When Vlad Drǎgușin founded his mid-century inspired toy car company, Candylab, in 2013, he had a Kickstarter page and a dream. His goal was to create wooden model cars inspired by hot rods and classic American car designs; toys that would be both durable enough for play and sleek enough for display. As it turns out, there’s a major growing market for that kind of thing—and Candylab just rebranded to capture it.

Since its founding, Candylab has secured retail placement in stores like London’s Design Museum, MoMa, the Guggenheim, Barnes & Noble, and the cult favorite apparel brand Kith. It’s also notched major brand collabs including with Saint Laurent, Zara Kids, Criterion Collection, The New York Times, and, most recently, Netflix’s Stranger Things.

In recent years, Candylab has expanded its product offerings into two categories: one is its original line of premium, heftier cars, designed with collectibility in mind, and the second is a new line of smaller, less expensive, more lightweight cars engineered for play. Candylab’s toys naturally fit into an increasingly bifurcated toy industry that, over........

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