F1 is for Sam Toys!

The next article kindly sent into the blog by Angelo in Italy, and more on Sam Toys, who's lone Humber truck was an early visitor to the blog a decade ago. There was little blub sent with the images as the catalogue page and photo' titles told the story, but I'm no vehicle expert nor an Italian production expert so blurb will be to a minimum as we look at these lovely, evocative models which are around 1:43 scale, I think . . . call it 'toy size'!

The catalogue page wasn't the best image and taking a screen-capcha hasn't reduced the quality much more, but it has enabled it to grow a bit if you click on it.

The vehicles looked at below are down the right hand side of the page, but I thought the left was worth a comment or two; firstly if the bases of those road-signs are die-cast, it will be one of them which was in that little lot of magnetic/magnetised civil stuff I picked-up at Plastic Warrior's show a couple of years ago?

Secondly the aircraft are an odd mix, and look very similar to those carried by Bonux/Bonus washing powders, as B/B got a lot of their premiums from other - known - suppliers/producers the Sam's may also be bought-in from Jou-Plast or Cle or another, or they may be copies, or they may be the originals? There was so much of this stuff around from the mid-1950's-mid-1970's.

So - the Sam Toys racing cars share the quixotic numbering of the military range, with a longer line-code and sub-identifiers, the line code changes between the three Grand Prix/Formula-1 cars and the five sports/endurance 'super cars'.

Above we see the first three under the 425-code;

425-1 - Maserati 2∙5 litre GP

425-2 - Vanwall Formula-1

425-3 - Ferrari 2∙5 litre GP

The next five carry the 426 prefix and start back at a '1' for the model identification numbers;

426-1 - Mercedes

426-2 - Aston Martin

426-3 - Fiat Turbina

426-4 - Jaguar D-Type

It may not be a Ferrari, but it's still a 'proper car'! You can keep your Mercedes; taxi drivers use Mercedes in Ulm . . . and in Bagdad!

426-5 - Renault Etoile Filante

This looks like it may have been a speed-record entrant?

The vehicles were polystyrene with metal axles and the earlier three racers were the more complicated, even 'detailed' models (probably based on Dinky cars), I'm not sure sure on the other five, but both the Fiat and the Renault are unusual vehicles. Race numbers and plastic colours do vary as well.

Thanks again to Angelo for another interesting post, and it doesn't stop here; I sent him a couple of made in 'ITALY' images to ID, intending to add them here, and he sent back a second post! Which will now be publishing, here at Small Scale World, in an hour-and-a-half - local time!