The World of Diecast Cars

[Aragorn243]

Picking up some Dinky diecasts got me wondering this morning about these little cars.

One of my favorite toys as a kid were Matchbox vehicles. I had a hundred or so probably, mostly hand me downs from an uncle near my age, 6 years.

So, most of the good ones came from the UK, and I didn't know about most until I was an adult.

Matchbox, Corgi, Dinky, Budgie, Ledo.

What did we have in the US? Tootsietoy, Midge Toy which are crap in comparison. Johnny Lightning and Hot Wheels later but I never cared for them much because they were mostly fantasy cars, not the real ones people drove.

Today, in horror, I discover the Soviet Union had better diecast cars than we did.

I know France had a company also but don't recall the name.

I wonder why this is. We had BIG toys, Tonka's, Buddy L's, Structo's and maybe that's why the little ones were neglected. Matchbox obviously filled the void. I expect the vast bulk of their sales was to the US market.

Is this a situation of the US having to be big with everything? Did kids in Europe have large toy trucks to play with?

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[CINDERS]

I have a pristine Corgi Mercedes Pullman in original box is also smiko with the instructions it still has the hood ornament attached which ultimately gets snapped off on allot of them, it belonged to my dad and I was never allowed to touch it.
I have some of his other ones small ones in boxes that appear to be like trunks think they are French made, the circa of the cars they are depicting are I think around the 20-30's.

I still have my slot car and controller from when I was racing it a Ruskit Chaparral 2D around the time when the sidewinder motor placement came in they were so much faster.
So much fun with the toy soldiers and a bag of marbles out my back yard when a child pity the grey soldiers always lost to the green ones, then making billy carts with my friends remember losing lots of bark with the resultant prangs and failures but heck you could be a child back then.
Now its a case of prying their fingers from an I-Pad or comp screen I said to my son a while ago future generations of children will have fingers 2" long and thumbs 5" long due to to much X-Box and Nintendo gaming and so on....
So glad I grew up in the era I did when kids could be kids with the streets being relatively safe.

[rcathey]

…with the streets being relatively safe.

Don’t look up crime statistics over the years if you’d like to continue believing that haha.

I’m younger than most here but, for example, the iPhone wasn’t pervasive until I was in college. This next generation, it’s all they know. I’ve attempted to work with a couple at my day job in manufacturing and it’s very obvious their hands-on skills are lacking.

I feel thankful for growing up in the last generation to not be raised by smart phones and iPads. I doubt the hobbies that brought me here or led me into my career could’ve survived a series of touchscreen babysitters.

[Bob Womack]

I still have my Farnborough-Measham Car Auction Collection car transporter.



Obviously I was a collector. I still mourn the loss of my wine-colored XKE Jag in the seat back of a Trailways bus somewhere around 1964. Then there was Joseph.




Bob

[CINDERS]

Is that a GI Joe Bob I had one of those as well but after @15 WW's he had lost an arm and most of his kit.

[baltimoreed]

Never did comics, baseball cards, matchbox cars or gi joes but had plenty of those little green army men. My absolutely most favorite toy was an Erector Set with the electric motor. I would build stuff with it until my fingers hurt with all those little screws and nuts. When I got a little older I started building AMT and Monogram models with my buddy.

[Bob Womack]

Is that a GI Joe Bob I had one of those as well but after @15 WW's he had lost an arm and most of his kit.

Yep, hat is G.I. Joe with his Garand. I had one. I went to visit a friend in another town. This guys had probably twenty of them. He got bored with them and started gluing Estes rocket motors onto them and shooting them into the next neighborhood. I said to him, "If you are just going to blow 'em away, give some to me." I now have eleven G.I. Joes including the German, Australian, Russian, Japanese, Marine, you name it.

Bob

[CINDERS]

Went from the battle fields of my back yard to building and flying control line aircraft with glow plug & Diesel engine planes flying wings etc biggest I had was a Spectre low wing 42" wing span and no collections complete without a Spitfire which we built from scratch from plans a friend had that was a great job fabricating all the parts.
We put an extra large fuel tank, a 2.5cc Enya glowplug engine on it and it did from memory 100+ laps we got bored one day with the whole lot after a few years of it and being young chaps every plane we had did wingovers that we did not pull out of.

I got back into them 9 years ago with a control line Spitfire and a Hi wing remote but did not like the attitude of some of the members of the flying club every club has them those that their stuff don't stink and don't get in my way or ask any stoopid questions.
All my planes have been stored for years, I'm back into my childhood now building models here's my attempt after 30 years since I built my 1/35 Tiger mid-production a 1/35 Panther completed with figures and ammo I painted up even airbbrushed the clean empties to look fired plus just finished a 1/35 Russian T34/76.
I'm building a late production 1/35 Crusader now

[USGI]

My absolutely most favorite toy was an Erector Set with the electric motor. I would build stuff with it until my fingers hurt with all those little screws and nuts.

Hey, me too! I still have mine - a No. 4-1/2 I think, but only has the wind-up motor. Also, still have my OK Cub .049B model airplane motor from the mid 50's - Bob

[Aragorn243]

We were pretty poor financially when I was a kid so I didn't get a lot of new things. My uncle however was an only son and the youngest with four older sisters and he got everything. And as he got older, I got a lot of the common stuff but he kept a lot of the better things. I can't complain, I had plenty of matchboxes, structos, army men and one GI Joe. I had a lot of the matchboxes stolen when I was in my early teens. Probably have them all back now. I never did grow up when it came to toys, never got rid of them, continue buying them to this day.