#1022 NOREV – RENAULT VAN (Around 1995)

This time I want to show only one die-cast van marked Norev, which is, to my knowledge, very rare. I haven´t seen any Norev like this before. The quality is not very good, the base is plastic and the paintwork is also not the best possible. It is also a "Made in China" model. The wheel design is, to my knowledge, unknown to this brand.

Other Norev from these years are much better casted, have metallic base, practicable parts, detailed interiors and other nice features. This van could be part of a bigger set/playset and maybe they required a cheaper model. It is known to me, that it is based on a Corgi Juniors cast, but for some reason, it was labelled Norev afterwards.

That is why I think it has some interest to be shown here. Do you have any of these Norevs in your collection? Do you know where does it come from? Any information is welcome.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: RENAULT VAN
• Scale: Approx 1:64
• Year: 1995
• Company: Norev (France)
• Size: 7 cms

#1016 LLEDO – FOUR 3M PROMOTIONAL MODELS (Around 1994)

I missed Lledo for the first 1015 entries on this blog for a reason. Although I have seen many of these models over the years, I never bought them, as I was not very interested. I had some Models of Yesteryear, but I sold these many years ago, and kept only the three or four of them, which I liked most.
 
The company was co-founded in 1982 by Jack Odell, who was also the co-founder of Matchbox many years before (the brand name is his surname spelled backwards). The other founding member was Burt Russell. The 80s was a golden age of these classic cars miniatures, and I guess Lledo just wanted to ride this wave and make some business with classic miniatures. However it was bad times for the die-cast industry, and Matchbox had been purchased by Universal, that moved the production factories to Macau, as it was very expensive to produce toys in the United Kingdom.
 
Lledo actually bought some tooling from the old Matchbox plants that were being dismantled and started producing in their own facilities in Enfield. This would last a few years, until 1999, when the company went bankruptcy, but the brand passed to Corgi Classics, that exploited the brand until 2005, all these later cars are “made in China”.
 
How to compete against east-Asian produced toys? Well, they specialize in classic vintage cars and commercial vehicles, as I said before, which was rather uncommon at the time. On top of that, they offered many chances to customize their references for big brands, as they could place their logo in any of the available models (vans, trucks, some cars…) and make nice promotional items. Placing your logo in a car from the 1920s gives your company a certain aura of quality, tradition and market leadership, so it was a good idea. Obviously, Asians would finally imitate and overtake Lledo with much cheaper products, but these 15 years were good ones, with high production volumes.
 
The first and best known series is called Days Gone (which sounds a bit like Yesteryear) and came out in 1983. The first models were all horse-drawn and stagecoaches, but soon appeared the Ford Model T van. These are marked on the base “Days Gone”.
 
The “promotional” series that I already introduced was the most profitable. During the first six years of production, Lledo had around thirty casts/models, but, out of them, there were hundreds of variations catalogued. The Ford T was the most common, and was produced in over 170 different decorations. The Double Decker bus also had a big success. Each of these “promotional” model was made, with some exceptions, in very limited runs of 500 to 1000 units. Promotional models are marked on the base “Lledo Promotional Model”.
 
Maybe the most interesting models ever made by Lledo are the four land speed record cars, a series made for Kellogg´s. All four were based on new casts and never reused, and they do not fit with all the other references available in their catalogue.
 
Finally, the Vanguards series included more modern cars, from the 50s and the 60s, British and Europeans. The line was excellent in detail and quality.
 
Some models were sold to second parties and relabeled accordingly, for example, under the Hartoys or Edocar brands.
 
The models presented in this entry are 4 promotional models made for 3M. They are all different, and comes in their independent blank boxes. There were dozens of models made for 3M, some of them were sold in ordinary boxes with windows, so I suppose these were not intended for retailers.

Packard Town Van (1933)

 Chevrolet Panel Van (1939)

Packard Van (1936)

Model T Ford Van (1920)

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: Ford Model T, Packard Van, Packard Town Van, Chevrolet Panel Van
• Scale: 1:43 (approx.)
• Year: Around 1994
• Company: Lledo (United Kingdom)
• Size: approx 9 cm

#972 METALCAR - RONY ROBOT (Around 1986)

APRIL IS THE MONTH OF THE BOOTLEGS and KNOCK-OFFs!

Some years ago, I published an unknown toy car that some reader helped me identify as a Metalcar from Hungary. Since then, I have as a task to write an entry about this company. 

