Arti­cles writ­ten in 2025

  • Dinky 510 Peugeot 204 — Comparing the Atlas and Norev versions

    Dinky 510 Peugeot 204 — Comparing the Atlas and Norev versions

    Although some­what for­got­ten today, the Peu­geot 204 cel­e­brat­ed its 60th anniver­sary in 2025. At the time, Peu­geot adopt­ed a sin­gle-mod­el strat­e­gy. Although the 404, with its mod­ern design and robust­ness,…


  • Dinky 24V/538 Buick Roadmaster

    Dinky 24V/538 Buick Roadmaster

    The ear­ly 1950s were a busy time for Mec­ca­no Lim­it­ed, with both their Eng­lish and French Dinky Toys fac­to­ries busy intro­duc­ing des­per­ate­ly need­ed new mod­els.  Both com­pa­nies came out with sev­er­al…


  • Dinky Toys 289 Routemaster Bus

    Dinky Toys 289 Routemaster Bus

    One of the most icon­ic British vehi­cles is undoubt­ed­ly the world-famous Lon­don Routemas­ter bus. This was pro­duced by Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool in 1964 as mod­el 289 and was made until the…


  • 6 UK Dinky Toys repackaged by Meccano Paris for the French market (1950–1951)

    6 UK Dinky Toys repackaged by Meccano Paris for the French market (1950–1951)

    To sup­ple­ment the lim­it­ed num­ber of French mod­els avail­able at the time, Mec­ca­no Paris import­ed the UK Dinky Toys 14C, 27A, 27C, 561, 562, and 571 into France between 1950…


  • The Dinky Toys 38 Series Touring Cars

    The Dinky Toys 38 Series Touring Cars

    In 1938, Mec­ca­no Ltd. was rev­el­ing in its rapid rise in pop­u­lar­i­ty and suc­cess of its new line called Dinky Toys, con­ceived in 1934. There were many series of mod­els, both…


  • Coles Cranes on Display

    Coles Cranes on Display

    After a sug­ges­tion by fel­low col­lec­tor Jan Wern­er for a group pho­to of my recent­ly com­plet­ed col­lec­tion of Dinky 972 Coles Crane vari­ants, I decid­ed to share one by writ­ing…


  • Austin Atlantic A90

    Austin Atlantic A90

    As is well doc­u­ment­ed, Mec­ca­no mod­eled the the Austin A90 Atlantic Sports Car at ¼ inch to a foot. This was a stream­lined mod­el of the real car that was…


  • Dinky Dublo 066 Bedford Truck

    Dinky Dublo 066 Bedford Truck

    Dublo Dinky Toys were announced by Mec­ca­no Ltd. in late 1957, and appeared in stores in 1958. The series were in 1:76 scale and were intend­ed to work with 00-gauge Horn­by Dublo rail­ways. This arti­cle…