Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool pro­duced sev­er­al mod­els with a tip­ping func­tion. These were oper­at­ed man­u­al­ly, such as the Muir-Hill Dump Truck, or with a turn­ing mech­a­nism, such as the Bed­ford End Tip­per. In 1955, Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool pro­duced the 965 Euclid Rear Dump Truck as a Dinky Super­toys mod­el that fea­tured a new supe­ri­or tip­ping mech­a­nism and they were very pop­u­lar. The 965 was pro­duced from 1955 to 1970, ini­tial­ly as the Euclid and from ear­ly 1969 as the Terex Rear Dump Truck. It was intro­duced in the Octo­ber 1955 issue of Mec­ca­no Mag­a­zine with a col­or adver­tise­ment on the back cov­er, a prac­tice that had become com­mon since March 1955. “The Toy­man” pre­sent­ed a com­pre­hen­sive two page descrip­tion with two black and white illus­tra­tions. From March 1953, “The Toy­man” fre­quent­ly described new Dinky Toys mod­els in Mec­ca­no Mag­a­zine.

The Dinky 965 was introduced in the October 1955 issue of Meccano Magazine.

The 965 Euclid Rear Dump Truck shown with the 962 Muir-Hill Dumper Truck. In the 1956 UK Dinky catalog, the color of the logo on the 965 changed to red.

The Dinky 965 is a robust and solid­ly con­struct­ed Super­toys mod­el that has been con­tin­u­ous­ly improved over the years. The tip­ping mech­a­nism is bet­ter than pre­vi­ous mod­els and the the 965 is equipped with a well func­tion­ing pin­ion and ratch­et, allow­ing the tip­per to be grad­u­al­ly raised and low­ered for tip­ping.

The first (1955) version of the Dinky 965 Euclid Rear Dump Truck compared with the first (1949/1950) version of the French Dinky 25M Ford Tipper. Both models share the same kind of tipping mechanism.

This type of mech­a­nism was already used by Mec­ca­no Bobigny on the 25M Stude­bak­er and Ford Benne Bas­cu­lante mod­els from 1949 onwards, but the French mod­el is much small­er and more frag­ile. The French 25M Ford Tip­per, for exam­ple, weighs 90 grams while the 965 Euclid clocks in at a hefty 291 grams. The dif­fer­ence between the two is evi­dent in the pic­tures that accom­pa­ny this arti­cle. The robust Euclid is a very pop­u­lar mod­el that con­tin­ues to be wide­ly avail­able.

The pinion and ratchet mechanism of a stripped Euclid.
L: The first Euclid version. R: The last Terex version.
Image: Kevin (DTCA 965 forum via planetdiecast.com)

French Dinky Toys 25M Ford Tipper with side handle with pinion and ratchet for tipping action. Image: eBay

The 965 Euclid Rear Dump Truck prototype

Brochure on the Euclid Rear Dump Truck 15 ton model FD.
Image: eBay

On eBay I came across a brochure of a 15-ton Euclid Rear Dump Truck (type FD) that bears a strong resem­blance to the Dinky 965. The dates 1953 and 1954 with a ques­tion mark are typed on the last page of the brochure. It seems this could be the pro­to­type for the Dinky 965. The assem­bly draw­ing Job No. 13970 is dat­ed 12–10-53. This mod­el has the cor­rect height of the head­lights and pro­tec­tive head­light cov­ers, the cor­rect design and posi­tion of the exhaust (includ­ing the low­er ring around the exhaust pipe), the three ribs on the top of the bed, and a two-step entry. The DTCA forums include a pho­to­graph of a 1951 Euclid R‑15 mod­el B5FD with a three-step entry.

Shown above is a cir­ca 1952 ad from the British com­pa­ny Black­wood Hodge with images of the Euclid Rear Dump Truck in green. Black­wood Hodge was the British dis­trib­u­tor for Euclid and was con­tact­ed by Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool who were seek­ing infor­ma­tion need­ed for repro­duc­ing the Euclid mod­el.

