Category:Diecast Toys in the USA

US toymakers seem to have been surprisingly slow to embrace the idea of diecast toy cars, with the result that by the mid-Sixties, the US diecast toy market still seemed to be dominated by Dinky, Matchbox and (to a lesser extent) Corgi. Since these UK imports suffered from uncertainty and instability in their US distribution networks, impacting sales, it might be that US toymakers considered the market to be a little bit too small and already saturated with imported product.

The situation changed with a vengeance with the appearance in 1968 of Mattel's Hot Wheels brand.

1966 newspaper article

Adults Toy Car Sales Zoom

Big people may be buying fewer cars, but little people are buying more. The fastest selling cars today have a one-inch wheel-base. While Detroit reports a drop In sales, the little car producers, largely English, are turning out more Mustangs than Ford, more Corvettes than Chevrolet, more Imperials than Chrysler. Their output dwarfs all of Detroit's. U.S. sales of one miniature model maker alone are expected to run 27 million cars this year, three times what Detroit will turn out. There Is a small difference in price, too – the little boy-powered ones cost 59 cents to $6.98 apiece.

Lesney Products & Co. Ltd. reports it already has sold 11 million tiny cars, roughly three times as many as a year ago. With all of that, the little car makers have to worry about one safety problem that hasn't bothered Detroit – paint. Little boys have been known to teethe on the tiny cars, so the Lesney firm turned to a lead-free paint.

COULD SELL MORE

"The whole field Is expanding," said L.C. Smith, joint managing director of Lesney products. "We could sell double what we make, and we have doubled our size every other year. " The smaller Mettoy Co. Ltd., which makes the Corgi line, including James Bond's spy-ejecting Aston-Martin, is secretive about sales, but says they are up. Lines Brothers Inc. figures it will sell 5,000 to 12,000 of each of its 140 different models in the United States this year, up 10 per cent from 1965. All of the cars are getting more elaborate, with spring suspensions, opening doors everything but motors and the cars are minutely detailed.

VISIT BIG CAR PLANTS

"It's like looking at the real thing through the wrong end of a telescope," said a New York toy salesman. The little car people work closely with the big car crowd. They visit the Detroit manufacturers and those In England and Germany.

Smith says his firm's production is laid out one year ahead of time, with 20 to 24 new models a year. They generally stay in the line four or five years. Corgi introduces about two models a month. Replicas of the Mini-Cooper 'S', which won the 1964 and 1965 Monte Carlo rallies, were in the stores less than 10 days after the race, complete with rally and plates and numbers.

WORK SECRETLY

Corgi obtains accurate working drawings, working in strict secrecy so the model may be put on the market at the same time as the big model is announced. From the drawings, a wooden pattern five times as large as is needed is made, then a reversed resin mold. It takes 30,000 man hours on one mold before even one model is produced. They may use a tool as thin as cigarette paper to make the molds for the die-cast spoke wheels. The tooling may cost $10,000 to $50,000 a car and take 9 to 12 months.

WITH TRICK PHOTO IT TAKES A FINGER TO POINT DIFFERENCE …

… between toy car and its life-size counterpart in background.

— , -, , Fort Lauderdale News (Florida), , 15 June, 1966