
If i could give this more than 5 stars i would. I have 3 year old twins, one who is obesessed with police cars and one is obesessed with fire trucks so this was one of the most perfect toys they have had yet.
The entertainment is endless, from the jail, to the elevator, the dual ramps, not to mention the lights and sounds of actual dispatching (they are just as happy as playing with that then anything else!). The vehicles that come with is awesome, they loved it.
For any mother who has twins you know that if you give them any toy that there has to be two of the exact same thing so else they fight, happy to say this was not hte case for once. They played with this together perfectly, no fighting over it because there was enough entertainment options in this one toy to keep them both happy. My 5 year old son also LOVES to play with this! Great imaginative play. Cant say enough about this, a great gift for any toddler boy, perfect for Christmas!!
Matchbox Rescue Headquarters Playset
✅ Toy Car Storage Cases
If your house is anything like mine, you have a ridiculous amount of Matchbox and Hot Wheels toy cars — and perhaps, like me, you have tried many unsuccessful methods of containing them.
We used to try putting some of them in things like shoe boxes and plastic bins of different sizes. Not many was that still pretty messy and unorganized, but we found that the cars were getting scratched up by rattling around on top of each other like that.
We bought a cute-looking Hot Wheels carrying case with a handle that was shaped like a car tire. Unfortunately, that didn’t work well either. It was very flimsy and the hinges quickly broke.
So what other options are out there? Here are a few that look promising:
Toy Truck and Car Carrier
Here’s a possible solution that is both a toy truck and a storage case in one:
This car carrier truck Includes 6 die-cast racing cars, as well as construction signs, cones, and road blocks. The carrier is 20 inches long and has 28 slots for storage.
Now 28 slots would not have been nearly enough for all of Benjamin’s cars — but it’s a good starting point, as well as a fun and helpful way to make a smaller amount of cars easy to transport.
This truck won an Amazon’s Choice Award in the category of “Toy cars for 3 year old boys” and has many 5-star reviews, with reviewers saying that their son or grandson “loved it” or “played with it all day.”
But guess what? Yup, some reviewers hated it and gave it only ONE star.
✅ You can read all the negative one-star reviews for this car carrier here.
Getting back to our family’s situation —
What eventually worked best for us, storage-wise, was to mount several shelves on the wall. This especially became true as Benjamin got older and was a) slightly less obsessed with his toy cars; and b) didn’t carry them around all the time like he used to.
We have three wall racks in Benjamin’s room that are either this exact product or something very similar. What’s nice about the wall rack idea — other than the obvious benefit of it saving space — is that it ends up being a very nice-looking room decoration.
This cabinet may not be the exact same one we use, but it’s very similar
Hot Wheels and Matchbox Car Display Case Wall Rack
Hot Wheels and Matchbox Car Display Case Wall Rack
This cabinet holds 60 cars (more if some of the cars are small) and is just under 24 inches tall and 18 inches wide.
It comes in black, oak, walnut, or cherry, so you can match it to the existing decor of the room. The shelves each have a “bottom lip” to secure the cars in place, and there is a latch to keep the plexiglass door securely shut.
Toy Truck Transport Car Carrier
Melissa & Doug Car Carrier Truck and Cars Wooden Toy SetLiberty Imports 2-in-1 Friction Powered Car Carrier TruckPrextex 24” Detachable Carrier Truck Toy Car Transporter with Rubber Wheels and 6 Toy Cars ToysMelissa & Doug Mega Race-Car CarrierGreen Toys Car Carrier Vehicle Set
✅ Fire Station Playsets for Toddlers
You know what else Benjamin loved when he was little? Rescue vehicles! Here are some great fire station playsets that little guys will love.
USA Toyz Firehouse PlaysetVTech Go! Go! Smart Wheels Save the Day Fire StationPidoko Kids Fire Station Toy with Magnetic Portable Box for Easy StorageJanod Fire Station PlaysetVTech Go! Go! Smart Wheels Fire Command Rescue Center PlaysetVTech Go! Go! Smart Wheels Fire Station
✅ Police Station Playsets for Toddlers
And of course we have can’t fire station without also including police stations!
Pidoko Kids Police Station PlaysetRace Car Tracks Racetrack Vehicle playsetFisher Price TRIO Police StationBRIO World – Police Station
My 15-month old son, my 5-yr old daughter, and even my 9-year old son are all busy with VTech garage! It’s adorable and works nicely. Took me a while to put together but it was worth it. We also purchased additional VTech go go smart cars to use with it.
Thanks for sharing, Cheryl!
your post is very useful, I’ll keep reading your website!