The 1951 Euclid R‑15 that was used as a prototype for the Dinky 965, as discussed in the DTCA 965 forums. Note the three-step entry.
Image: Bruce Hoy (DTCA 965 forum)

The Euclid and Terex mod­els are exten­sive­ly dis­cussed in the DTCA 965 forums, and the changes and cast­ing vari­a­tions are illus­trat­ed there. I have per­son­al­ly exam­ined all the mod­els described in my arti­cle, but a lot of sup­port­ing infor­ma­tion in my arti­cle comes from the DTCA 965 forums, espe­cial­ly from mem­ber Bruce Hoy. The var­i­ous changes to the mod­el are not­ed on Mec­ca­no draw­ings Job 13970, 13971, and 13972. The most impor­tant changes are:

• 19–1‑1955
  “Dinky Toys” is changed to “Dinky Super­toys”.
• 14-10-1955
  The col­or of the Euclid logo is changed from black to red.
• 3-11-1955
  Lon­gi­tu­di­nal rein­force­ment of tip­per body catch­ment and guide.
• 13–1‑1960
  Addi­tion of win­dows.
• 1962
  Three ribs rein­force the bot­tom of the tip­per body above the cab.
• 23–5‑1963
  The front wheels are reversed.
• 26–1‑1967
  Addi­tion of two pro­tru­sions (stops) at the end of the tilt rod’s rotating/sliding move­ment.
• 3–1‑1969
  Name changed from Euclid to Terex.

Accord­ing com­ments in the DTCA 965 forum it should be not­ed that for tech­ni­cal pro­duc­tion rea­sons, the cab win­dows of Mod­el 965 were man­u­fac­tured by Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool at a slight angle, rather than straight as in the orig­i­nal pro­to­type. Prob­a­bly for aes­thet­ic rea­sons the sides of the model’s dump truck have three ver­ti­cal beams instead of the prototype’s four. The addi­tion of Stone-Ore-Earth trans­fers to the dump truck sides was a Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool inven­tion. They are not found on any real Euclid Rear Dump Truck. Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool ini­tial­ly intend­ed to use Stone-Sand-Grav­el trans­fers but accord­ing to Mec­ca­no draw­ing Job No. 13970 on 28–3‑55, they changed this to Stone-Ore-Earth. I per­son­al­ly researched eight mod­els, and will show details of the 6 ver­sions list­ed above with descrip­tions in chrono­log­i­cal order. How­ev­er, be aware that more ver­sions exist.

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The different boxes

L: The Dinky 965 1st issue Euclid (sans windows) with a black Euclid logo on its type 1 blue and white striped Dinky Supertoys box with upright lettering, and reddish contour lines on the model depicted on the box.

R: The Dinky 965 type 1 Euclid box with Quality Control Stamp “O O 955” which implies the box was inspected in September 1955. “O O” are the inspector’s initials. Meccano Liverpool was therefore already releasing the model before it was announced in the October 1955 issue of Meccano Magazine. Note the two-step entry of the Euclid.

Shown above is the sec­ond issue Euclid Rear Dump Truck (also sans win­dows) with the red Euclid logo that was intro­duced on 14th Octo­ber 1955, and the yel­low USA export label vis­i­ble on the box. The type 2 box has upright let­ter­ing and black con­tour lines on the depict­ed mod­el.

The stamp in the box reads “11 AN 55” which indi­cates it was issued in Novem­ber 1955. The type 1 box shown ear­li­er is stamped in Sep­tem­ber 1955 which implies the the first ver­sion with the black Euclid logo was only pro­duced for a few months.

Although the above mod­el and box aren’t a cor­rect com­bi­na­tion, they are shown togeth­er to high­light the rar­i­ty and the unique­ness of each. The mod­el lacks the Euclid logo and “STONE-ORE-EARTH” text. I con­sid­er this to be a fac­to­ry error because there are very few exam­ples of Euclid mod­els that lack trans­fers. The type 3 box with ital­ic text has a rare green col­or dot on the end of the box. This seems to imply that Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool planned to release the mod­el in green to match the col­or of the pro­to­type. Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool also received green paint from Black­wood Hodge, but it’s unknown how it was used.

Shown above is the Euclid with a lat­er Dinky Super­toys pic­ture lid box with ital­ic text and a hoist scene. This was the first occur­rence of a red Euclid logo on the mod­el on the box. This type of box which was issued around 1963–64 is the first type to sport a lid after the blue and white striped Dinky Super­toys lid box­es. This was dur­ing the end of the Dinky Super­toys peri­od, when Lines Bros took over Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool in 1964, end­ing the Dinky Super­toys run.

