This are very curious models. They're the only ones
I own in this scale by Lone Star, and I found them in a thrift shop and a flea market respectively a few years
ago. They are not that rare, but they are nice models in an unusual scale for this
kind of toys.
Lone Star is the trademark used by the toy
division of Die Cast Machine Tools (DCMT), a british company based in London.
This company was founded in 1939. Among their
first products, there are many guns and rifles, which were very popular at the time
because of the many films about Indians and Cowboys. It is said, that the name
of the toys comes from these products. They also produced many hand-painted figures
(early in metal, later in plastic), which I know thanks to
smallscaleword.blogspot.com.
But their most successful products were
vehicles, and there were vehicles in several scales made… starting with the
classic 1/43 (similar to Corgi’s cars), 1/64 under the Impy series, and also in
1/85 with these Tuf Tots.
If you want to know more about the company, or
other toy series, we advice you to visit http://www.lone-star-diecast-bk.com/
. In this entry we’ll just focus on the Tuf Tots.
As said above, this series was made in a
smaller scale than the usual 1:64, and pretended to be an alternative to
Matchbox models, as they were three times cheaper. The series comprised 11 cars
in 1/85 scale and 16 trucks in 1/118 scale, which means that all toys were
around 1,5 or 2 inches
long.
Among the cars, there’ re a Citroën DS,
Mercedes 280 SL, Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, a Dodge Dart, a Jeep, a caravan,
even a trailer with a boat. The trucks are different and include tankers,
delivery trucks, a London
bus, Tow truck and some more. The Mercedes, Citroën, Corvette and Dodge were
available in two different versions: cabrio and hard-top coupé, which were
basically the same model, with or without the black plastic top.
All of them seem to have been launched in 1969,
and despite its small price and small size, they’re made with great quality and
are also very strong because of the zinc-alloy in which they’re made.
Three models were re-released by Lone Star as “Zippy
Zoomes” (Mercedes, Corvette and Citroën) and available between 1983 and 1985. They
came in a garage which could “shoot” the cars.
Later, the moulds were used by Microlink (a
company from Wales)
to release a series called “Mokes”. The main characteristics of these cars were
their bright colours, like pink, orange, red, green, and they were packed with
stickers to customize them.
610 Tipper Truck
611 Freight Truck
612 Apache Low Loader
613 Speedboat and trailer
614 Refuse Truck
615 Cement Mixer
616 Milk Delivery Truck
617 Horse Box
618 Waste Disposal Truck
619 Citroen Coupe
620 Stingray Coupe
621 Dodge Dart Coupe
622 Mercedes Coupe
623 London Bus
624 Fire Engine
625 Caravan
626 Circus Truck
627 Earth Mover
581 Gift Set
583 Gift Set
??? Vauxhall Cresta Estate (Preproduction model, never released)
UPDATE 1 (FEB/2023): Tipper Truck (Ref. 610)
- Name: TIPPER TRUCK (Ref. 610), WASTE DISPOSAL TRUCK (Ref. 618) and EARTH MOVER (Ref. 627)
- Scale: 1:118
- Year: 1969
- Company: Lone Star (Great Britain)
- Size: approx. 4 cm
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