#1089 BLUE-BOX – PEUGEOT 205 (Around 1992)

I have never seen this mechanism anywhere else in a toy car of 3 inches size. The base of the miniature includes a plastic ratchet that will turn together with the wheels, so, when moving it, it will produce a RR-RR-RR-RR sound, as if the engine or the motor were working at full speed. Such a simple idea and such a nice implementation with almost no costs.

I also like a lot that they represented the Peugeot 205, a car that became very popular in the late 80s and the beginning of the nineties. Many other brands made it at the same scale (for example, Majorette or Guisval). It was even done as a Raid car, such as the Scalextric STS model in Paris-Dakar decoration. It was a very popular car, cheap, families could afford buying one of these, so it was a common sight in the countries where it was available. Unfortunately, the detail level is not very good, but you still can recognise the car without any problems. The paint is also not the best.

This was a rare find, as Blue-Box is quite rare outside of the UK. I do not have many toys made by this brand, and all I have have already been presented in the blog, so, if you are interested in this particular toymaker, you can check its history in this entry, or see other plastic vehicles here.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: PEUGEOT 205
• Scale: Around 1:64
• Year:  Around 1992
• Company: Blue Box (Hong-Kong)
• Size: approx. 7 cm

#1086 FOREST FAMILIES – MOUSE & RABBIT FAMILIES (Around 1989)

I presented this collection some years ago in entry #1035, where I explained everything I knew and could find about the manufacturer MC Toy and the line itself, while I showed already some figures from my collection.

 

This time, I will limit the extent of this contribution to show two more families: Rabbits and Rats, but first, let´s take a closer look to the leaflets above. It is practical to have at least one of these (they come in several formats) to check if the clothes actually match the figure or not. Maybe these were swapped with those of another figure, and, since I am a completist collector, I want the figures to be complete with all their accesories.

In the leaflet above the second scen shows the Mouse Family, while the fifth and last show the Rabbit Family. Note that the background of the image is different, so I assume the mice were made a bit earlier than the rabbits. The background corresponds to the one used in the Bear family, while the blue background images are probably the extension of the line, as they saw the first figures were selling well. These include some of the "exotic" species, mentioned in the previous entry.

And now, let´s go for the toys!

 

Rabbit family / Familie Hasi

 

Mouse family / Familie Maus

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: MOUSE and RABBIT FAMILIES
• Toy Line: FOREST FAMILIES / BÄRENLAND
• Year: Around 1989
• Company: MC Toy (Macau/ China)
  
• Size of the figures: Around 7-8 cm

#1083 PLAYLAND/WELLY – SEVERAL PULLBACK CARS IN 1:36 SCALE (Around 1993)

These kind of cars at a scale around 1:36 were relatively common in the early 90s. Somehow the 1:43s of the previous decade “grew” and became available in many places, including pound-shops, one dollar stores and their equivalents in each country. Some of the first “big” models I recall were some MC Toy cars with pull-back motor, such as the Porsche 959 or the 911 Cabrio. 

They also had the “standard” 1:64 series, but MC Toy came with this bigger series of sport cars that looked so nice and were so cheap. I guess many other brands followed, since MC Toy was the company that was doing best during these first years of the 90s decade.

PORSCHE 959 / OPEL OMEGA '88 “FEUERWEHR” / CHEVROLET CORVETTE '83 in dark blue

I have collected many over the last years. But today I will present only those which were marketed under the Playland – Mini Flitzer series in Germany. The identification is difficult since all the models are unmarked, and it is required to look for boxed models in order to be sure. Playland seems to be the brand used by the importer, which was AHG Wachsmuth & Krogmann from Hamburg. The logo depicts a cartoonish crocodile with a baseball cap. There were two designs for the box: a classic one in blue, and another more modern in purple, pink and green, very representative of the early 90s.

 

 

 

Several Boxed Items. The "Mini-Flitzer" with the Playland Logo, the other "Super Racer" with or without the Welly logo. All from ebay

 

These two pictures show the different styles of Playland boxes.

I found the firs four cars in on of those boxes on the Internet (mainly in German sites like ebay.de), but not the Ferrari, which I include here anyway, because it is so similar. This may belong to another, similar series.

CHEVROLET CORVETTE '83 in yellow

FERRARI TESTAROSSA

I suspect that the maker behind these cars might be Welly, although I am not 100% sure. Welly had their own lines like Super Racer or Old Timer in the same scale and also with a pullback motor feature. The models look in fact very similar, and so do the boxes, but one can never be sure. I include some picture of Welly Boxes for comparison. The same Chevrolet has been spoted in a Welly box, although that model was a cabrio and not a hardtop.

FACTS AND FIGURES: 

• Name: SEVERAL PULLBACK CARS IN 1:36 SCALE
• Scale: 1:36
• Year: Around 1993
• Company: Welly / Playland (China/Germany)
• Size: approx. 12 cm

#1082 - PLAYMAKERS/LARAMIE - PLASTIC WRESTLERS (Around 1986)

I bought this collection of 8 plastic wrestlers in Austria, but I didn’t know anything about them until very recently. They are unmarked and relatively small. At the time, I thougth they might come from those vending machines that sell plastic balls with some novelty toy inside, or, maybr, from a blister card from a Chinese or Indian bazar. The paint and the overall quality is very low, but the variety and body positions are great.

