T is for Two - Early Plastic Vehicles

These are both militarised versions of civil toy vehicles, in the case of the lanny: more obvious than the sports car which may have been intended to be a stab at 'British Racing Green'?

This has the wheels of the little Tri-Ang Minic trucks we looked at a long time ago, but is scaled larger than them; here in a nice 'army' green, it's a basic short-wheelbase, Mark-One Land-Rover with pick-up body as used by farmers from day one, before the army adopted them and clamped a spare-wheel to the bonnet. Equipped with a standard Minic push-and-go motor, it's not terribly accurate, but the headlights and grill say: Mk.I!

I suspect this is more accurate to the real thing, but not being a fan of two-seat sports-coupes, I can only guess at Morgan? Jaguar? Riley? It's made in the USA who weren't known for this type of car (were they?), so I'm guessing it's a European 'type' anyway, although the squidged 'm', fort or hat shape logo (Maserati? No . . . trident!) on the bonnet doesn't seem to be a clue?

Also interesting - given its likely age - is that it's a soft polyethylene, the Irwin mini-planes being made of a more phenolic or styrene type plastic?

A scaleing-shot with Spencer Smith's figures, the Tri-Ang lanny is not too bad, a tad big for the 30'mils, but - as you can see - the Irwin 'staff car' is better suited to 50mm and could pass for a 54mm officer's steed...if any government would issue such cars! And you should never use the bonnet as a look-out!