What was the role model? Our new quiz is online
The good thing about a child's imagination is that it creates things that are difficult for an adult to recognize. This is part of the nature of toys. Good, educational toys should definitely encourage this.
Wooden car Ikonic by Floris Hovers - is it a Talbot Lago Grand Sport? The imagination is limitless.
But let's be honest, as a child, who didn't particularly enjoy it when the toy car looked exactly like the original, or even better, when it had the same functions as the original? I remember the working windshield wipers on the Corgi Toys Mercedes 600 or the electric brake lights on the NSU Ro 80 from Dinky Toys.
Proportions are everything: Citroën DS from Dinky Toys compared to the one from Corgi Toys
However, opening doors or simply the successful proportions of the model were often enough to make it desirable. The right proportions were important: the DS from Dinky France was far superior to the one from Corgi Toys.
Who recognized it? Matchbox Superfast Saab Sonnett III no. 65 from 1973.
But there were also the misadventures and crimes, models - if you can even call them that - that barely showed what exactly they were supposed to represent. If this was not described in detail, it could still be understood as a fantasy product. But the pinnacle was when a manufacturer even described exactly what he wanted to show us on the bottom of the car. There were also historical reasons for some atrocities at the end of the 1960s. After the introduction of Mattel's Hotwheels with their thin-axle smooth-running wheels, many manufacturers followed suit with similar wheels, which, however, often required an adjustment of the mold and grossly disfigured many models with large, round-cut wheel arches. But that may have been just an excuse for poor implementation.
Fast wheels for the Opel GT from Playart ruined it. Fortunately, the shape of the GT is unmistakable.
Because some manufacturers had already failed to produce a clever miniature of what they had originally imagined. Or there were technical production hurdles, the budget was limited or the mold maker had just had a bad day, who knows?
Some kind of bus, that much is certain, in case of doubt the penny toy from Manurba (?) is a VW Transporter
These days I enjoy things like that, quite simply. Because I find the imperfection, the failure and sometimes even the brashness reassuring, human or admirably carefree.
But what about them? Are you prepared to recognize the role model, even if someone has gone to so much trouble that you can hardly tell? Our quiz separ ates the dreamers from the intrepid and the experts from those who have never needed too many details to fire their imagination.
Click here for car connoisseur quiz 182.
