T is for Teeny-Tiny Taiwanese Trucks, Tanks and Tippers!

I picked these up a few weeks ago, as a cheapie on that there evilBay, I don't know anything about them, and the only clue is a small, uneven 'TAIWAN' on the underside of each vehicle/a single component.

I suspect they are [earlyish?] examples of what the Japanese call Gashepon, or vending-machine toys, but - obviously - Taiwanese in origin, and as we will see, very much 'box scale' and simplified, but charming for that. They are also quite idiosyncratic, so we'll start with the easy one!

It's basically a 6x6 Pinzguaer high mobility all-terrain vehicle/artillery tractor, or similar militarised 'mini-van' type vehicle, and comes in at around the 1:90th mark, which would make it an additional asset to a Roco or Roscopf army! It's even in a similar olive-drab colour, and consists of five parts; three clip-in wheels and two body-halves.

The Gepard-decorated box actually contains a late-mark (1A5?) Leopard MBT with a pair of carpet wheels for perambulation. As the build-instructions are for the same, I don't know why they went with a Gepard SPAAG for the artwork? But I did say the set was idiosyncratic!

An idiosyncrasy which continues with this pair, where each has the other's exploded construction view on the back of the box! The heavy ore-truck was lacking a pair of wheels, but they are the same mouldings as the 'Pinzgauer' so I nicked a pair of them for the shots, while the bulldozer will need tracks made-up, which I will do one day from old inner-tube and cyclist's rubber cement.

The final two are a really rather good jeep (basic wheels mind!) and what is best described as a simplified Stridsvagn 103 'S-Tank', but it could just as easily be an attempt at a Scorpion CVRT! It comes from the box with a Tiger I as artwork! You can see the underside is the same as the Leopard's.

The whole line-up, with the dump-truck retaining the spare wheels! The boxes shout 1970's at you, but at least two of the vehicles depicted are screaming 1990's, so your guess is as good as mine as to when/where these first appeared, and I suspect - from the limited number of duplicated parts - there are more to the full range.

J is for Jean Höfler . . . Hoefler . . . Hhffluur . . . Hhoouffluer . . . Just 'Jean', J is for Jean!

Me being 'racist' again? It's humour isn't it, especially if you've watched Steve Martin's 'The Man With Two Brains' but being reminded of TJF (the man with half a brain), did you see how he followed my rocket launcher posts with a troop carrier? That crazy guy, he just loves sitting in my shadow, plotting my downfall! Seriously though, he actually had several vehicles and could have done a half-decent post, but then he doesn't do 'plastic smalls' he was just advertising his feebleBay sales, 'cos he's a dealer not a collector!

So I'll start with the troop carrier too! But compare it ('J' above) with the Noreda one ('N' above) from France. Some sources think Noreda copied Jean, but I think they just share the 'dime-store' styling, and a coincidental rendering in soft polyethylene plastic. Although both have polystyrene wheels in a more rigid polymer, and altogether have all the tropes of Airfix 'readymade' Attack Force vehicles.

Another reason for believing in parallel evolution, rather than influence either way is because - frankly - (ehh? Franks . . . oh, nevermind!) the French models (flash excepted; look at the driver's window!) are undeniably better made; if anyone 'copied' - it was the German firm!

Early Jean's have white wheels for some reason, but a lot of the cheapies did back then, and were decorated with 'Allied' stars, these being the same cheap, self-adhesive, paper ones you can still get from stationers, applied in a slap-dash fashion with no attempt to level them!

A standard cab-unit has the slots, brackets, holes and hooks for all the other variations/loads to be attached, and one large sample I acquired had most of them fitted with the missile-retaining T-bar, even if it was fouling the other attachments?

There is a canvas-tilted 'GS/Cargo' variant, but it has a strange hinge which leaves the tilt upside-down on the ground but still attached to the truck! While a carded set on eBay right now (download the image before it disappears!) has the cab-unit and chassis only, possibly as a tower for the long-barreled gun (see below), the other half of the barrel has slipped under the truck.

Fully traversing and elevating; the twin AA-gun was a real leftover of the earlier dime-store types, where pretty-much every set had one; Lone Star, Pyro/Kleeware, Beeju, Tudor Rose et al!

From little guns to big guns, again harking back, this time to the heavy siege and 'battlefield tactical' weapons of the 'world wars', and providing a nice basis for a war gaming conversion to rail-gun - old school; not realistic!

