After World War II end­ed in 1945, Britain’s toy indus­try was anx­ious to get back to the busi­ness of mak­ing mod­els. Most pro­duc­tion had ceased in 1941, and avail­able stocks quick­ly dis­ap­peared. Mec­ca­no Ltd was quick to re-issue sev­er­al of their pre-war mod­els, with a few changes, includ­ing many new col­ors. But they quick­ly had some­thing else is mind: to expand their range of offer­ings, and to explore a new oppor­tu­ni­ty.

Foden DG truck (source: talkmodeltoys.com)

Thus was born the vision of cre­at­ing Dinky Super­toys. There are no sur­viv­ing fac­to­ry records or accounts of how this pro­gressed, so we know lit­tle oth­er than dates, cat­a­logs, men­tions in the Mec­ca­no Mag­a­zine, and of course, the mod­els them­selves. What we do know is that in the August 1947 issue of Mec­ca­no Mag­a­zine, two mod­els of Foden trucks were intro­duced and shown, along­side a Guy Truck.

In the past, Mec­ca­no made com­mer­cial Dinky Toys to a much small­er scale than the auto­mo­biles, which were nom­i­nal­ly 1:48. This kept them to a sim­i­lar over­all size, but not very real­is­tic when they were paired togeth­er. Since they were sim­i­lar in size, it also kept the price points about the same. So by decid­ing to intro­duce Super­toys, Dinky Toys trucks were now going to be much larg­er… and more expen­sive, but also very impres­sive. And they would now also look prop­er when posed along­side the cars.

Over the years, Mec­ca­no would make two ver­sions of Foden trucks, but for this dis­cus­sion, we shall focus only on the first one, mod­eled after the very suc­cess­ful Foden DG design, which was intro­duced in the late 1930’s and made through the late 1940’s.

Dinky Toys 1950 catalog cover and 1951 catalog page

Ear­ly on Mec­ca­no decid­ed to make a range of these trucks, instead of just one ver­sion, so when they were intro­duced in August of 1947 there were three ver­sions offered: the 501 Foden Diesel 8 Wheel Wag­on, the 502 Foden Flat Truck, and the 503 Foden Flat Truck with Tail­board. In Decem­ber of 1948 the 504 Foden 14-ton Tanker mod­el was brought out, fol­lowed by the last one: the 505 Foden Flat Truck with Chains in ear­ly 1952.

All of these were offered in at least two col­or schemes, with the chas­sis and fend­ers usu­al­ly being one col­or, and the cab and rear load area anoth­er. But the Flat Truck with Chains was always one sol­id col­or, and the tanker used one col­or for chas­sis and cab, but a dif­fer­ent col­or for the tank.

Not only were these new Super­toys larg­er, but they were also more rugged, prob­a­bly due to assum­ing how they would be used by young boys. The axles were much thick­er than the car mod­els, and the cast­ings them­selves were quite heavy and rein­forced at key points.

Mec­ca­no also had to devel­op a new set of wheels and tires to be used, and these ear­ly ver­sions used a ridged wheel, larg­er, but quite sim­i­lar in design to that used on the cars. The ear­ly tires were the larg­er Super­toys size and were a black her­ring­bone style. In a few years these her­ring­bone tires were replaced by black tires with a radi­al tread.

The list prices for these new mod­els were quite a bit high­er than for the nor­mal Dinky Toys, which in the mid-1950’s aver­aged about $0.75 each in the US. The Foden’s would list for $2.00 – $3.00 each, which meant these were a spe­cial treat to receive as a young boy. But over­all, intro­duc­ing Super­toys was a suc­cess, and Mec­ca­no quick­ly added many more mod­els to the range.

Ear­ly box­es were plain card stock with sim­ple labels and exposed sta­ples. These quick­ly gave way to a series of new box­es which were much more attrac­tive, cul­mi­nat­ing in the famil­iar blue and white striped box of the mid-1950’s.

