#312 ROMAN – MOTO SPRINT FRICCIÓN (V-201) (1978)

HISTORY OF JUGUETES ROMÁN

This company was founded in Ibi in 1969 with the name "Asunción Román Albero". The name of the company was at the same time a name of a woman. Her children, the Valls Román brothers, were the founders of the company that named after their mother. Later (1971) they turned the family business into a share company: Juguetes Román S.A.

Asunción Román Albero produced spring loaded toys, but after the re-foundation of the company, the company started producing tin lithograph toys. With the appearance of plastic, Román also incorporated plastic in their models to spare production costs. They also used some mechanisms in their toys to make them more attractive, like battery operated direction, obstacle cars, friction motors and more.

The family business was located in a small factory in San Isidro street, but since the business was successful, they moved to more suitable and larger facilities in Espronceda street, that they built themselves. This place was later sold and does not exist anymore.

Currently Juguetes Román is placed in Córdoba street, in the outskirts of the city, in one of the industrial areas. We talked about the company which it is today in our previous entry dedicated to this toy company.

In that same entry, we showed a friction motorbike that was a copy of a Japanese toy. If you check that entry, you’ll notice that this motorbike is almost identical to it. And you’re right. The difference between them is the size. This model V-201 is around 50% larger than the first one.

Other differences are that this model is completely made of tin (except the side wheels), without any plastic part and that it was sold in a box instead of a bag. The box is beautifully illustrated and is also very colourful. It depicts one version of the motorbike on each side (references V-201 -Police- and V-202 -Race-). On the sides of the box, there’s a nice illustration of the policeman and the race driver that drive the motorbikes.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: MOTO SPRINT FRICCIÓN
• Year: Around 1978 (Probably sold during many years)
• Company: Román (Spain)
• Size: 10 cm