I think it's always meant to have the plug-in extension, giving it a 155/175mm look, but I've now found two without, which are still usable as 203/240mm howitzers, so a pair of both sit side-by-side in the tub.

The towing-bogie is the same as the guns, but the trailer=body is different, both seen recently here, but better angles on them I think, and the plug-in 'bolts' are obvious, and as I said last time; I'm not sure the 'plane was actually issued in this configuration, but the mechanism is the same . . . the aircraft probably came with a coloured launcher as a novelty?

The launcher being hard polystyrene, it's probably an earlier stand-alone novelty toy . . . there's no evidence of other loads for the trailer so the one was designed to take the other and with the plane it makes a great drone-launcher!

Space Tanks! Seen here years ago, and I think I have Bill (or Paul?) at Moonbase to thank for the trackless ones? They weren't sold trackless of course, and while I've tried fitting the turreted one with old truck wheels to make a wheeled APC, the length of the axles between the hubs is greater, so they just float about!

Noreda used a similar system on their bulldozer (upper shot; probably taken from the/a civilian range), without a middle wheel-set and with narrower, finer moulded tracks, another pointer to the originality of Noreda over Jean. Both went with polyethylene for the tracks, which makes them bow-out unrealistically, in a way stretched-rubber wouldn't have.

While the lower shot compares the Jean GS truck with a contemporary Manurba wagon (sold as Tallon in the UK), the Manurba is a reasonable approximation of a Magirus-Deutz 'Jupiter' truck (with a bit of US 'Duce-and-a-half' DNA), rather than the purely fictional Hoefler effort (with vague Mercedes L-series/911 lines?). It's because we saw the Manurba stuff here, years ago, that I thought I'd also covered the Jean!

Tractor! Artillery tractor!! Jean stole a few from their civilian range as well as Noreda, with the same simple expedient of running them in 'army' khaki polymer! Here the farm tractor gets to pull other loads, a civi' one is seen at the back; bottom left.

The civilian fuel-tanker also gets a military call-up.

Below that are two armoured cars, one recognisable as the WWII vintage M8 M20 (Greyhound in British service), the other a more generic thing with features of early cold-war stuff from France, Austria, Switzerland or Germany.

This pair is the exception that proves the rule; in having soft polyethylene wheels to the hard polystyrene of the other vehicles. Also I haven't seen them with white wheels in either plastic, so they may have been later additions to the line?

 

Both are now known to be Injectaplastic, not Jean, hence them feeling less comfortable here!

Typical packaging (as per the link above, but from the collection), the three blisters are large enough for anything except the articulated tanker-truck, which may have come on its own card, in a larger set, or as a counter-display/stock-box purchase? Or even cab and trailer separated in two of the blisters and a second vehicle as the third item?

Mine has a rocket-carrier, tracked APC and gun-truck. You can see a cement-mixer version of the 'standard' lorry in the photo-artwork, whether they also did a khaki version I don't know,  nor have I seen military iterations of the road-roller, front-loader or dumper-truck, but they may be out there; there is - apparently - an army-green dustbin lorry/refuse truck . . . not!

Look at the wheels man! Really; a crazy guy!

N is for Not Jean! Noreda

I had one or two items in the Jean H' tub, which were not happy being there, a truck body and chassis which wouldn't take any of the plug-ins known to be Jean, and a transporter trailer/low-loader which wouldn't attach to any of the Jean stuff . . . and they both had 'new' wheels. About 18 months ago I found them on feeBay, did a bit of a dig, satisfied myself as to their being what they were and started watching two BIN-lots! I finally purchased them the other day.

Starting with a reverse of the Jean article (which will appear above this in one minute's time! If I get the scheduling right!), but here the Noreda (for that is what they are!) are the left-hand of each photo-pair, and looking at the troop carrier. It doesn't matter how you cut it, the Noreda are better finished (flash excepted) than their German counterparts. Although; with those blanket rolls, the troops themselves are a bit . . . err . . . Soviet!

Like the Höfler trucks there is a generic cab/chassis to which various add-on's can be attached, and also like Jean, the canvas-tilted GS (General Service) variant is a separate moulding, but here the tilt is a simple plug-in, rather than Jean's clumsy, hinged effort.

A nice touch is the matching trailer . . . when we used to go off on major field training exercises, nearly every vehicle would have a trailer, something missed by most kit manufacturers and/or war-gamers, it's the shear amount of 'stuff' on the move which actually blocks the roads after a strafing!