As a young boy, I cov­et­ed Super­toys, and rou­tine­ly asked for one as a Christ­mas or birth­day gift. They were and still are very desir­able and very well made mod­els. By 1951, Dinky Toys knew that this old­er mod­el Foden truck was now obso­lete, and that a brand new truck, the Foden FG, would need to be mod­eled. Mec­ca­no quick­ly decid­ed that they would have to use an all new cab and chas­sis, but the rear load areas could be retained... but that is for the next sto­ry, which begins in 1952.

Mod­el and toy cranes have always been favorites amongst chil­dren and col­lec­tors alike. They offer tremen­dous play val­ue, and their real-life coun­ter­parts are often seen work­ing on a mul­ti­tude of tasks all over the globe. Who hasn’t ever watched a crane at work, espe­cial­ly the audi­ence read­ing this right now!

The early 1960s German Coles brochure complements the models in this photo superbly. Wir Bauen Fur See translates to “We build for you,” which was quite a fitting phrase for a crane manufacturer. Ever since I obtained the 971 promotional, I had been searching for a German Coles sales brochure and learned that they are quite scarce compared to their English counterparts. Just as I was finishing this article, I found this one on eBay Germany, but the seller would not ship to the USA. Fellow collector Hubert Moller of Germany, who assisted me in this article, was kind enough to get it for me. The signs hanging from the cranes give the feel of a heavy equipment trade show or crane dealer. I copied some of the box art and made them.

The Dinky 571/971 and 972 Coles cranes were very pop­u­lar mod­els that both enjoyed long pro­duc­tion runs. The 571/971 Coles crane was intro­duced in 1950 and was retired in 1965, and the 972 Coles Crane was intro­duced in 1955 and was retired in 1969. Both mod­els were based on actu­al Coles machines of the peri­od. The 571/971 was mod­eled on the Coles 3‑ton Ulysses yard crane, and the 972 was based on the Coles 20-ton Ranger truck (lor­ry) crane on the AEC 6x4 chas­sis.  They were stur­dy well-built mod­els that stood up to years of play and faux work.

The box top of the 971 translates to: “Lifts carries and moves the load in any boom position with limited swiveling one man operation.” while the box top of the 972 translates to: “Diesel-Electric crane on truck chassis. Unlimited pivoting stepless drive in all crane movements. A powerful one assembly device for every construction site.”

Luck­i­ly for col­lec­tors, they are still plen­ti­ful and afford­able. Both mod­els are hard­ly rare; there are usu­al­ly at least two dozen for sale on eBay at any giv­en time. They are still quite pop­u­lar almost 65 years on; I doubt there is a Dinky col­lec­tor who does not have one in his col­lec­tion. The 972 has always been a favorite of mine, despite my not being born until a year after its with­draw­al. It was one of the first 1950s Dinky mod­els I pur­chased in the 1990s.

The box sides feature this black, white-and-yellow construction barricade looking design that translates to: “If you want to be sure”.

In the real world both of these machines were very good sell­ers for Coles and were export­ed all over the world dur­ing the 1950s and ‘60s. Coles was the dom­i­nant Euro­pean crane man­u­fac­tur­er; with the post­war build­ing boom sweep­ing West­ern Europe, Coles cranes were in high demand. What was then West Ger­many was becom­ing the largest mar­kets for Coles, and in 1955 Coles Krane GMBH was estab­lished with a fac­to­ry in Duis­burg.

Box ends

Around 1960 to 1962 Coles Krane GMBH col­lab­o­rat­ed with Dinky to pro­duce a lim­it­ed num­ber of 971 and 972 Coles mod­els for use as pro­mo­tion­al mod­els. Pro­mo­tion­als are noth­ing new in the model/toy indus­try, but what made these unique was that the mod­els them­selves were stan­dard pro­duc­tion Dinky Coles cranes, noth­ing was dif­fer­ent in terms of their appearance—unlike oth­er Dinky pro­mo­tion­al mod­els that fea­tured dif­fer­ent col­ors or decals. It was the pack­ag­ing that made them per­haps the most desir­able vari­ants of the Dinky Coles cranes. Eye catch­ing yel­low and blue replaced the tra­di­tion­al blue-and-white striped box. A detailed illus­tra­tion of the real cranes adorned the box­es and the print was writ­ten in Ger­man. The stand out black, white, and yel­low con­struc­tion bar­ri­cade design trans­lates to, “If you want to be sure.”