Unfortunately, there is nothing I could find about this maker from Hungary, maybe there are some information sources in Hungarian in the net, but I didn´t found them, so I cannot talk about the company at all.

What I could find are many products made by Metalcar, where most of them are Matchbox knock-offs. This ambulance robot is much rarer, as it was more expensive to produce due to its great number of parts and difficult assembly.

The model may be familiar to many of you, as it is a knock-off of a Go-Bot called Rest-Q, released by Tonka/Bandai in 1983. It was probably made around 1985 or 1986 and it is an ultra rare figure. It was probably made in very low numbers, and its construction is not very sturdy. You can see that the paintwork is not very good, and some parts are scratched or missing its stickers.

It was sold originally in a blister pack, either with the Metal Car brand and the name Rony Robot, or in a generic blister card with the name “Transformer”. In the pictures I could find (in the-liberator.net), the blister “Rony Robot” shows a figure with red body, while the Transformer blister has a robot with blue body. Maybe they were packaged randomly, or there could have been even more colours available. The figure is completely unmarked.

Blister packs taken from www.the-liberator.net

 As a knock-off, the figure is the same size, construction and even the materials are similar. There are only subtle differences among them. The most significant is the wheels, which in this knock-off case, are made of only one piece. The original Go-Bot wheels had plastic hubcaps and gum tyres.

The cast and the stickers are also copied, but they are not identical. In the blister pictures, we can see that the stickers came unapplied.

Other differences are: red windshield, no chromed parts, body in red or blue instead of White, simplified head part.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: RONY ROBOT (GO-BOTs REST-Q Knock-off)
• Toy Line: None?
• Year: Around 1986
• Company: Metalcar (Hungary)
• Size of the figures: Around 7 cm (between  2’’ and 3’’) in robot mode

#952 MATCHBOX SECURITY TRUCK (Nr. 69) vs. MAJORETTE BANK SECURITY (Nr. 204) (1978 and 1980)

Majorette's Bank Security Van is one of those models that I had not known until recently. It was only a few years ago that I saw it for the first time. I have it now twice and I like them very much. The Matchbox model, I have it since a long time.

This type of vehicle is kind of rare, only Matchbox has a similar one which is also very nicely done with plastic roof, but it was just a matter of time that Majorette got its own security transport van.

The Majorette model has a practicable door on the rear part, so the playability is somewhat better than the Matchbox model, that has no practicable parts. Both look bulky and strong, like the real security vans, although the Matchbox model was made earlier and has a slightly older look today.

The Matchbox model was originally released in red with white roof in the year 1978, but a later and rarer version "Drescher Bank" can be found in green. Both have several variants depending on the shade of colour applied, window colour and so on, the usual stuff.

On the other hand, the Majorette model is available in many different colours and decorations, some of them very recent, since the look of the truck is still modern, or at least it was until a few years ago, I have seen more modern driving around the city.

The first model seems to be the greenish blue one, that first appeared in 1980 catalogue. Although not very clearly, we can see that it has a decal on the bonnet. We think this model was a prototype, because in the catalogue from 1981, we already see the famous model in metallic blue, one of the most common ones.

 

In 1982's catalogue, the van appears in grey with a decal on the bonnet with the text "BANK" and two crossed keys.

And every year a new decoration: in 1983, it was presented with some red and blue stickers on the sides, In 1984 with "post" stickers, in 1985 with "Bank" Stickers on both sides, and in 1986 the model presented in this entry. All of them in yellow. Note that the card depicted is the German version "Geldtransport", not the most usual "BANK" version.

And finally, in 1987, the most usual white version came out. This one was available during, least, three consecutive years. In the 1990 catalogue it appears in light silver, but keeping the tampos, although this may also be a prototype, because I have never seen it, and the following year, the picture appears in white again.

That appearance in the 1991 catalogue is the last for a long period of time. More modern versions of the van (Made in Thailand) are available in other interesting colours, like dark blue, but then it becames difficult to follow how many, which tampos they carry and so on.

Sorry for the bad photos of the Armoured Van, I'll replace them soon.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: SECURITY TRUCK (Nr. 69) and BANK SECURITY (Nr. 204)
• Scale: 1:57
• Year: 1978 and 1980
• Company: Matchbox (Great Britain) and Majorette (France)
• Size: approx. 7 cm

#937 BANDAI - TURTLES CHARACTER MINI-MACHINES - PARTY VAN (1990)

With the Ninja Turtles craze came many related articles, some of them from Bandai directly, other from other brands that acquired the rights to put the characters in their products.

