Vintage Model Cars

For almost as long as horseless carriages have been carrying people through our city streets, model cars have captured the thrill of automobile technology in miniature form. Built to scale in great detail out of materials like wood, resin, tin, steel, cast iron, and plastic, collectible model cars run the gamut from the commonplace to the exotic. Generally, the difference between a so-called “model car” and a “toy car” is that models are scaled and meticulously detailed versions of lifesize vehicles, whereas toys tend to be improperly proportioned and lack this attention to detail. Precise vintage models have been made for almost every type of vehicle, including buses, motorcycles, police cars, tractors, trucks, and fire trucks. The earliest model cars were often made from a wooden carriage mounted on a metal chassis, rolling on spoked wheels with solid tires. Many of these were not handheld models but much larger and pricier pedal cars produced by automobile companies like Fiat and Bugatti. Pedal cars featured a simple mechanism to allow children to move the vehicles with their feet, and saw a surge in popularity from the 1920s through the ‘50s in shapes ranging from classic cars to miniature airplanes. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most European model cars were made in Germany from tinplate, which was affordable, light, and featured a smooth surface for lithographing exteriors. Some of these model vehicles were basic push-toys, but others were powered by tiny wind-up “clockwork” systems. Companies such as Carette, Bing, Gunthermann, and Lehmann built some of most extravagant antique models from this period. These were often built at larger scales than the model cars we think of today, with some of the rarest constructed at 1:8 or 1:11 scale during the 1920s by the French car company Citroën. These miniature models were sold under the brand name Jouets Citroën. In 1914, the Blockade of Germany resulting from World War I left a huge hole in the U.S. toy industry, encouraging a boom in American-made models. In the United States, the earliest model cars were often manufactured from sturdy cast iron by companies already making housewares and other iron products, like the A.C. Williams Company or Kenton Lock Manufacturing in Ohio and the Dent Hardware Company in Pennsylvania. Antique cast-iron cars were more sturdy than tin models, but because iron rusts easily, these vehicles were usually coated with nickel plating. Hubley was a popular cast-iron manufacturer up through World War II, and afterward, Arcade dominated the market for cast-iron model cars through its exclusive deals with automobile manufacturers. Cast iron vehicles gave way to pressed steel models, popularized by the American company Buddy L Toys. These cars consisted of separate steel pieces fastened together, since early diecasting attempts had tended to crumble easily. A few decades earlier, during the 1910s, the Dowst Manufacturing Company of Chicago had introduced the first diecast toys, which it eventually sold under the Tootsietoy brand name. At the time, lead models were made using slush molds, whereby molten alloy was poured into an open form and left to cool. Once the outer surface was hardened, the extra liquid was emptied from this shell, creating an irregular interior. In contrast to this method, diecasting requires a sectional die, with the two halves pressed together to shape the liquid metal alloy into a fixed space between them. Once perfected, diecasting produced more affordable and technically accurate model cars. By the 1930s, companies like Tootsietoy and Hubley in the U.S., Märklin in Germany, Dinky in England, and Solido in France were among the manufacturers selling miniature vehicles made from diecast mazac, a zinc-based alloy. However, these vintage diecast models often didn’t survive because the alloy used was rather weak, eventually cracking into pieces after heavy play. After World War II, diecast companies like Matchbox—originally named Lesney Products—made a fortune with their affordable models produced at the smaller 1:75 scale. In the 1960s, Hot Wheels greatly expanded the collectible model cars market by producing different models every year and special limited-edition runs at 1:64 scale. The company also played to trendy hot-rod culture with models based on muscle-cars or race-cars. Diecast model cars are still popular today, including NASCAR’s limited-edition series. Though slot cars had been made in the early 20th century, the style returned in the 1950s with the British brand Minimodels at 1:32 scale. American companies Tyco and Aurora soon jumped on the slot-car bandwagon. Slot-car fanaticism died down with the arrival of 1:8 scale radio-controlled cars, or RC cars for short, during the 1960s. Made by companies like Associated Electrics, Dynamic, Mardave, and Tamiya, these toys were obviously more desirable because their movement wasn’t restricted to a track. Plastic models began replacing metal model cars in the 1950s and ’60s, though brands like Tonka continued to thrive with pressed-steel toys. During this period, automakers like General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and American Motors also began selling models known as “dealer promotionals” or “dealer promos”—finely detailed miniatures manufactured at 1:25 scale to represent their latest car releases. Dealer promos were often given away with the purchase of a car at a dealership, though they could also be bought separately. Ford and Chevy released promotionals every year, with other periodic releases rolled out as novel feature were added for their real adult-sized cars.