This pic­ture shows the 965 Terex with the Terex GM logo on a “DINKY TOYS” Euclid pic­ture box. It is strik­ing that 965 now received a “DINKY TOYS” box for the first time, instead of a Dinky Super­toys box. The name Dinky Super­toys dis­ap­peared with the takeover of Lines Bros in 1964. Lines Bros only reg­is­tered the DINKY name, with the addi­tion of “TOYS” prob­a­bly added for mar­ket­ing pur­pos­es. Note the absence of the turn­ing han­dle on the mod­el’s illus­tra­tion on this rare issue box. Although the “Terex” name adorns the radi­a­tor, the base con­tin­ues to indi­cate “Euclid”.

Shown here is the Dinky 965 Terex with the Terex GM logo, in its new­ly released DINKY TOYS Terex pic­ture box and the Terex name on the radi­a­tor and the base. A curi­ous note appears on the box: “Col­or of mod­el may dif­fer from illus­tra­tion.” Accord­ing to Bruce Hoy’s com­ment in the DTCA 965 forum, this note can be explained by the fact that under cer­tain light­ing con­di­tions, the mod­el has a hint of green. The yel­low col­or clear­ly dif­fers from the first edi­tion Euclid.

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The different castings

This image is of a first issue Dinky 965 with a black Euclid logo. The mod­el lacks the rein­force­ment between the lugs along the sides of the ratch­et, as well as the ratch­et stop and the under­side of the load­ing plat­form above the cab is smooth. This mod­el was pro­duced with­out win­dows until 13 Jan­u­ary 1960 and has a sleeve on the turn­ing han­dle and heavy duty black tread­ed tires. This first ver­sion with the black Euclid logo is very scarce, because short­ly after its release the black Euclid logo was replaced by a red one on 14 Octo­ber 1955.

This image shows the sec­ond ver­sion of the Dinky 965 that sport­ed a red Euclid logo since 14 Octo­ber 1955. This is the USA export mod­el that was issued in Novem­ber 1955 and has the same char­ac­ter­is­tics as the first ver­sion in the pre­vi­ous image.

This third vari­a­tion of the Euclid has a red Euclid logo and reversed front wheels with a V groove and was pro­duced with win­dows since 13 Jan­u­ary 1960 and pack­aged in a lat­er Dinky Super­toys pic­ture box as shown above. The mod­el has rein­forced sides between the cams along the ratch­et, with three ribs rein­forc­ing the bot­tom of the load­ing plat­form above the cab. How­ev­er, it con­tin­ues to lack a ratch­et stop and a sleeve on the turn­ing han­dle.

Here’s a fac­to­ry error Dinky 965 Euclid with­out the Euclid logo and the leg­end “STONE-ORE-EARTH”, now with two cams at the end of the ratch­et stop which were intro­duced on 26 Jan­u­ary 1967. It has the same char­ac­ter­is­tics as the third ver­sion above, but the front wheels which should have been reversed from 23 May 1963 are still con­vex.

Although sim­i­lar to the ear­li­er mod­el, this Dinky 965 Terex Rear Dump Truck with the Terex GM logo but a Euclid DINKY TOYS pic­ture box is a rar­i­ty because it has the “Terex” name on the radi­a­tor but “Euclid” on the base.

Image: Bruce Hoy, DTCA

The image above is of a very rare Dinky 965 Terex with the Terex name on the radi­a­tor but the Euclid name on the base. Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool first exhaust­ed its stock of Euclid named bases before switch­ing to those with the Terex name. This mod­el has anoth­er type of grooved tires.

This vari­a­tion of the Dinky 965 Terex Rear Dump Truck has the “Terex” name on the radi­a­tor as well as the base, and the Terex mod­el depict­ed on its DINKY TOYS Terex box.

The image above is of a Dinky 965 Terex with the Terex name on the radi­a­tor and the plinth in place of the for­mer Euclid name on the base. This mod­el also has a dif­fer­ent type of grooved tires.

Here’s a pair of Euclid mod­els with the red Euclid logo and win­dows. The mod­el on the left has front wheels that were reversed from 23 May 1963, and no sleeve on the crank han­dle. The mod­el on the right has the orig­i­nal con­vex wheels and a sleeve on the crank han­dle.

Here’s a com­par­i­son of the first type of the 1955 Dinky 965 Euclid Rear Dump Truck with the last type Dinky 965 Terex Rear Dump Truck which was issued in 1970. Note the dif­fer­ence in the ring around the bot­tom of the exhaust pipe. Under cer­tain light­ing con­di­tions, the Terex mod­el has a hint of green and its shade of yel­low dif­fers from the first edi­tion Euclid.

