Arti­cles about cars

  • Dinky Toys Alfa Romeo 1900

    Dinky Toys Alfa Romeo 1900

    1959 was a momen­tous year for me, in my ear­ly days of col­lect­ing Dinky Toys. I was 14 and total­ly hooked on buy­ing every new one I could afford, so I…


  • Dinky Toys’ Limited Venture into Tinplate

    Dinky Toys’ Limited Venture into Tinplate

    Dinky Toys were intro­duced around 1933–1934, by Mec­ca­no Ltd., at that time a very well-known Eng­lish toy­mak­er, based in Liv­er­pool. At first, there were just a few mod­els, of trucks, cars,…


  • The 40 Series: Early Post-War English Saloon Cars Made by Dinky Toys

    The 40 Series: Early Post-War English Saloon Cars Made by Dinky Toys

    With all toy pro­duc­tion halt­ed dur­ing World War II, Mec­ca­no Ltd. was anx­ious to start up again, and in ear­ly 1946 pro­duc­tion resumed, albeit at a fair­ly low lev­el. At…


  • The French Dinky Toys Peugeot 403 Pair

    The French Dinky Toys Peugeot 403 Pair

    An unusual offering from Meccano Pro­duc­ing two ver­sions of the same basic auto­mo­bile was not some­thing that Dinky Toys nor­mal­ly did, but in the 1950’s, the French Mec­ca­no fac­to­ry in Bobigny did…


  • ‘Kissing Cousins’ – Dinky Toys Color Schemes

    ‘Kissing Cousins’ – Dinky Toys Color Schemes

    In a world of auto­mo­biles paint­ed in mono­chro­mat­ic col­ors (usu­al­ly black or steel grey), the dis­tinc­tive pas­tel col­or schemes that grace Dinky Toys of yes­ter­year often give col­lec­tors a sense of plea­sure. …


  • Dinky Toys Rambler Station Wagon

    Dinky Toys Rambler Station Wagon

    1958 saw the intro­duc­tion of sev­er­al new Dinky Toys auto­mo­biles, with many new Amer­i­can cars fea­tured. One of my favorites was the # 173 Nash Ram­bler Sta­tion Wag­on, which was a nice­ly done…


  • More Details on the Dinky Toys Standard Vanguard

    More Details on the Dinky Toys Standard Vanguard

    I orig­i­nal­ly wrote about the entire Dinky Toys 40 series in 2019, includ­ing the 40e Stan­dard Van­guard. Dinky Toys were quite accu­rate mod­els of real vehi­cles pro­duced at that time, but over the years,…


  • Ford Fordor in Red

    Ford Fordor in Red

    The Dinky Ford For­dor Sedan was pro­duced from 1949 to 1959 in a large assort­ment of body and wheel col­ors, ini­tial­ly as #139A and lat­er renum­bered #170. Reproduction of period catalog entry The hum­ble red mod­el which was pro­duced…