You can shift a few burning trucks in minutes by pushing them out of the way with a same-size or larger vehicle, but if they are all twisted together with their own or other vehicles' towed-crap, it all takes much longer. A battalion carries tows about 12 field kitchens, several wreaker-bogies and about 1-in-four water carriers to GS trailers (as here) on most of the other vehicles, the HQ company packets (small convoys) would have a number of generator trailers and office-bodied comm's trailers distributed among everything else.

The radar truck is another throw-back to the earlier polystyrene and die-cast sets of the 1950;s & 1960's 'dime store' era. The truck itself seems to be a generic although I've seen it described as a Berliet, I can't find a matching real-life example?

The Tank Transporter however is truer to type being a Berliet T-6 / TBU15 as also modelled by Dinky Toys (France), although the trailer is more reminiscent of that attached to the equally die-cast T-12 (also a Berliet) as modelled by Solido of Belgium. It's really a 'low-loader' suitable for APC's or (as here) plant, rather than a tank-transporter trailer.

Another comparison between the Jean APC (left) and Noreda bulldozer tracks; you can see the Noreda tracks are all-over neater, being narrower, better sculpted & finished with more strongly defined links/pads.

As a GBU, the T6 cab-unit was used with various body-types including artillery tractor and GS truck in real life, and Noreda followed that in their toy line, although this model is a bit odd - obviously meant to be a telescopic-boom crane, there is no hook, cord or anything else likely to provide instant lift, so presumably the buyer was expected to cobble something together themselves; several sets are exactly the same?

The same cab was given to an articulated petrol-tanker trailer which is similar to the Jean beast, but again cleaner and less prone to warping.

They do a Jeep, this will be the French-build post war licensed version, although I don't know what the signature differences are, I do know that AFV-geeks will walk round vintage fairs saying "That's not WWII, it's French" to anyone who'll listen to them! Same size as the Airfix Jeep (top left) takes it out of scale with the rest of the line?

The two Noreda items I've been watching for months while waiting for the moment when I'd have the funds to spare - a lack of shows has improved the evilBaying budget! Also in the lower shot a comparison with the smaller Jean card, that some copying was going on seems hinted at by the choice of both makers to go with an orange field? However given the ubiquity of Jean and the superior quality/finish of the Noreda's I don't think you can really call for either being pirate, or victim?

The guys still have a few for sale, and I can heartily recommend them, there were problems with the order - a combination of factors some of which seem to have been down to the limitations of eBay's own systems for handling currencies - anyway, they sent two [big] parcels for one postage charge and gave me top feedback the same day, not knowing what I'd give them after 24-hours of confusion!

The stuff was superbly packed as well - which left me fighting for the right to unpack! You-know-who has learnt to recognise the postman's knock from the bottom of next-door's garden! She slept in it all afternoon!

And I got to catch up on the local München news courtesy of some paper twists holding all the bubble-wrap in place. It's one of the secret pleasures of buying stuff from around the world, or around the country, papers local to the sender; Florida car-dealership deals are so much more interesting than the local garage's!

The fight for the oldest chip-shop in some forgotten corner of Norfolk seems far more important than the corrupt parking regime here in town, some property tax debate in New South Wales takes on a certain fascination lacking from the possibility of 24-months disruption if they widen the motorway within earshot . . . do you enjoy other peoples' papers in your plunder-parcels?

C is for Cartoon Card Craft

Two years ago I found this rather neat download, I think I flagged it up at the time in a 'News, Views...', anyway I had a stab at it, took some photographs and it's been languishing in Picasa ever since! Watching Ed Berg re-design his fire house reminded me this was sitting there...

I think it was three sheets of cut-outs, with lots of white between the pieces - for littler fingers? Or for those impossibly blunt, plastic-handled 'craft' scissors they always issue in primary/junior school!

Disney's Babes in Toyland marching toy soldier, about 6-inches high! How cool is that? here...make your own. Quite a festive thing too and I'm no fan of Disney, but it's out there, it's a Toy Soldier and the kids love this stuff at Christmas!

If I were to have another stab at it, I'd print it off and sit it on a radiator, or in the sun and give it five to ten thin coats of hairspray first; I found that the bits which required the most work (arms and legs which needed rolling round a pencil) started to wear-off, I think because I used the studio printer which was a big machine using powder cartridges or something?

Another download here (Century 21 JR21) brought to my attention by the boys at Moonbase proved less successful however...

