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!

G is for Guest Post - Sam Toys

This started life as an email which I thought was a listing, probably of more use on the much-neglected A-Z Blog 'pages', and I downloaded it to look at at home, thanked the sender; Angelo, and got on with whatever I was doing!

When I opened it at home I found the following article complete, with embedded images, and frantically wrote to Angelo the next day saying please send the originals so I can run it as an article!

Not only did he send them, but he took new images of most of them and some supporting paperwork, to the point where I now know as much about these as he does . . . in five minutes time - so will you.

I then suggested I post his article as he'd written it and further look at the vehicles in turn after Christmas, but have instead collaged the images and placed them where the single pictures were in the first draft, which is the only real editorial change . . . I hand over to Angelo;

●    ●●    ●●    ●●    ●●●●    ●●    ●●    ●●    ●

SAM TOYS - " MILITARY SERIES"

Sam Toys produced model cars in the late 50s and late 60s.

The Military Series was initially composed of seven vehicles which were the plastic copy of similar metal models by the French Dinky Toys.

Below is a copy of the catalog of the period showing the series and the description of each individual vehicle.

Art. 431 – CAMIONETTA MILITARE - copy of model 641 ARMY "1-TON CARGO TRUCK" by Dinky Toys

Art. 432 – AUTO BLINDATA - copy of model 670 "ARMOURED CAR" by Dinky Toys

Art. 433 – AUTOBLINDO PER TRASPORTO - copy of model 643 “ARMOURED PERSONNEL” by Dinky Toys

Art. 434 – AMBULANZA MILITARE - copy of mode 626 “MILITARY AMBULANCE” by Dinky Toys

Art. 435 – AUTO CISTERNA  - copy of model 643 “ARMY WATER TANKER” by Dinky Toys

Art. 436 – CARRO ESPLORATORE - copy of model 673 “SCOUT CAR” by  Dinky Toys

Art. 437 – JEEP - copy of model 669 “JEEP” or 672 "JEEP" (re-issue of 153a) by Dinky Toys

                              Note the error in the name in JEPP

Later, other models were added that were variants of the first series.

A first variant was the MILITARY TRUCK where 4 soldiers were added to the platform. This meant that the lorry remained uncovered because it was not possible to put the tarpaulin with the seated soldiers.

The next 4 models were created using the floor of the MILITARY AMBULANCE which on the bottom always showed the writing 434 Military Ambulance for all these models.

AUTOCARRO SCALA MOBILE

AUTOCARRO CON CANNONE

AUTOCISTERNA

AUTOCARRO MILITARE APERTO

Finally there is a model 443 - JEEP CON RIMORCHIO that the SAM TOYS inserted in the AUTOCARRI series, but that actually refers to a military vehicle.

●    ●●    ●●    ●●    ●●●●    ●●    ●●    ●●    ●

A few points I'll add, all from the material provided by Angelo, firstly, the lorry used for ambulance and plug-in bodies is now recognised as being the Truck, 3-Ton, 4x4, GS, Ford Ambulance (Spurling, Muliner or Duple [bodies]), AKA; Fordson-Thames GS-Lorry, and an excellent article on all the toy versions (we've had the diminutive Matchbox RAF version on the blog and the article attributes the MPC 'Mini' ambulance - also seen here - to the same marque) appeared in the October 2011 edition of Model Collector magazine, with Nigel Robertshaw in the author's chair.

The image from which Angelo cropped the 'civi' Jeep, also has civilianised versions of the same lorry, each in a 'wagon-&-drag' configuration (commoner on the continent, although a lot of haulage companies use them on their late night 'trunckers' so you often see them on the motorway network in the early hours), along with a wrecker-body version of the Humber 1-Ton, which is lovely!

Many, many thanks to Angelo for sending this into the blog, a relatively unknown series of non-Hong Kong copies, and I'm very fond of my one example, the Humber with passengers.

V is for Vanwall

We don't often visit either of these companies, and I think the last time we looked at either of them (I is for Italians) we looked at both of them, that's synergy for you! A reasonable amount of info on the Vanwall racers is here if you want it.

The Politoys (blue) is the better of the two, although weighing-in at an odd 1:41st scale? Fitted with separate exhaust-pipes and given some suggestion of suspension bars between the body and the wheels.

The base plate is separate as is the steering-wheel which is attached to a dash coming up from the floor-pan, all features absent on the Sam Toys version.

Being slightly smaller, the Sam Toys example is probably a safer 1:43th but comes with simpler wheels and no hint of suspension, the exhausts are just moulded on as is the steering-wheel, while the dash is . . . behind the steering wheel!

The irony being that while smaller-scaled it has a larger driver squashed into the cockpit - clearly he ate all the pies!

Thanks to Mercator Trading for the photo'op.

M is for Mini-trucks, Part 7 - Other types/sizes/makes

Finally - how other people treated the mini-truck and some larger versions of the truck showing the Dinky inheritance;

NFIC seems to have used the Dinky truck straight, just giving it a full range of different body types. The London Taxi-cab is also theirs and I've seen a red London Routemaster, so they were aiming at the tourist trade buyers, when not turning out Army-lorrys!

This Argentinian manufacturer; Industria Argentina/RM has gone with a medium range Mercedes truck-cab (3000 series?), but uses all the usual plug-in weapon systems, along with a double-rocket launcher which is a first in this size.

Cane's little carded army contains a Humber, but barely recognisable as such, but the Saracen is a nice little model for it's size/pocket money budget.

The Sam Toys is a clean-lift from Dinky with added crew and has been seen before here and elsewhere.

That's it, for now, I dare say we'll return to the subject in a year or two, in the meantime if you find a new variant let me know!

I is for Italians

As I seem to have mentioned the post-war Humber utility vehicle once or twice in the last few posts, I thought we'd better look at this one;

Sam Toys of Italy, probably aiming to be around 1:48th scale, making the figures a bit small, this is clearly a straight lift from the Dinky original. It's the only Sam Toy I have and I know little else, but it leads us to other Italian Producers...

Dulcop produced in two sizes, the above row being around 1:48th for the A/Car and close to 1:72 for the two trucks. The armoured car was probably also taken from Dinky, and would go on to be copied both in Hong Kong and in Spain, where Montaplex produced a clip-together version.

The lower row are small at around 1:100 and will have been taken from the Roscopf range, the paint on the end two is not original, but being gloss would not come off well with oven cleaner, yet because the plastic is styrene I can't use caustic paint stripper either so until I find better examples - it stays!

Politoys were a better class of maker than the preceding two, and these are really nice toys for their day. Again shades of Dinky and French Dinky, but nicely executed. The truck has the Lone*Star inspired rocket launcher, another HK favorite while the M20 has a ridiculous-sized MG. Gotta' love the camouflaged boxes though.