T is for Tuf-Tots Toy Trucks

With or without the hyphen, but no second 'f '! A small range which - despite coming from a company whose real name was 'Die Cast Machine Tools' - was destined to remain a basic and small range.

However I believe it did well as an export-line; you seem to see more in the 'States these days on evilBay, and which would get a leery paint-job with coloured wheels at a later stage, but this is the early iteration.

You can see that all four sports coupes are available with or without roofs and the cab-unit of all the trucks is the same - a vague US Ford F-600 type, so there's only about six unique vehicles in the range! Note the three boxed sets and the message "...available in the series as shown" . . .

. . . as, typically, mine is different with its configuration having three accessory pieces, all of which have the feel of the Treble-O-Train range (as do the vehicles really!), by which I mean simple castings with some sharp edges!

I've had this for years, and due to the position of these as being of secondary (to Matchbox), or even quaternary interest behind the Husky/Corgi Juniors and their own Impy line; it wasn't that much . . . a fiver maybe, I built my collection as a semi-permanently skint, tight-arse, dipping into rummage trays and the bulk-bins under tables at shows, so wouldn't have given much more for a non-military set with no figures, but the accessories might have got me to eight-quid!

The windmill is a half-relief in two parts with a  rivet and to be frank, the signal box from the OOO-guage ('N') railway is better decorated!

The bridge is what probably sold the set to me, as it's a lovely little Bailey for bridging a stream to get your Sherman's across Normandy, even though the scale's out; that's how my brain works!

While the barrier-operator's hut/sentry-box is also a semi-relief, but saved by a plank-seat! the car has one of those many seated figures I mentioned the other day as turning up in just-lots, sans car!

The trucks; not a lot I can add.

My Brother had a godmother in California, and one year she came over to visit (probably when it was still 15-hours via Iceland or Greenland or something!) and she brought him a set in a carry case, I think they were Tootsie Toys minis, but Marx had a set as well, anyway; while they did have wheels, they didn't have drivers, roofs or windscreens and were very thin metal, with even sharper edges and rather slab-sides, also they were all single mouldings, finished in one colour, so although the Tuf-Tots weren't the best of British, you can see why they still had some appeal.