The pamphlet that came with the 972 is dated 1962 and the cover features this embossed image of the 971 Ulysses crane.

It must have been produced in late 1961 just before Christmas, and it contains a holiday greeting. It translates to: “Also in the new year… Let’s hope your achievements go high and if you want to be safe go with Coles Crane. Personally, we wish you health, well-being and peaceful holidays. A good start to the New Year.”

I acquired these exam­ples in 2015 and 2021 from the same Ger­man col­lec­tor. I had heard of the 971 Ger­man pro­mo­tion­al exis­tence from a con­struc­tion mod­el col­lec­tor some years back, but I had nev­er seen one in per­son nor for sale.  I had looked for one now and then with no suc­cess. Short­ly after Christ­mas 2015, I was perus­ing eBay and a superb small col­lec­tion of mint, boxed Dinky heavy trucks was list­ed by a col­lec­tor in Ger­many. One of the mod­els was the 971, and I was very for­tu­nate to win it. The col­lec­tor and I stayed in touch over the years, and on New Year’s Eve Day 2021, he emailed to let me know that he had list­ed the com­pan­ion 972 Ger­man pro­mo­tion­al — which I bid on and won that evening.  I was elat­ed to final­ly have both ver­sions.

The next page of the pamphlet shows a color photo of a Scholpp 6x6 Coles crane hoisting a bell from Stuttgart’s St. Marie Cathedral during the early 1960s. Note that the boom is fully rigged with the extensions and it appears to be a 25-ton Argus model.

It is always excit­ing for col­lec­tors to final­ly find the pieces they have been search­ing for, but some­times it’s even more inter­est­ing to have great prove­nances with them. Thanks to the col­lec­tor who owned them both of my Coles mod­els, their sto­ry can be told. The 971 came from the nephew of a con­struc­tion machin­ery deal­er near Hei­del­berg who was also a Coles deal­er. When the grand­fa­ther — who was the own­er — died, the mod­el was put into stor­age for a while. The nephew lat­er sold it on eBay to the gen­tle­man from whom I pur­chased it in 2015.

This pair of black-and-white photos are stills from a German-produced video about vintage German-produced heavy equipment. They show two different views of a 1960s Coles Scholpp crane. I reached out to Scholpp twice over two months to inquire about any vintage Coles crane photos for this article but unfortunately, I never received a reply.

The 972 orig­i­nal­ly came from a retired crane oper­a­tor, who obtained it in 2001 from the wid­ow of a col­league. He worked for some time at SCHOLPP, the giant Ger­man crane and trans­port com­pa­ny head­quar­tered in Stuttgart. Scholpp was Coles’ key cus­tomer dur­ing that era. What makes this 972 so fas­ci­nat­ing is the small pam­phlet from Coles that is dat­ed 1962. It includes an embossed image on the cov­er of the 971 Ulysses crane and has inside a col­or pic­ture of a Scholpp Coles crane hoist­ing a bell at Stuttgart’s St. Maria cathe­dral in the very ear­ly 1960s.

From a his­tor­i­cal stand­point, Dinky and Coles Ger­many were almost a decade ahead of their time in adopt­ing these toys for pro­mo­tion­al use in the spe­cial Ger­man box­es. Dur­ing the huge growth the Ger­man divi­sion under­went in the 1960s, Coles Ger­many was quick to real­ize that Dinky toys fit the bill per­fect­ly as a pro­mo­tion­al mod­el to be giv­en away to cus­tomers and deal­ers alike. The robust die cast con­struc­tion and weight of the Dinky toys were per­fect, espe­cial­ly since Dinky was the only toy mak­er at that time to make die cast mod­els of Coles prod­ucts.

Photographed around 1960 during the summer time, this Scholpp Coles Crane was one of two that were hired to retrieve a damaged tanker truck that was involved in a crash near Stuttgart. The second crane is barely visible just above what appears to be a Mercedes L3500 open-bed truck. The recovered tanker is parked in front of the crane. Photo courtesy of and used by permission from Oliver Thum of Germany.

