Here we go with todays tenuous space toy link! Its a concrete but slightly off-topic one, the maker of the Minix cars being Rovex. I happened to stumble on the 'boxed' Ford Anglia pictured above last week on ebay, at a 99p start and couldn't resist. Amazingly, I won at the ridiculously low price too. Apart from small toys being a passion of mine, this little toy was a direct route down memory lane for me too. As my dad had been a big train enthusiast, these little cars had often dotted about the layout. After a quick ferret around in the box of trains in the attic, I found them.
I don't recall them arriving boxed individually, or was I ever aware of the name, I always thought of them as 'Minic' cars, a brand I associated with Tri-ang trains from the catalogues.
The neat little models have metal alloy wheels and the name and number clearly moulded underneath with spare details. As you can see from the box, there were free gifts available by collecting tokens from the packs. The gifts were not car related - two were glider kits and the third was a 'record breakers' booklet.
Theres quite a range of the little vehicles and the saloon cars also appear on the back of the tri-ang car transporter wagon from the train sets. After another sort in the train box, I found what I vaguely recalled to be the car transporter, but it was a Playcraft version.
The cars seated on this wagon were all continental makes such as Citroen and far inferior in construction, having a basic body shell and no windows or chrome elements.
Im sure the Minix range must have had its own catalogue, as it doesnt appear in any of the Tri-ang main catalogues and the
original Minic line of toys does. Has anyone seen a Minix leaflet ?
What classic little toy cars! Beautiful. Are they small enough for using on Train lay outs? I remember small cars like these on my brothers Hornby lay outs. The designs for cars in those days were so cool, either super straight or finned saloons and slick coupes. What happened to car design?
ReplyDeleteWhat a super find, Wote. Very nostalgic. I agree with Woodsy, those sixties car designs were great.
ReplyDeleteAs I dimly recall, "Minic" and "Minix" referred to static and motorised cars - I think "Minix" were the slot cars, to the same scale as model railways.
ReplyDeleteGrif
Minic was Triang's brand for tinplate clockwork cars from the mid 1930s onwards, and continued after the war. They're about a Dinky Toy-and-a-half in size, and there's quite a few people that use them with their 0-gauge train layouts to keep it all tinplate (even though Meccano Ltd originally developed Dinky Toys as accessories for their Hornby Trains).
ReplyDeleteMinix as a name was obviously derived from Minic, and could very well be used with Triang Trains in 00-gauge (and later with Triang-Hornby Railways after Triang bought a failing Meccano Ltd).
Lovely little cars indeed - they have their equivalents in the little Lego cars that I got when my Dad got paid when I was three or so (pics available if interested :)
Norev in France produced similarly small toy cars, as did a number of well-known German manufacturers of course.
Best
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Paul
The cars on the Playcraft wagon were probably Jouef as they were the supplier of the rolling stock, figures and a lot of the other accessories and buildings.
ReplyDeleteWhat I've never really got my head round was that the rival HO systems from Playcraft and Triang were both in the wider Lines Group?!!
H