#517 PLÁSTICOS DE ALBACETE - CITROËN VISA and RENAULT FUEGO (Around 1986)

Plásticos de Albacete (short PA) is another very small Spanish company that produced toys in the 80s, I have found no information at all in the internet, so I guess that the company produced toys only for a few years, and probably after and before produced other types of plastic goods. Maybe the company operated with other name, although this seems improbable, since it is very difficult to find a less commercial brand than "Plásticos de Albacete" (“Plastics from Albacete”, which is a city in central Spain).

The only toys known are a few different series (=different scales) of plastic cars with friction motor.

In this series, the scale is approximately 1:32. There were only a few models made: a Renault Fuego, a Citroën Visa, a Fiat/Seat Panda and a Simca/Talbot Horizon. These cars were made is several bright colours: red, blue, yellow, white and green.

Other series include cars in bigger scale and better quality. Another series in approximately 1:20 reproduced several cars like the Renault 5, the Fiat/Seat 600, the Fiat/Seat 850 or the Fiat/Seat 127... All were very popular cars before the 90s. These were made of one piece of plastic, but before, maybe in the last 70s, there were another series made with much more quality, including cars like the Ford Fiesta, the Fiat/Seat 124 or the Chrysler 150.

The intermediate scale series was very similar to other series made by Fundiplast, like for example the Renault 5 shown in #237.

PA always reproduced popular cars that were sold in Spain those years, some with nice "fire brigade", "police", "ambulance" or other attractive decorations.

 

There were at least two issues of these cars. The older of these two included plastic hubcaps (a separate piece, glued to the wheel), while in older versions, the wheels had a new cast in which the hubcap was simply carved on them. Here's a pic for comparison: the yellow model is one toy a keep from my childhood days, and which originally had winshield and windows. The blue model was bought in a flea market in Austria. I guess it had a great history to tell if it could talk, about how it crossed half Europe.

In the last picture, you can see one of the cardboard showcases with all four models and in all four colours.

Picture: todocoleccion.net, seller: Alfreedom.

You can see much more pictures of toys made by Plásticos de Albacete here (a must for plastic toys/cars collectors): http://miniaturas70.jimdo.com/plásticos-albacete/

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: CITROËN VISA and RENAULT FUEGO
• Year: Around 1986
• Company: PLÁSTICOS DE ALBACETE (Spain)
• Size: Around 10 cm.
• Scale: Around 1:32