The 881 Pinder circus truck and cage trailer was released in 1968. It was the first GMC model in the four GMC model lineup. The first image shows the original Meccano France ad while the next pair of pictures show two views of the model.

Mil­i­tary toys were ever-present in the Dinky Toys line­up, from the start of the com­pa­ny in the 1930s all the way up to their demise in 1979. Dinky France also had mil­i­tary toys in their offer­ings, and many of these Dinky France mil­i­tary mod­els were con­sid­er­ably more detailed than their Eng­lish Dinky mil­i­tary cousins — espe­cial­ly when it came to the superb GMC army truck mod­els that first appeared in 1968.

This is the actual Pinder truck that Meccano modelled.
Image: Jaap Schroder

These detailed Dinky France mod­els were based on the leg­endary WWII GMC CCKW 2.5 ton 6x6 trucks which went into ser­vice in 1940. After the Jeep, these trucks are prob­a­bly the most rec­og­nized truck ever made. The 2.5 ton car­go truck was con­sid­ered such an asset that (as Gen­er­al Eisen­how­er wrote) many offi­cers regard­ed it as one of the six most vital vehi­cles to win the war. Over 570,000 were built from 1941 to 1945, and they served in every com­bat the­atre dur­ing WWII with US Forces and the Allies. They were extreme­ly reli­able and very durable vehi­cles.

After the war, the US left thou­sands of these trucks behind in Europe to assist in the rebuild­ing of the shat­tered post­war infra­struc­ture. Many were rebuilt, some fit­ted with Euro­pean diesel engines and re-bod­ied with unique local­ly sourced cabs that com­plete­ly trans­formed their appear­ance. Espe­cial­ly pop­u­lar in the Nether­lands and France, many were still in oper­a­tion into the 1990’s – in civil­ian and mil­i­tary ser­vice – a tes­ta­ment to their robust con­struc­tion.

The CCKW name is from GMC mod­el nomen­cla­ture. The first C is for the year 1941, the sec­ond C is for con­ven­tion­al cab, K is all wheel dri­ve and W is tan­dem rear axles. They were pow­ered by GMC’s own 91.5 hp 269.5 inch six cylin­der engine, dri­ven through a Warn­er 5‑speed man­u­al trans­mis­sion with a two-speed trans­fer case.

The CCKW was built with an almost end­less list of bod­ies. These includ­ed a short wheel­base CCKW-352 and a long wheel­base CCKW-353. Steel closed cabs were offered first but lat­er; to save steel, soft-top cabs became the norm. These long wheel­base trucks were eas­i­ly iden­ti­fied as they had the spare tire mount­ed under the chas­sis on the driver’s side. Many of the trucks were fit­ted with front winch­es sup­plied by Braden and Gar­wood.

The CCKW-353 with a soft top cab was mod­elled by Mec­ca­no in 1/43 scale. Dinky France offered these in four ver­sions: a car­go truck, tanker, wreck­er, and a Pin­der Cir­cus truck with trail­er.

The third GMC released was the cargo truck in 1970. Early versions came with the typical of the era road sign while later versions didn’t. This picture shows the original Meccano ad.

All the Dinky GMCs shared some com­mon traits. These includ­ed a remov­able plas­tic soft top on the cab, plas­tic sil­ver paint­ed head­lights with guards, rear tow hitch, a very detailed dri­ve­train, under chas­sis spare tire, and an oper­a­ble front winch. The cab and chas­sis were die-cast with met­al wheel hubs and ten rub­ber tires. They were all pack­aged in illus­trat­ed end flap box­es (typ­i­cal of the era) labelled Super Dinky. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these are flim­sy and prone to dam­age, due to the weight of the mod­els.

The first mod­el in the GMC line­up was the 881 Pin­der Cir­cus truck with trail­er, released in 1968. This long and col­or­ful mod­el was avail­able until 1971. It fea­tures a high sided yel­low plas­tic car­go body on a red truck with an oper­a­ble tail­gate. It towed a two-axle, three-cage ani­mal trail­er with open­ing cage doors. The trail­er was mold­ed in yel­low plas­tic and had a red diecast chas­sis. Stick­ers were includ­ed along with three ani­mals (a lion, tiger and pan­ther) in a wax­ine bag and – typ­i­cal of the Dinky France era – a road sign with an infor­ma­tive leaflet. The inner pack­ing on this mod­el was a long yel­low card­board base which the truck snug­ly sat in. There was also a yel­low long four-sided card­board pack­ing piece which sat on top of the truck and trail­er.

