Toys from the Past: #637 MIRA – AUTORREMOLQUE RULOT, HÍPICA and MOTO-CROSS (Around 1992)

Monday, January 25, 2016

#637 MIRA – AUTORREMOLQUE RULOT, HÍPICA and MOTO-CROSS (Around 1992)

I have commented this several times already, but here it goes again. By the beginning of the 90s, the Spanish market was already open to foreign toys and the first products from China were already being sold in stores. At first, they had very bad quality, but afterwards they started improving. These were extremely cheap, for example, one MC Toy car costed 100 pesetas (0.60 Eur).

The die-cast market, dominated by local brands plus Matchbox and Majorette had to react against those cheap products, and while Matchbox launched the Super G.T. (this was before the 90s, since to other countries the Chinese concurrents arrived earlier), Guisval the “Club” series, and Mira simplified its cars so much, that they were then even difficult to recognise.

The last Mira series comprised a few car models, very simplified in its design, withouth interiors. The cars had a metallic body, black chassis, dark windows and the wheels with the axles attached to the chassis. Each car was applied some stickers with the name of the car, in case you were not able to recognise it at first sight. These are in my opinion, some of the worst die-cast made in Spain ever (together with the Gisima models I already presented).

In order to reduce stocks when the company was already losing market share and making fewer and fewer business, they re-released the “Autorremolques” series. This series was originally released in the 70s, and consisted of larger boxes that included one model and one trailer. The trailers are copies of Matchbox, Corgi or Majorette, as some models at that time were.

The original series included normal street cars, like Renaults, Seats, Fords, Fiats and one of five available trailers. Some cars had stickers related to the tráiler they were carrying, so there was some logic that matched the car to the tráiler:

Hipica – Based on Matchbox’s Horse Trailer
Moto-Cross – Based on Matchbox’s Honda Motorcycle and Trailer
Rulot – Based on Corgi Juniors’ Caravan
Fuera-Borda – Based on Majorette’s
Regata – Based on Majorette’s

In this later release, the cars were more modern, cars that were among the best selling cars of their time. Most accurately, these models were:

Seat Ibiza
Ford Sierra
Renault 11
Peugeot 205
Nissan Patrol

About the trailers, I have only seem packages including one of the three first from the list above (no boats). Needless to say, that cars and trailers were mixed randomly in this later series:

Hipica – Based on Matchbox’s Horse Trailer
Moto-Cross – Based on Matchbox’s Honda Motorcycle and Trailer
Rulot – Based on Corgi Juniors’ Caravan

And I said they are probably leftovers, because, as you can see in the pictures, the wheels of the trailers are still the ones used during the 80s. If these had been produced at the same time that the cars, probably they would have the same type of cheap Wheel (1 part instead of hubcap and tyre).