Collectors’ Corner

A Renault 16 has a longer wheelbase on one side than the other. The difference is seven centimetres, a consequence of the arrangement of its rear torsion-bar suspension. Introduced in 1965, the R16 also challenged the familiar family-saloon layout. A tailgate and rearrangeable rear seating made room for different combinations of people and luggage. It won the 1966 European Car of the Year award, ahead of the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.…

A key supplies the power, but the gear lever decides what happens next. Schuco’s Girato 4000 Mercedes-Benz 250 SE lets its driver select forward motion, reverse or neutral, rather than simply releasing a wound-up car across the floor. The little convertible also has steering and a handbrake. Its doors open and the front seat backs fold forward: controls and fittings to try before the next run. The box calls it…

The tinplate lorries in our museum show one part of Distler’s output. The Nuremberg company also made an unusually elaborate battery car: the Electro Matic 7500 FS, based on a Porsche 356 cabriolet. A study of the example in the Lower Austrian state collections describes a working ignition key and a flexible remote-control shaft. The shaft fitted over the steering wheel and gear lever, allowing the operator to steer and…

This small Esso tanker is a LEGO vehicle, although its cab and tank were not assembled from ordinary bricks. The museum records it as the 1:87 Mercedes tanker, no. 650-2. Its red body carries a broad white Esso stripe, with a separate articulated trailer and silver-coloured wheels. A row of familiar studs runs along the top of the tank. It belongs to the era of LEGO’s small-scale town traffic. The…

The early Unimog was designed around work in the fields as well as travel on the road. Mercedes-Benz’s archive points out that its track width allowed it to run between rows of potatoes. The 411 arrived in 1956 as the successor to the 401 and 402. Its 30 hp engine offered more power, while all-wheel drive, differential locks and portal axles retained the Unimog’s off-road layout. Short and long wheelbases…

The clear canopy makes Siku’s Messerschmitt immediately recognisable, even at just 4.8 cm long. Beneath it, the model’s narrow cabin follows the unusual shape of the real KR175. Its passengers sat one behind the other. The real car had two front wheels, a single rear wheel and motorcycle-style handlebar steering. A 173 cc, single-cylinder Fichtel & Sachs two-stroke drove the rear wheel through a chain. The KR175 appeared in 1953,…

GAMA and Schuco began as separate names on German toys, but their histories later became closely connected. GAMA acquired the Schuco name in 1980 after the collapse of its British owner, DCM. Schuco’s own published history records that GAMA brought back the Silver Arrow racing car. Classic tinplate designs were returning for a collector market, rather than simply continuing unchanged from their original production years. The Salzburg Museum’s maker record…

Friedrich Peltzer appreciated people collecting his models, but was less enthusiastic about the prices some collectors put on them. Wiking’s own history describes his repeated insistence that the models should be available to everyone. In 1978, responding to collectors’ requests, he issued a folder of reprinted brochures and a chronological list of new traffic models. He supported documenting the range. What troubled him about the collectors’ “yellow catalogue” was its…

Eheim’s route from toys to aquariums ran through a miniature fountain. According to the company’s history, its 1962 centrifugal pump with magnetic coupling was originally developed to make a model fountain work realistically. The small pump found uses beyond toys, including medical and laboratory equipment. Combining it with a cleaning container led to Eheim’s aquarium suction filter, and the first filter system entered series production in 1963. Eheim had begun…

Long before Gundam kits, Bandai was selling the idea of a toy backed by a guarantee. Its company history dates the launch of a product-guarantee system to November 1955, alongside a model of the 1956 Toyopet Crown. The initials BC came from Bandai Company. By 1958, the message had reached television: the red box identified a BC-guaranteed toy. Quality was being made part of the brand’s public identity, rather than…