Ger­many was always home to won­der­ful toy­mak­ers, but in the ear­ly 1960s the Ger­man die cast indus­try was still in its infan­cy. Siku, Wik­ing, and Cur­sor were plas­tic and Schu­co and Gama — despite being met­al — didn’t make any detailed cranes yet. (It should be men­tioned that the absolute­ly superb Schu­co Pic­co­lo 775 Coles mod­el was still a few years away from being released around 1964. Lat­er on, this mod­el was also adopt­ed for pro­mo­tion­al use by Coles Ger­many and Scholpp in a spe­cial Coles box as well.) By the ear­ly 1970s Germany’s Gescha, NZG, and lat­er, Con­rad, would become mar­ket lead­ers in this field, man­u­fac­tur­ing detailed die cast crane and exca­va­tor mod­els in Ger­man lan­guage print box­es adorned with pho­tos and illus­tra­tions of the real machines for pro­mo­tion­al use.

Writ­ing an arti­cle is rarely a one-per­son endeav­or, so a spe­cial thanks goes to Hubert Möller of Ger­many. Hubert is the col­lec­tor from whom I pur­chased both of these Coles mod­els over a five-year peri­od. His knowl­edge of the Ger­man crane indus­try and Ger­man die cast mod­el heavy-con­struc­tion equip­ment was invalu­able. Hubert also helped me obtain the Ger­man Coles brochure from an eBay Ger­many sell­er who would not ship out of the EU. The “Coles crane in the woods pho­to” was used with per­mis­sion of Ger­man crane enthu­si­ast Oliv­er Thum, a friend of Hubert’s.

The first ver­sion Foden trucks were an impor­tant part of the new Dinky Super­toys range, intro­duced by Mec­ca­no Ltd in 1947. (See my pre­vi­ous arti­cle The Birth of Dinky Super­toys and the First Foden Trucks). These new Super­toys were made in the same scale as the auto­mo­biles, so they appeared much more real­is­tic than the pre­vi­ous com­mer­cial vehi­cles, that had been made in a small­er scale, so as to be a sim­i­lar size as the cars.

Even though they were more expen­sive, these proved to be pop­u­lar, and the Super­toys range increased over the years. The first Foden mod­els were based on the Foden DG mod­el of truck, which dat­ed back to pre-war days. While cer­tain­ly hand­some, by the ear­ly 1950’s they were quite dat­ed, and Foden had already designed a suc­ces­sor truck: the FG mod­el, intro­duced in 1947.

(Source: internet search)

Mec­ca­no was aware of chang­ing designs, and knew their Foden mod­els were due for an update, so in lat­er 1952, the new, sec­ond ver­sion Foden mod­els were made avail­able.

(Source: Dinky Toys 1952 catalog)

The new­ly designed cab had a strik­ing and impres­sive appear­ance, which was very rec­og­niz­able, and also matched many of the com­mer­cial trucks then in use in the British Isles. Mec­ca­no first cat­a­loged these new Foden trucks in the 1952 Dinky Toys cat­a­log, and they remained in the line­up for most of the 1950’s.

When they were intro­duced in 1952 they were assigned num­bers in the 500 series, which were re-num­bered in 1954 to the 900 series. Over time, Mec­ca­no replaced most of these with the new­er design of the Ley­land Octo­pus trucks.

A close­up of the cab, show­ing the won­der­ful detail that is quite vis­i­ble. But many would like­ly nev­er look close enough to notice the almost hid­den detail lurk­ing behind the sil­ver grill; if you look close­ly, you will see that the mas­ter die mak­ers from Mec­ca­no man­aged to show the ver­ti­cal tubes of the radi­a­tor. How intri­cate that work must have been, and since it is bare­ly vis­i­ble, my guess is they did it because they could.

Here is a look at each ver­sion:

501/901 Foden Diesel 8‑Wheel Wag­on; Made from 1952 through 1957, when it was replaced by the Ley­land Octo­pus Wag­on. This was also my very first Foden truck, which I received around 1957. Replaced by the 934 Ley­land Octo­pus Wag­on.