L: The rear of the first version 965 without the two lugs for the ratchet stop.
R: The rear of the fourth version of the 965 showing the two lugs for the ratchet stop.

This first ver­sion Euclid lacks win­dows and has a smooth inte­ri­or roof with one ejec­tion mark­ing in the cen­ter. Note the black Euclid logo fac­ing the rear as also is pic­tured on the Euclid brochure. The right side of the mod­el shows the Euclid logo fac­ing for­ward as is the case on the real vehi­cle.

The third ver­sion of the Euclid has a cross hatched inte­ri­or cab roof and one ejec­tor mark­ing, and a plas­tic win­dow in the cen­ter with the EUCLID name below it. Note the red for­ward fac­ing Euclid logo. The right side of the mod­el also shows the Euclid logo fac­ing for­ward, but the restored Euclid R‑15 green pro­to­type inn the DTCA forum shows the red Euclid logo on the right fac­ing the rear.

This fifth ver­sion of the Dinky 965 shows the Terex GM logo on the doors. The inside cab­in roof is smooth and the mod­el has a sin­gle ejec­tion mark­ing fas­ten­ing point. In the cen­ter of the plas­tic win­dow is the name “EUCLID”.

Shown above is the base of the first issue Dinky 965 with the Euclid name and a sleeve on the crank. Note the absence of rein­force­ment along the sides of the ratch­et. The tires are heavy duty tires with block tread, and Dinky Super­toys adorns the raised plinth. Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool ini­tial­ly clas­si­fied the 965 as Dinky Toys and applied the name Dinky Toys to the mold. How­ev­er, dur­ing the the renum­ber­ing phase, Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool reclas­si­fied it as Dinky Super­toys in Mec­ca­no Mag­a­zine of March 1955. On 19 Jan­u­ary 1955, the mold was changed to reflect Dinky Super­toys on the plinth. I described this remark­able reclas­si­fi­ca­tion in the April 2024 issue of the DTCA Jour­nal.

The first ver­sion Dinky 965 Euclid mod­els in the blue striped Dinky Super­toys box­es and pic­ture box­es with a lid were issued with card­board inner pack­ag­ing over the han­dle of the truck to pre­vent dam­age to the box dur­ing trans­port. Note the red con­tour lines of the mod­el on the box, mak­ing its edges more vis­i­ble.

This is the sixth ver­sion of the Dinky 965 Terex Rear Dump Truck in its orig­i­nal “DINKY TOYS” card­board end flap box with inner card­board pack­ag­ing to pre­vent dam­age dur­ing trans­port.  This mod­el has raised rein­force­ment along both sides of the ratch­et and the round slid­ing plate. Due to the rein­force­ment on both sides of the base, the raised plinth with the Dinky Super­toys logo was delet­ed and the Dinky Super­toys name cast on the flat base. This mod­el used a dif­fer­ent type of grooved tires and lacked a sleeve on the turn­ing crank.

Shown above is the first ver­sion Dinky 965 Euclid with a black Euclid logo and trans­fers. Note the block tread tires and the twelve wheel bolts which are also present on the real vehi­cle. This mod­el has no rein­force­ment between the lugs on the base.

Here is the Dinky 965 with a red Euclid logo and V‑grooved tires embossed with the “M” iden­ti­fi­er. The rein­force­ment between the lugs of the base is vis­i­ble and the “STONE ORE EARTH” text is notice­ably green com­pared to the black let­ter­ing of the first edi­tion mod­el.

This is the Dinky 965 Terex with the Terex logo on the doors, no trans­fers on the load­ing bed and a dif­fer­ent type of grooved tires. The twelve wheel bolts which are also present on the real vehi­cle are vis­i­ble, as is the the rein­force­ment between the lugs of the base.

L: Dinky 965 with convex wheels.
R: Dinky 964 with concave wheels.

The white “Test­ed by” con­trol labels were usu­al­ly includ­ed with mod­els with a rotat­ing mech­a­nism and indi­cat­ed the mech­a­nism had been test­ed for prop­er oper­a­tion. These labels are often lost.

The Dinky 965 was issued with three types of tires: heavy duty block tread, V‑groove and anoth­er type of grooved tires. Note the raised rein­force­ment on either side of the ratch­et on the base of the sec­ond and third mod­els. The dif­fer­ence in cast­ing of the raised plinth with the Dinky Super­toys name on the first mod­el and the Dinky Super­toys name with­out the raised plinth on the sec­ond and third mod­els is also clear­ly vis­i­ble.

