#485 TOMICA - NISSAN CABALL (No. 54), ISUZU ELF (No. 35, 36, 37), MITSUBISHI FUSO BUS (No. 41) and GREYHOUND BUS (No. F49, 222) (1975, 1971, 1979 and 1974)

Until now, all entries dealing with Tomica showed cars, but Tomica always had in its catalogues many other types of vehicles. In this entry we will check 2 Buses and 2 trucks. One of each type were bought in the mid 80s, and the other two have been bought in the last 4 or 5 years in different flea markets.

 

 

 

The first truck is a Nissan Caball in orange. It has a telescopic ladder with a small container on the front (known as "cherry picker"). This truck had several versions with different reference numbers. This one is the "Power Company Service", which is identical to the "Telephone Truck" and "Utility Truck", except for the colour. Available between 1975 and 1988. Scale: 1:68.

 

 

The second truck is a Isuzu Elf catering truck for JAL (Japan Air Lines) and has a movable container, that can be lifted. Both this truck and the previous one are based in Japanese models, so for Europeans, they are quite exotic. The Isuzu Elf had several versions, as we can deduct from having three reference numbers. The Catering truck was first released in 1971 and last in 1997, although those last versions seem to represent a newer version of the Isuzu model. Scale: 1:67.

 

 

The first bus is the Greyhound Bus MC-8 in grey (Nr. 222-F49) ad 1:156 scale. It has a very nice design, so were the busses in the 70s! (the model is copyrighted in 1979). As a child, I can remember, this was my least favorite Tomica toy, since I couldn´t tell the front from the back, and I never knew if I was pushing it in the right direction or in "reverse". Scale 1:156.

 

 

The second bus is older than the first one (it is copyrighted 1974), and it is marked Mitsubishi Fuso Bus, and it´s the only Tomica I own with that kind of wheels. It is a Japanese bus decorated in orange and white with the inscription "Airport Bus Service". This same model was reissued in a "Bus set" recently, but with other kind of wheels. I think it might be a rare model, since there are no pictures on google of this model with these wheels, and my Tomica list it is not listed. Scale 1:156.

 

 

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: NISSAN CABALL (No. 54), ISUZU ELF (No. 35, 36, 37), MITSUBISHI FUSO BUS (No. 41) and Greyhound Bus (No. F49, 222)
• Scale: 1:67, 1:68 and 1:156 (Buses)
• Year: 1975, 1971, 1979 and 1974 (respectively)
• Company: Tomica (Japan)
• Size: approx. 6 cm 

#484 M.A.S.K. - VAMPIRE with FLOYD MALLOY/ BUCKSHOT (1986)

Another M.A.S.K. entry and another motorbike. The vampire is a motorbike belonging to the V.E.N.O.M. group and is driven by Floyd Malloy (with his mask Buckshot). The mask pretends to launch ball bearings, whatever that means.

The toy is rather small and has nice colours and shapes. The name is very well chosen, I decided to leave these shadows on the pictures so you can see that it really reminds of a vampire.

The vehicle “hidden” in the motorbike is some kind of small flying jet. The back part of it includes a big motor with two missile launchers. Each of them hosts a black missile. These are usually missing. On the front, there is a small machine gun. In the pictures the missiles are inserted the other way round. They should point to the front. I was deceived by the name they had in the original package that calls them “Retro-Rockets”.

The Vampire was launched as part of the second series, which hasn’t been mentioned in this blog before. I have shown other M.A.S.K. vehicles and figures before, but none of the second wave. That wave was a continuation of the first one, there were no revolutionary changes or new features. The new vehicles were the ones that had been designed for the second season of the TV series and that was all.