I later found out that they were manufactured in the 80s by companies such as:

• Playmakers, which sold them unpainted in a blister pack of 4 under the brand "Champion Wrestlers" (Made in Hong Kong)
• Ja-Ru, unpainted, under the brand "USA Wrestling Team" (Made in Hong Kong)
• Unknown Toymaker, painted, under the brand "Wrestling Champs/ Champions de Lutte" (Made in Hong Kong), using the same card as some of the "Wrestling Champions" bootlegs (same as the two-figure blister pack shown here, both on the front and on the back sides)
• Laramie painted under the brand "Wrestling Sper Champs" (Made in China, probably already in the 90s, as some colours schemes remind of Hulk Hogan)
• The colours used in my figures seem to be more "modern" than those of Laramie, I guess they could be even newer than these. However, for the "facts and figures" at the end of this article, I will use the apporximate year of 1986, as these is the educated guess for the Playmakers models.

I have eight figures, which are decorated in pairs wiht the same colour scheme, but two of them are not matching, so I supposed I was missing two more figures, but the truth is that I am missing 4 figures, as the original set from Playmakers clearly indicates that there are twelve models available.

Mine are: two blond wrestlers with long hair (note the same colour used in boots and trunks), two black-haired wrestlers with red trunks, and two brown-haired wresltlers with orange trunks. The two left-most figures the wrestler with beard and moustache and the bald wrestler with moustache do not have a second figure. 

They are somewhat similar to the plastic WWF wrestler shown here, but the singularity of these ones lies in that they are not bootlegging any known character.

Really cool, racket toys. 

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: WRESTLER MINI FIGURES
• Toy Line: Unknown
• Year: Around 1986
• Company: Unknown Manufacturer (China)
  
• Size of the figures: 5-6 cm

#1075 GINGELL/RHINO – HUDSON HORNET '51, CHEVROLET BEL-AIR '57, FORD THUNDERBIRD '57, CHEVROLET CORVETTE '62 and CHEVROLET CAMARO IROC-Z '82 (Around 1994)

These set of cars came in a big lot of toys including also Transformers, Micro Machines and plastic figures. There were some die-cast models as well, most of them very crude Made in China. Among them, I was surprised to find these classic American cars from the 50s and the 60s, so I put them aside. Also the Camaro seemed to belong to the same series, so I also kept it. I learnt from Steven (from the Motorcade) that these cars are Rhino (or Gingell, see previous entry). 

It is quite uncommon to find in these sets from the early 90s other than sport cars and utility vehicles, and cars like the Hudson Hornet are also rare in 1:64 scale, so that makes a nice addition to my collection.

The colours are basic, but the tampogaphies are very elaborated. They include funny words such as Fire-Wheel, Turboline, T.Fashion or High Sport, but this is also part of their charm.

FACTS AND FIGURES: 

• Name:  HUDSON HORNET '51, CHEVROLET BEL-AIR '57, FORD THUNDERBIRD '57, CHEVROLET CORVETTE '62 and CHEVROLET CAMARO IROC-Z '82
• Scale: 1:64
• Year: Around 1994
• Company: Gingell/Rhino (China)
• Size: approx. 6 cm

#1074 GINGELL – BMW 323i CABRIO, FERRARI TESTAROSSA and PORSCHE CARRERA (Around 1993)

I have to admit, that, despite collecting toy cars since my childhood, I have no idea about most of these cheaper, made in China, brands that popped-up in the early 1990s. I usually get advice of Steven from the Motorcade, or I visit his webpage directly. 

The models themselves are rather uninteresting. Not bad casts, but lots of plastic, black windows and also bad tampographies (although I appreciate the racing numbers, as they help, or, at least, helped me as a kid, to organize races at home). The BMW seems to be a poor copy of a Matchbox model, but otherwise, there is nothing remarkable about them. 

The cars have been spotted in sets of many cars, and with different commercial names, but the company behind them is Gingell (Gingell Die-Casting Mfy. Ltd.). This company operated either with a big “G” logo or with a second logo that represented a rhinoceros, so Gingell is sometimes called Rhino, too (we will come to that in our next entry). Those logos appear in the boxes, not on the bases of the cars or anywhere else, so it is difficult to identify these miniatures loose. At HobbyTalk.com there are some threads that try to get a list of these models and investigate in which sets they were available. 

Both logos have been retrieved from HobbyTalk.com

Something noteworth is that the bases seem to be prepared to carry a pull-back motor, but this is not present in any of them. They do not have a reference number or any marking on the base other than "Made in China".

I bought these three cars together with other things, so I didn't have to pay for the shipping. The interesting part for me were the stickers placed over the roofs of the cars with the logo of Wüstenrot, an Austrian company for financial services, real-state and insurance. They were probably intended as a give-away to the kids who came to their offices together with their parents.

FACTS AND FIGURES: 

• Name:  BMW 323i CABRIO, FERRARI TESTAROSSA and PORSCHE CARRERA
• Scale: 1:64
• Year: Around 1993
• Company: Gingell/Rhino (China)
• Size: approx. 6 cm