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The sad end of the Terex Euclid version

As men­tioned ear­li­er, dur­ing the pro­duc­tion years 1955 to 1970 there were many very inter­est­ing cast­ing vari­a­tions that were dis­cussed and depict­ed in detail in the DTCA 965 forum. The most impor­tant vari­a­tion took place on Jan­u­ary 3, 1969, men­tioned under item 12 of the Mec­ca­no draw­ing Job No. 13971, when the name EUCLID was changed to TEREX. How­ev­er, as we know, the new Terex mod­el was only pro­duced for a short time before it was unex­pect­ed­ly dis­con­tin­ued. What could be the rea­son for that?

There’s an inter­est­ing and detailed sto­ry relat­ed to its ter­mi­na­tion that has been described by Bruce Hoy in the 965 Terex DTCA forum top­ic. In short, it comes down to this: Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool thought it was just a reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the name Euclid to Terex and changed the name Euclid on the mod­el 965 to Terex. They thought that this would allow them to con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing and sell­ing the mod­el 965 as a Terex mod­el. How­ev­er, the own­er Gen­er­al Motors, who changed the name of the earth­mov­ing equip­ment divi­sion from Euclid to Terex, used a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent mod­el Rear Dump Truck, the more mod­ern Terex mod­el R‑17, shown in the forum, instead of Euclid R‑15. A legal process threat­ened to arise and Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool abrupt­ly stopped fur­ther pro­duc­tion of the Terex Dinky 965 to avoid legal prob­lems.

The new mod­el 965 Terex were issued for a short time with the Terex name on the base and Terex GM logo on the doors, as well as with its new 965 Terex DINKY toys box. How­ev­er, the adver­tise­ment in the UK 1969 No. 5 cat­a­log was notable. The 965 appeared as Euclid Rear Dump Truck depict­ed in UK cat­a­log No. 5 of May 1969 up to and includ­ing its 3rd print­ing of 1st Jan­u­ary 1970, but the 965 on the catalog’s price list referred to the Terex Rear Dump Truck with a price of 14/11. The Dinky 965 Terex with the Terex box is very scarce due to its short pro­duc­tion run of less than a year. It’s a pity that pro­duc­tion of the Terex mod­el end­ed abrupt­ly. It was a very pop­u­lar — and for Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool — a very prof­itable mod­el and could have last­ed for years to come. The pro­duc­tion of the new Terex mod­el and its orig­i­nal Terex box is proof that Mec­ca­no Liv­er­pool intend­ed to con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing this mod­el for sev­er­al years. This is the back­ground sto­ry about the remark­able end of mod­el 965 Terex, inter­est­ing enough to pub­lish here again.

This is the last Dinky Toys cat­a­log (UK No. 5, 1969) show­ing the Dinky 965 as a Euclid Rear Dump Truck instead of a Terex Rear Dump Truck.

The price list accom­pa­ny­ing the Dinky Toys UK cat­a­log No. 5 (1st to 3rd print­ing) of 1 Jan­u­ary 1970 show­ing the 965 named as Terex Rear Dump Truck with a price of 14/11.

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Rare 965 versions

Red (and some­times mil­i­tary green) hubs can be found on both the Euclid and Terex mod­els. This occurred when insuf­fi­cient yel­low hubs had been pro­duced but there was a sur­plus of red hubs intend­ed for the 437 Muir-Hill 2WL Loader or the 959 Foden Dump Truck with Bull­doz­er, and sur­plus green hubs orig­i­nal intend­ed for the 666 Mis­sile Erec­tor Vehi­cle with Cor­po­ral Mis­sile. These vari­a­tions were more fre­quent dur­ing the final years of pro­duc­tion, and pri­mar­i­ly in the last two types of box­es, per Bruce Hoy’s com­ment in the DTCA 965 forum.

Rare Dinky Toys 965 Terex Rear Dump Truck with red hubs.
Image: Vectis Auctions

Rare Dinky Toys 965 Euclid Rear Dump Truck with dark green hubs.
Image: Vectis Auctions

Rare chrome plated promotional issue of the 965 Dinky Euclid Rear Dump Truck.
Image: Vectis Auctions

My Dinky 965 Euclid and Terex Rear Dump collection with their original boxes.

My 5 main versions of the Dinky 965 including a factory error in the center.