HT is for High-speed Transport!

Continuing with a theme, why not? These are the same size as the Politoys (previous post) ones, but represent cars from another era, with their exposed engine-blocks. Made in Hong Kong, they may be copies of Western-made originals, but whether plastic or die-cast donors; I don't know - the 8-car is similar-looking to a Hong Kong-made Marx die-cast I have somewhere in a larger scale?

There seems to be only the four different models, numbered in evens from 2 to 8 on the bonnet/nose and the belly-pan. And possibly two tranches, with one of mine having different wheels, but they could have been replaced at some point, or a deliberate attempt to get extra toy-world mileage (pun intended) out of an old body-type model, after the change to racing slicks (and new bodies) in the real world?

Each car from 2 at the top to 8 at the bottom, with the 4 in both wheel variations; if I was more of an aficionado of racing cars I could probably guess the intended makes (are 4 a Lotus and 8 a Ferrari?), but they are also pretty crude and generic!

The HT mark could be Hang Tjuk but the only logo I can find for them is a rounded-cornered, rectangular cartouche〔‾〕, but they were making plastic vehicles in the mid-80's - probably sometime after these cars were produced.

Other HT's with either no known logo, or different logo's or markedly different product lines are Hang Tat, Heep Tung, Hinstar Toys (who did do some rack-toy shite?), Hopewell Trading Co., or Hanung Toys & Textiles (Singapore, HTT?), whilst Hartung Trading (Germany, with 'China' product) and Hayakwa Toys (Japan) aren't Hong Kong companies and Helen [of] Toy would be stretching it to breaking! Hang Tjuk are 60/40 against, and I suspect it's a long-lost 'nother HT?

The red 4 - with the 'correct' wheels - is a repaint which could be factory- or home-painted; it's hard to tell, and the model underneath is an off-white. All the drivers seem to have had a gloss-red helmet when new, in the same shade, so the car may be a factory-job?

Front row - from the left; this post's number-2 car, then a die-cast Ferrari 36V G.T. R-102 (possibly from the Zee/Zyll/Zylmex stable, but I don't think so?), a Politoys and an unmarked but like and probably Bruder - it has the Made in W Germany mark (with the W blanked-off, so post-1991?) and a numeral 42, along with the same wheels and construction methods as other marked-Bruder's . . . and representing a car from a later era.

Rear row - from the left; A hard polystyrene plastic racer with no marks which could be early British, or early anyone, including Hong Kong, then either a copy of it, or another model of the same car, but hollowed and cheap-looking, and finally a similar car of a different source.

Both the latter two were sold in bakers as cake decorations, probably through Culpitt.

There only seems to be the one design for this size (I have other sizes of cake decoration/rack-toy racers; for another day!) and as you can see they seem to be being driven by men in Tommy/Brodie helmets!