Next released was the 353 Mil­i­tary Tanker in 1969. This green truck was the most detailed in the line­up as well as the most frag­ile. The tank body was plas­tic and fea­tured open­ing filler caps. It came with a water slide decal sheet as well as a road sign and infor­ma­tive leaflet. French Army Fuel Ser­vice decals adorn the sides of the tank, and a flam­ma­ble liq­uids decal was fac­to­ry installed at the rear. Despite being mar­ket­ed as a fuel tanker, it was mod­elled on the 700-gal­lon Army water truck. The water tankers had the very dis­tinc­tive elon­gat­ed pair of almost man­hole like filler lids, where­as the fuel tankers did not. When Mec­ca­no sent the mod­el mak­ers out to pho­to­graph the real truck it had been most like­ly con­vert­ed into a fuel tanker by the French army. They did a superb job mod­el­ling the tank body and filler caps as well as repli­cat­ing the small cab­i­net behind the driver’s side cab that on the real truck housed a one cylin­der air cooled motor that could fill or drain the insu­lat­ed and heat­ed tank. The 353 also came with a yel­low low­er box insert like the Pin­der mod­el and a unique upper pack­ing piece that pro­tect­ed the ever so frag­ile filler caps. This truck was with­drawn in 1970.

Two views of the model.

The 809 car­go truck was released in 1970 and fea­tured a remov­able plas­tic tilt cov­er­ing a plas­tic car­go body, with oper­a­ble tail­gate and a plas­tic two-piece dri­ver. Despite some of the oth­er GMCs hav­ing a hole in the driver’s seat, this was the only GMC to be fit­ted with a dri­ver. Like the tanker it was army green and includ­ed a water slide decal sheet. It also came with a low­er box insert like the tanker. Ear­ly ver­sions came with a road sign and infor­ma­tive leaflet while lat­er ver­sions did not to save costs. It was with­drawn in 1971.

The last mod­el in the GMC series came after Mec­ca­no had closed its fac­to­ry in Bobigny and was there­fore pro­duced in Calais. This was the sand-col­ored 808 wreck­er of 1972, with­drawn in 1973. The green ver­sion would fol­low in 1974 and was with­drawn in 1976, mark­ing the end of the GMC series.

A real CCKW 353 that’s been beautifully restored and is just like the No. 809.
Image: Mathieu Dumias of Military Classic Vehicle,
Grandcamp-Maisy, France.

These iden­ti­cal mod­els fea­tured the plas­tic car­go body from the car­go and cir­cus truck mod­els sans tail­gate. They were fit­ted with num­ber plates and a plas­tic over­head I‑beam frame assem­bly with an oper­a­ble slid­ing hoist with hook. There was an off white cor­ru­gat­ed pack­ing piece to pro­tect the frag­ile boom and no low­er pack­ing piece.

The road to victory was absolutely grueling so preventative maintenance checks were  crucial for the GMC and the U.S. 1st. Army from the Western Front highlighted the “nine main causes of failures” to watch for in this notification.

There have been vary­ing opin­ions over the years about this mod­el being a bomb truck rather than a wreck­er and I have detailed the dif­fer­ences here to clar­i­fy this. There was only one CCKW wreck­er in real life and it was known as the Set No. 7. The Set No. 7 truck had a sim­ply designed invert­ed U frame I‑beam hoist sup­port that goes down to con­nect at the front cen­ter of the truck bed, just as the No. 808 does. It also has a pair of tubu­lar sup­ports run­ning from the rear of the hoist frame up to the very end of the hoist rail to pro­vide sup­port, again just as the No. 808 does. How­ev­er, the No. 808 tubu­lar sup­ports don’t go to the end of the hoist; they go to the mid­dle of the rail and grab the top of the rail, which is incor­rect com­pared to the real truck. With Mec­ca­no doing such a fine job repli­cat­ing these mod­els it seems odd that they repli­cat­ed the sup­port incor­rect­ly.

The No. 808 wrecker, first appearing in sand in 1972 and green in 1974, replacing the sand version were both identical models. It was withdrawn by 1976, ending the GMC series. These models were most likely based in real life on Set No.7 wrecker which was the only CCKW that was a wrecker. This picture shows the original Meccano ad.

Mean­while, there was only one CCKW bomb ser­vice truck in real life: the M27 and the lat­er M27A1 mod­els. These trucks have a notice­ably dif­fer­ent, taller, more com­plex full length hoist rail with dou­ble slid­ing trol­leys sup­port­ed by two A frames that don’t bend down to con­nect with the truck bed at the front cen­ter like the Dinky GMC and Set No. 7 wreck­er. The oth­er “wreck­er appear­ing” CCKW was the Truck, Chem­i­cal Ser­vice, M1. This truck used the almost iden­ti­cal invert­ed U frame I‑beam hoist as the Set No. 7 truck, but with­out the pair of tubu­lar sup­ports com­ing off the rear to rein­force the rail. These trucks were used for trans­port­ing large chem­i­cal bar­rels.

Two views of the models.

