Tuesday, October 15, 2013

#336 TINTOYS/ TIN'S TOYS – VARIOUS CONCEPT CARS (Around 1979)



These six cars were sold together in a 6-pack I received around 1990. It was a gift from my father, but I don’t know where he got them. I know why he chose this pack and not any other: the cars are all concept cars, and very nice ones.

They were originally decorated with paper stickers, but with the use, they got dirty, and started to “disintegrate”. I probably removed the rests of them sometime.

The box was rectangular, and had six slots where the cars fitted. Front side contained a window, so you could see the cars inside, and back side contained a list of all available 6-packs (or part of them), listing the models in each one. Although I cannot remember any of these sets, I know the 6 vehiclesin each pack were always similar, for example 6 busses, or 6 trucks, or 6 formula ones…

In this case, the six cars in these pictures are 6 concept cars:

T289 – Gruesome Twosome
T290 – Turbo Fury
T291 – O. S. 1. Silver Fox (Should say O.S.I. not O.S.1)
T292 – Marcos XP
T293 – Mercedes C111
T294 – Ford GT 70


The pictures are not very good (I should have photographed the cars individually), but maybe you can recognise that the first two references (Gruesome Twosome and Turbo Fury) are based on Matchbox casts, the O.S.I. Silver Fox (also known as O.S.I. Bisiluro) could be an unique cast, or at least, I do not know in which other model could it be based, and the other thee references (Marcos XP, Mercedes C111 and Ford GT 70) are based on Corgi Juniors casts.

The most interesting cast is, for the reasons above, the O.S.I. Silver Fox / Bisiluro. Additionally, the car has been set with a simulated motor (casted in plastic) behind the cockpit, that the original model never had. This makes this car quite an oddity.








The Company Tin’s Toys still exists, although it has changed so much, since they manufactured the cars I am presenting today. According to their website, the company was founded in 1965 by Mr. Tin Pok Sin, and from his name derives the name of the company. The official name of the company was Tins’ Metal Manufactory Ltd. Tintoys and Tins’ Toys are brands they use to sell their creations. Sometime during the 80s, the company moved from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China, where they keep producing die-cast toys.
Today, they make their own casts, and even have some licenses from automobile and motorbike makers, back in the 70s, most of the cars (if not all) were copies from other manufacturers. Their current catalogue covers scales 1:10 to 1:64, all made with great details and they seem to be very well finished.

All cars made by the company during the 70s and the 80s are marked in the base either with a “T” or with a “WT”. Baseplates, by the way are almost always made of plastic.

Many blister carded cars can be seen on eBay. These date mostly from the late 70s, and have “Fast wheels”. Another interesting point, is that the stickers are shared between many different cars, I mean, the same stickers were used in different models. Many cars include chromed parts, while the bodies are usually made of basic, bright colours (red, yellow, blue, green…) with very few exceptions.

The cars were distributed in the United States by E.F.S. or the Imperial Toy Company by the mid 80s. K-Mart sold them, as well as Kingsbury during those years. Some boxes are known to be written in French maybe they were distributed in France and/or Canada
Currently, some of those casts are being used by High Speed.

Some information for this article has been retrieved from the article: Tintoys and Tins' Toys by Kimmo Sahakangas.


UPDATE: I recently found two more models that I already had, but this time in slightly different colours. The Mercedes in gold and the Marcos in pearl blue (the previous one was grey). The first model still has a sticker on the front.




FACTS AND FIGURES:
  • Name: GRUESOME TWOSOME, TURBO FURY, O. S. 1. SILVER FOX, MARCOS XP, MERCEDES C111, FORD GT 70 (References T289 to T294)
  • Scale: 1:64
  • Year: Around 1979
  • Company: Tin’s Toys (Hong Kong)
  • Size: approx. 6 cm

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