...the TV21 Snow Train: Started OK, but I glued the back on the cab thinking I was being clever and getting the shape to hold while I wrestled with the windscreen, but of course I needed to flatten the tabs down with tweezers or a long sticky thing (like...a stick?) from the end I'd just sealed-up...Doh!

All the remaining cut-out bits and the cab are now in a Douwe Egbert's coffee jar waiting for a new plan...it'll be a long wait - I fear. There was a really nice one on Moonbase, made properly by someone proper, but I can't find it, can anyone from there give us a link?

T is for Thompson

Following on from the Charbens/Skybirds post last night, here is an actual refueller, this is the Thompson Brothers Mk Vc Aircraft Refueller as used by the RAF in World War II, and these photographs were taken in 2008 at Beltring, shortly before the beast was sold to a museum; Yorkshire Air Museum

Four-view images for anybody who'd like to try drawing it up for scratch-building, the simple shape actually lends itself to resin, should anyone feel there'd be a market for such a model?

A couple of three-quarter views and some other shots, I must say I was rather taken with it, it's not what you'd expect to see down the local High Street, but why not!

S is for Stig, The Stig, moonlighting as a crane driver!

This post will probably only be of interest to UK readers, or people who follow the Top Gear team on-line...I caught 'The Stig' moonlighting as a TEREX crane driver for the British Army, obviously the BBC aren't paying him enough to stick to very fast (or even reasonably priced) cars!

This is a still from a film I took of two of these beasts out for a drive the other day, probably from the Rushmoor vehicle testing facility down the road (this was shot in Fleet, Hampshire) and apparently being driven by civilians in full-face motorcycle helmets...is it an Alien II?!

S is for Supreme/SP Toys, Part 2 - Soft-Skin Transport

A trooping bus and a variety of Hummer's/Humvee's. These are closer to 1:72, and fully compatible with the better offering from Hornby a few years ago, and the metal ones from Matchbox.

6x6 trucks, the tankers have a WWII Chevrolet type cab, while the GS/troop carrier has a more modern chunky design. I once saw a window display that had used the contents of a couple of these sets, and therefore know the GS truck has been done in desert colours, but don't yet know if the tanker came in a temperate scheme?

Smaller soft skinned vehicles, most are militarised versions of the civil carded sets, with a red Fire engine to compare. Again we find a WWII Beep rubbing shoulders with modern stuff. The silver van is an armoured car of the bank delivery type.

These Oshkosh M977/985 HMETT's only need a quick re-paint and you have some nice modern vehicles in several configurations. I'd drop the ore-carrier though! Note two different crane designs and body types. The tractor unit - without the ore-wagon trailer leaves scope for scratch building another variant such as the M984 wrecker.

S is for Supreme/SP Toys, Part 4 - Armoured Engineering

My favorites from the Supreme stable are the three engineering variants on a rather generic chassis with dozer-blade...

An extending shovel/back-hoe and long-reach crane both fold up nicely for travel, while the gloss, puke-green road-roller is clearly an afterthought taken from the civil construction sets!

The Bridge-layer is a hell of a piece of kit from a HK/China producer, especially one selling at pocket-money prices. Fully working and far more robust than the Roco one, every modern army should have one!

T is for Triang Minic Part 1; Military Vehicles

Lines Brothers had as part of their empire the Trade Mark 'Minic' which for years was synonymous with British School-boys as a maker of large sized tin-plate wind-up/Clockwork toys. In the 1950's the range began to include Dinky type die-casts, and plastic followed in the late '60's. Eventually some of these would find their way into the Triang railway (later Triang-Hornby) range. Today we're looking at some of the Minic Plastics from my collection.

Here are both versions of the 'Tank', on the left the Triang/Triang-Hornby Battle-Space rocket-firing tank, with the Minic sparking tank on the right, the hull is identical on both, with different slip-on turrets. The hull is a generic cross between the prototype Conqueror and Centurion tanks of the 1960's, while the turret of the sparker is more Conqueror. Missiles fire about 3.5 meters!

The missile mechanism was also used on two and four-round turreted bunkers as part of the Battle-Space range, the larger turret also being fitted to one of the rolling stock wagons in the same series. The tank version was re-issued in a sandy colour in 1982 as part of a short-lived 'Task Force play-set, part celebration of/part tie-in to the action in the South Atlantic (reaching it's conclusion earlier the same year) which ensured that the will of the Falkland Islander's not to have their home renamed 'Malvinas' was upheld.