502/902 Foden Flat Truck; Made from 1952 through 1960, it was not replaced by a Ley­land ver­sion.

503/903 Foden Flat Truck with Tail­board; Made from 1952 through 1960, it was also not replaced by a Ley­land Octo­pus ver­sion.

504 Foden 14-Ton Tanker; Made from 1952 through 1953; The ear­ly ver­sion was made with­out any liv­ery, and only for a cou­ple of years. Pic­tured below are the plain Foden Tankers in both ear­ly and lat­er design. if you look close­ly, you will see that these both have dif­fer­ent wheels. The ear­ly one on the right has the old­er ridged wheels, while on the left, the new­er one sports the brand new Super­toys style wheels. Tires were also dif­fer­ent: black on the old­er, then grey on this par­tic­u­lar new­er one. Anoth­er change not appar­ent in these pho­tos was the axles were changed to a thick­er design.

505/905 Foden Flat Truck with Chains; Made 1952 through 1964, when it was replaced by the Ley­land Octo­pus ver­sion.

504/941 Foden 14-Ton Tanker ‘Mobil­gas’; made 1953 through 1956, even­tu­al­ly super­seded by the Regent liv­ery ver­sion.

942 Foden 14-Ton Tanker ‘Regent’; made 1955 through 1957, when it was replaced by the Ley­land Octo­pus Tanker ‘Esso’.

In 1947 Mec­ca­no made a big announce­ment, with the cre­ation and advent of the Super­toys line of mod­els. These would large­ly be com­mer­cial vehi­cles, built to a much larg­er scale then the pre­vi­ous pre-war mod­els, and also more expen­sive. Shar­ing the stage with the Foden line­up of trucks was the small­er com­pan­ion line of Guy trucks. There were sev­er­al mod­els of Guy trucks made, as well as a series of won­der­ful vans a few years lat­er.

Those Dinky Super­toys Guy trucks and vans have always been very pop­u­lar amongst us col­lec­tors, and I am no excep­tion. Since the Guy trucks were some­what small­er than their Foden coun­ter­parts, they were equipped with more appro­pri­ate small­er tires, which fit them well. They were made in a vari­ety of col­ors over the years.

My very first Guy was this 511 Guy 4‑Ton Lor­ry, part of that ini­tial offer­ing in 1947 but acquired in 1959. As a young boy, I was struck by how nice look­ing and impres­sive this truck was, start­ing a life­long lik­ing for all the Guy trucks and vans. It is fin­ished in this beau­ti­ful blue two-tone col­or. A real­ly clas­sic Dinky com­mer­cial vehi­cle, in the clas­sic blue and white striped box!

Next is the 513/913/433 Dinky Super­toys Guy Flat Truck with Tail­board, pro­duced from 1947 to 1957 and avail­able in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent col­ors. My exam­ple is an ear­ly one, as the box cod­ing shows it being pack­aged in Jan­u­ary, 1948: 75 years ago. This hap­pened to be a real­ly excel­lent mod­el, and the ear­ly first-type Super­toys box is almost like new, save for some rust­ing of the sta­ples.

Notice the box is made of plain card­stock with added decals and vis­i­ble sta­ples. Inter­est­ing that Mec­ca­no did not use an illus­tra­tion of the truck with tail­board, but used the plain flat truck and just added the cor­rect word­ing.

I real­ly like these tail­board mod­els: that extra added fea­ture at the rear seems to real­ly set them off!

The third ver­sion of the Guy trucks was the 512/912/432 Guy Flat Truck, made from 1947 until 1957. Like the oth­er two, it was made in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent col­ors over the years. Here it is with its lat­er style box.

Mine shown here is a lat­er ver­sion, which is appar­ent by the small addi­tion of two tri­an­gu­lar webs or sup­ports on either side of the front num­ber plate. This was appar­ent­ly to add strength to that area; no offi­cial record has been found dis­cussing this.

Like their cousins the Foden’s, these ear­ly Guy trucks are just won­der­ful ear­ly mod­els. Here are the big broth­er, lit­tle broth­er togeth­er: the Guy and Foden Flat Trucks with Tail­board!