These Dinky France GMCs are more mod­el than toy and are the most detailed repli­cas of the CCKW ever pro­duced by a toy com­pa­ny. Mec­ca­no could have been mar­ket­ing these more towards the adult col­lec­tor more than chil­dren, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing all the frag­ile fea­tures. Many “Gold­en Age” Dinky col­lec­tors frown upon these fine trucks due to the high amount of plas­tic used in their con­struc­tion; this is unfor­tu­nate as they are very accu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the real thing. They are tru­ly in a dif­fer­ent class of mil­i­tary Dinky Toy with the lev­el of detail they offer com­pared to their Gold­en Age coun­ter­parts.

This 1945 Saturday Evening Post ad is one of the few that General Motors made for the CCKW that featured the later soft top cabs.

Hav­ing been born in 1970, I nev­er knew these mod­els – or oth­er Dinky France mod­els for that mat­ter – exist­ed until the late 1980’s when I pur­chased my first Dinky Toys col­lec­tors’ book by Dr. Edward Force. As a child I nev­er saw any French Dinky Toys in toy stores because they were not being offi­cial­ly import­ed into the USA like some of the French line­up had been in the past. How­ev­er, Dinky France mod­els were unof­fi­cial­ly import­ed to the USA by sev­er­al firms includ­ing Mem­o­rable Things of Tow­son, Mary­land and Mar­que Prod­ucts, a South­ern Cal­i­for­nia importer of fine toys and diecasts dur­ing the ear­ly 1970s. Fel­low life­long col­lec­tor Jonathan Angel con­firmed this fas­ci­nat­ing part of USA Dinky Toys his­to­ry with me as he pur­chased his French mod­els new back then from these importers.

The vintage photo is a Set No.7 in Korea with the U.S. Army in 1953. Note the clearly visible rear support which Meccano incorrectly replicated and the cargo load on the real truck. Its view is partially blocked by an WC 52 ¾ ton truck fitted with an A‑frame hoist.

On the col­lec­tabil­i­ty front, mint/boxed exam­ples of all four of these trucks are get­ting hard­er to find as time march­es on, and they have nev­er been inex­pen­sive. The frag­ile con­struc­tion didn’t help their sur­viv­abil­i­ty, and they didn’t have long pro­duc­tion runs. I’ve been look­ing at prices for years and the Pin­der GMC is the most valu­able with the tanker com­ing in next, but the tanker seems to be the most elu­sive to find and is often bro­ken, where­as the wreck­ers, Pin­der ver­sion and car­go trucks show up more fre­quent­ly.

Some have suggested that the No. 808 was a bomb truck but the M27 bomb trucks overhead boom assembly is clearly different and more complex than the Set No. 7 wrecker

The only other “wrecker appearing” CCKW was Truck, Chemical Service, M1. It transported heavy chemical barrels and lacked the rear support brace of the Set No. 7 wrecker.

The 1976 Meccano France trade catalog featured the wrecker and cargo truck.

The mod­els shown in this arti­cle and group pho­to rep­re­sent almost 35 years of col­lect­ing for me. I have always strived to get the best and most com­plete exam­ples I could afford, with all the cor­rect pack­ing and acces­sories.

My tanker and car­go truck came from Andrew Clark in 1993. Both mod­els are near­ly pris­tine and the ever-so-frag­ile tanker caps are intact. The car­go truck is the lat­er issue with­out the road sign.

My sand wrecker–the more com­mon version–was pur­chased from Car­tel in 1992, and the green wreck­er came from Domin­ion mod­els in 2014.

Final­ly, my Pin­der truck was pur­chased in 2018, and it came from a South­ern Cal­i­for­nia eBay sell­er who I had pur­chased from in the past. While I always admired this ver­sion, I pre­ferred the army ver­sions over the Pin­der vari­ant and the fact that this truck is always very expen­sive was dis­cour­ag­ing. They are also often incom­plete with miss­ing ani­mals, decals and the inner pack­ing pieces. How­ev­er, this one caught my atten­tion from the auction’s start­ing price and the seller’s descrip­tion which stat­ed it was recent­ly removed from deep stor­age since pur­chased new. I was the only bid­der for what was an afford­able price, and the mod­el and box are as new. It looks like it was made yes­ter­day. The seller/collector was very nice and shared that the orig­i­nal own­er, also from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, pur­chased hun­dreds of assort­ed new diecasts begin­ning in 1950’s into the 1970’s.

They were then stored away, nev­er to be seen again until the first owner’s pass­ing. It was an incred­i­ble find and it com­plet­ed my GMC col­lec­tion.

This was an enjoy­able arti­cle for me to write as I have been a com­mer­cial and mil­i­tary vehi­cles enthu­si­ast since I was a child and I always learn some­thing new when I break out the truck books from my trans­port library!

Acknowledgement

Writ­ing an arti­cle like this is nev­er a one-per­son endeav­or so very spe­cial thanks go to Jonathan Angel, Math­ieu Dumias, Jaap Schroder and his great Het tweede lev­en van GMC’s (The sec­ond life of GMC’s) site, Jacques Dujardin and David Doyle.