Also interesting to mention that the pilot (the black figure) was later repainted in red and sold in Europe only in a two pack either with Vanessa Warfield or a repaint of Bruno Sheppard. We will talk about european two-packs some other time.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: VAMPIRE with FLOYD MALLOY / BUCKSHOT (Ref. 37400)
• Toy Line: M.A.S.K. (Wave 2)
• Year: 1986
• Company: Kenner (U.S.A.)
• Size of the vehicle: Around 5'' or 13 cm
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm

#483 MC TOY – PEUGEOT 205, 309, 405 TURBO and CITROËN 2 CV (1986 and 1987)

MC Toy - Peugeot 205GTI [8611] and MC Toy - Peugeot 309 [8614]

Here’s another entry with more MC Toys. This time I have chosen a trio of French made cars: two Peugeots and a Citroën. I am quite surprised that the Hong-Kongese company MC Toy decided to reproduce this car models instead of any other, since they’re small European cars, only popular in certain countries of Europe. You might argue that the Citroën is more than that, some kind of iconic car, a symbol for the generation born in the mid 50s that got a car in the early 70s, but the two Peugeots are quite ordinary cars, with no especial charm.

No matter what, MC Toy managed to produce quite nice models, The Citroën is probably not as nice as the model made by Guisval, but the 205 is clearly much better. The 309 instead, is a model that to my knowledge was never reproduced by any other brand… what makes it a very interesting piece.

MC Toy - Citroen 2CV [8732]

The 405 Turbo is a car that due to its participation in the Paris-Dakar rally became very popular those years. Majorette manufactured it in yellow with many tampographies, and it looked great, with that impressive spoiler, and extra high wheels. This version is not as accurate as the Majorette version, because it features a white model, but it is still a very nice collection piece. The tampographies are not among the best by MC Toys, but they are still nice examples of what they were doing by the early 90s.

Poliguri also made this car in 1:64 scale. See entry #132.

MC Toy - Peugeot 405 Turbo 16 [8741]

UPDATE 1 (NOV/2019): Citroen 2CV in yellow and Another Peugeot 205 GTI (no differences from the one above)

 

UPDATE 2 (FEB/2023): A new version of the 2CV with "Highway" tampographies in the 90s style

 

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: PEUGEOT 205 (Ref. 8611), 309 (Ref. 8614), 405 TURBO (Ref. 8741) and CITROËN 2 CV (Ref. 8732)
• Scale: 1:64 (approx.)
• Year: The two first digits in the reference number indicates the year of design and manufacture, so: 1986 and 1987.
• Company: MC Toy (U.S.A./ Macau)
• Size: approx. 3’’ or 7 cm

#482 HASBRO’S WWF – LEGION OF DOOM AND NASTY BOYS TAG TEAMS (1992)

The third wave brought us the last tag teams ever released in a two-pack: the Legion of Doom and the Nasty Boys. Interestingly, the Nasty Boys were never released in Spain, so I saw them first only a few years ago.

The Legion of Doom is my favourite tag team from all that Hasbro made, the figures look really menacing and have great features. Unfortunately, they’re quite fragile and the spikes of their vests tend to break. If the figure felt from a middle height in the wrong position, spikes would jump off very easily.

HAWK (Joseph Michael "Joe" Laurinaitis)

ANIMAL (Michael Hegstrand)

The Nasty Boys were also a very good tag team, and I remember them from an epic battle against the rockers. The figures are ok, although a little boring in my opinion with the same outfir and very similar casts, except that one has black hair and the second one is blond, but isn’t it the same for all tag teams… My theory (I think I explained it other time) is that the tag teams in which the figures were very similar were sold together, to avoid mistakes when buying the second figure.

BRIAN KNOBBS

JERRY SAGS

It is also a known thing that children are attracted to figures that are very different to other figures they already own, that’s why in most action figure collections, figures tend to have different colours, even in toylines like G.I.Joe, which is supposed to be military, so if a kid bought for example Ax from the first wave, it is less probable that that same child would choose Smash among the other 11 figures from wave 1.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: LEGION OF DOOM and NASTY BOYS TAG TEAMS
• Toy Line: Official WWF (Wave 3)
• Year: 1992
• Company: Hasbro (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 12 cm