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 ?
