#1005 BLUE BOX – PENNY RACERS and TRAFALGAR – COIN CHARGERS (Around 1989 and 1982, respectively)

The Penny Racers (or, in Japanese, Choro-Q) are best known under the Takara brand, which is also the company that introduced them in 1978. They were based on a previous toyline called Mame Dash which was discontinued in 1980.

They are miniature pull-back cars with superdeformed dimensions (Choro is an abbreviation to the Japanese word for “cute”), in whose rear part there is a slot in which you can insert, if you wish, a small coin (f.e. a penny) and the car will drive on two wheels, making nice acrobacies on its way. There were a lot of tracks to go with and the variety was enourmous, as they encountered great success both in Japan and outside Japan. The license has even make it up to a dozen videogames and some Transformers sub-lines are also Penny Racers, not to forget the licenses awarded to Blue Box, Funrise, Tonka and others. Even it may seem strange, the original Japanese line was aimed to adult collectors, whereas Tonka version (called the Turbo Tricksters) is intended for children. There were all kinds of vehicles made, and they are still being sold in many countries, so it is a line that is still alive and producing many different models per year. 

 

The blue and yellow buggy is my only Penny Racer, I bought is for one euro in a fle market around 4 years ago. It is a nice model with a decoration and colour combination that was usual in the 90s. You can read more about Blue Box Toys here.

Another model which fits into this category of toys, but it is actually a knock-off is this Coin Chargers by the Hong-Kongese company Trafalgar. This one is clearly older (probably from the early 80s) and represents a fire truck. It was a gift from Steven and it is still carded, which is always nice to see. The instructions are in simple English and include some errors. The backcard shows other 5 models, but you can observe that the Coin Chargers were probably sold for very little money, as the quality of the package is rather low, although at the time, most products of its kind had (more or less) this quality.

UPDATE (May/2023): I got this model from my friend Steven, and it is matching exactly the first model shown in this entry. It is also made by Blue Box.

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Name: BUGGY and FIRE TRUCK 
• Scale: Approx. 1:90
• Year: Around 1989 and around 1982, respectively
• Company: Blue Box (Hong-Kong) and Trafalgar Toys (Hong-Kong) based on a license or copied from Takara's Choro-Q
  
• Size: approx. 4 cm