I recall seeing these in a shop back in the early 90s in Spain, also coincident with the micro cars trend started by Galoob´s Micro Machines. Note that the car is advertised as a "Mini Machine"!

This van is slightly bigger than a Micro Machine, but considering it is a van, it would still display nicely together. The van comes with a motorised pull-back motor. Such a toy is, of course, very cheap to produce, by the stickers that simulate the Turtle-wagon add a lot of money to the final retail price. Considering the price tag, this is an expensive toy, I guess they did not sell many of it.

The van came is a small blister card, with some interesting indications on the back. The toy seems to have been imported to Europe by Bandai UK, and then to Spain by Bandai Spain and has the rights from Mirage Studios directly to reproduce this van (copyright from 1989). The blister card comes in English and German, but there are several errors in the German text.

Apparently a complete series of Mini Machines with famous characters was planned, but I only found this one and another one with Postman Pat. The toys are made in China. Remember that Bandai actually distributed the turltes figures in some European countries, so they maybe made a move to offer other related products as well in addittion to the ones made by Playmates.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: TURTLES CHARACTER MINI-MACHINES - PARTY VAN
• Scale: 1:150 (approx.)
• Year: 1990
• Company: Bandai (Japan)
• Size: approx. 2’’ or 5 cm

#934 PAYÁ INTERNATIONAL - VARIOUS MODELS (Around 1970)

I have reviewed some cars made by this brand in the past. In that review I showed models that were Matchbox (Lesney) knock-offs of the 1-75 series from the 60s and 70s, but I already mentioned that some models are not copies from Matchbox, and today I am going to show some of these (together with more Matchbox knock-offs).

Although quite pricey, I got this lot a a fair price around two years ago. The cars are in perfect shape, so I am very lucky to have found them. The paint applied to these models is rather fragile and all played items usually show more or less paint wear.

The models shown in this entry are:

• 2104 - Chevrolet Impala in black and yellow (coloured as a Taxi from Barcelona)

This car is not in its original colour (which is orange), but was repainted by its previous owner as a taxi. Too bad! It seems to be in a not so bad shape, I may try to clean it sometime.

• 2106 - Ford Galaxie (Jefe Policia) in white and 2107 - Ford Galaxie (Jefe Bomberos) in red

All parts are shared. Note that the sirens have different colours, as well as the windshields.

• 2110 - Ferrari Berlineta in green

This model was also released with a plastic body (see last pic in this series) used for certain Payá speed tracks I will present some other day.

 

• 2111 - M.G. 1.100 in blue

 Note the steering wheel is placed on the left side

• 2115 - Camioneta auxiliar in red (based on Lesney´s Jeep Gladiator)

• 2117 - Seat 124 in red

• 2118 - Mercedes 280 SL in beige

• 2121 - Seat 600 D in red

This model was also released with a plastic body (see last pic in this series) used for certain Payá speed tracks I will present some other day. The suspension integrated in the chassis is extremely fragile!

The complete list of references can be found in the previous entry (see #363)

From all 9 units, all but the two Seats are clear Lesney copies. Some models had slight differences, like the steering wheel in the left side, contrary to the original English model with steering wheel on the right side. See for example the M.G. 1.100.

The Seat 600D and the 124 are two great models, very sought-after because the cars they represent were very popular in the 50s, 60s and the 70s in Spain. In addition to this, the Seat 600D is the only vintage die-cast model in 3 inches made of this car. The Seat 124 was also made by Guisval, but this one is rarer (not necessarily more expensive). For most Spanish die-cast collectors these two are "must-haves", not so the other models of foreign cars.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: CHEVROLET IMPALA, FORD GALAXIE (JEFE POLICIA), FORD GALAXIE (JEFE BOMBEROS), FERRARI BERLINETA, M.G. 1.100, CAMIONETA AUXILIAR, SEAT 124, MERCEDES 280 SL and SEAT 600 D (Refs. 2104, 2106, 2107, 2110, 2111, 2115, 2117, 2118 and 2121)
• Scale: 1:64 (approx.)
• Year: Around 1970
• Company: Payá International (Spain)
• Size: approx. 3’’ or 7 cm