Triang Minic AFV's, both vehicles in both colour-schemes. The tank is a vague Centurion, while the A/C is a generic WWII thing with an AEC'ish body and Staghound'ish turret? All fitted with a 'pull-back' motor.

These vehicles also come in blue-grey as RAF equipment, with a Cole's type crane and low-loader along with an aircraft, in a large boxed set. Civilian versions also exist. Earlier versions of these trucks - especially the civilian ones - are subject to warping and were made with some form of phenolic plastic, later ones however; are a more stable styrene compound.

V is for Volkseigener Betrieb (VEB) Part 4; Military Plastics

The Mini Car G5 Army Crane-wagon, one of the favourites from my collection, VEB Plasticart produced a really nice range of trucks - primarily for the model rail market - and military versions of many were turned-out. Given the neither Roco nor Roscopf made much Warsaw Pact stuff, it is worth tracking these down if you wish to war game the Cold War in 1:76 (not far-off HO).

Tracked stuff in Plasticart/Espewe packaging, the best - in my opinion - is the Soviet designated; ZSU 57-2, here called a Fla-SFL 57. Far more successful than Sgt. York (and pre-dating it by a decade or two!) and much cheaper than the Gepard family. The BTR 50P, as already mentioned is the first to carry a MAB die-cast body, while retaining Plasticart packaging.

A comparison shot (click on it for a better look, until I post it I won't know how good it is, as I've had to work on it in Picasa, and it's pixelation may have been degraded?). From left to right, rear of each pair first;

Roco Minitanks - plastic T34/76
Roco Minitanks - plastic T34/85 (same chassis)
Roco Minitanks - plastic T44
Roco Minitanks - plastic T54/55 (same chassis)
Unknown Russian - die-cast T34/44/54 (???)
Plasticart/Espewe - plastic T54/55
Roscopf - plastic PT76
MAB Mobile - die-cast & plastic PT 76

This image throws up some interesting stuff, not least of which is the Russian effort, these were sold right through the 1960's/'70's and '80's, yet have all the sophistication of the funny little semi-fictional slush-casts of 1930's/40's American companies like Barclay, Manoil, Grey Iron and Ideal. A lot of these simple Russian toys (which I will cover in greater detail another day) were produced 'ad-hock' during factory down-time, in facility's that were - in the normal scheme of events - supposed to be producing tractors or washing-machines!!

Roco claimed to produce in 1:87 scale and Roscopf claimed 1:90 as their preferred scale and this is born out in the photo, however, the plasticart T54/55 is a tad on the small side while the MAB Mobile PT76 is equally off the other end of the scale, being to big!. It's worth noting that the Roscopf range of 'warpac' stuff while not great, was considerably better than the Roco Range, as they were different scales, there is no 'not treading on each others toes' reason for this , and it made using them as recognition models in the forces problematical, as soldiers got the impression all Soviet stuff was smaller than the equivalent NATO vehicles!!!

Also - given the rarity of models of T44's in any scale, I will continue to believe the Russian one is supposed to be a '44, note the flat sides to the turret and post-war extended fuel tank positioning!!!! IT'S A FORTY-FOUR!!!

T is for Tractors

These are a few of my tractors, I have a soft spot for farm vehicles and figures, my fathers family have a farm near Retford in Nottingham and in the days before Health & Safety we spent many a holiday riding the grain trailers, running under the chaff-walkers of the combines and jumping out of the old Victorian loading stage into the grain mountain two stories below! I've also spent some time working farms in the past. This is the Paramount tractor, it came with various implements (which I will cover another day) and the figure is approximately 1:72, although the tractor is a bit big. These are by Jean and as can be seen, the tractor came in civil or military colouring. An added touch was the lifting bonnet (hood) which revealed a very basic engine for the farmer to work on! A selection of Hong Kong production with an old hay-turning rake-harrow and a tipping trailer. The little green one is the sort of thing that may have come with Kinder Eggs, not that I believe it did, it's small enough to have originated in a Christmas cracker? Behind is the Britains Lilliput Farm Tractor, with the nearly always missing driver, in front of which is the Hornby Dublo tractor, which never had a driver - as far as I know - being designed to be used as a load for rail flat-beds and low-loaders, or left parked around the marshalling yard! Finally a carded set of Hong Kong efforts, there is actually a piece missing from the bottom right, I suspect a trailer, and keep meaning to test fit my lose HK trailers to see if one fits. The yellow one above looks like a good candidate, but came with a completely different tractor, however such details mean nothing when dealing with HK output!