Britain's Toy Car Wars

Hotter Wheels

Britain's Toy Car Wars -
The War of Wheels Between
Dinky, Corgi and Matchbox
by Giles Chapman
The History Press
ISBN 9780750997133

I bought this book, Britain's Toy Car Wars - The War of Wheels Between Dinky, Corgi and Matchbox, for a friend for his birthday last year and, when it arrived and I hid the bright, shiny covers within, probably equally garish coloured wrapping paper, I realised that this tome was also something I should read myself. And so another friend furnished me with one as a birthday present this year and, I have to say that it’s a remarkable book which I thoroughly enjoyed. My one caveat being the penultimate chapter which I’ll get onto in a minute.

So this traces the history of the three car toy giants Dinky, Corgi and Matchbox from the origins of Dinky in the early 1930s to their unfortunate demise and selling off to foreign companies in the very early 1980s. So lots of things I never knew in here are revealed to me for the first time... starting with the birth of Frank Hornby on 18th May 1863. This gentleman was responsible first for inventing the once much loved childrens’ (and adults’) construction toy Meccano, before further extending his arm into Hornby train sets, another iconic and long running toy. And then, just two years before his death in 1936, he started up die cast giant Dinky Toys. That’s a pretty good CV but the book also tells the history of both Corgi and, of course, Lesney’s Matchbox company... started by two school friends from George Spicer school in Enfield (where I used to go to school) in the 1920s, who remained friends after serving in the Second World War in their respective fields, eventually starting up Matchbox in the basement of a derelict pub.

This book is basically a rise and fall type affair, highlighting the various manufacturers’ rival schemes and the inventive features they put on their cars (both in terms of things like opening doors, more stable and useful wheels and also things like advertising livery put on as decals etc) plus their race to get new cars licensed and approved for sale to the public.

This invaluable treasure reveals such interesting points as the early materials suffering from metal fatigue due to impurities created by things like factory workers throwing their shiny cigarette wrappers into the molten metal, how the die cast factories were switched to making ‘grim tools of war’ and how the three companies fared against each other in various deals and situation, straight from the mouths of people who used to work for the big three companies. Not to mention how they tried to see off new rivals and imitators like the popular American company Hot Wheels and the long struggles which found them, in the words of the title of chapter 11, ‘Fighting Back Against Star Wars and Teenage Indifference’.

Surprisingly absent for the majority of the book are the various properties licensed from TV and movies... which apparently started, unbranded, when Lesney made a much loved and popular die-cast puppet of Muffin The Mule. That is, until a special chapter, the one I mentioned earlier, about such things. And, for my money, this exciting aspect of the cars is not given nearly as much detail or coverage as I would have liked. The first die cast car licensed from TV was apparently made by a company called Budgie, based on Gerry Anderson’s Supercar. It was unsuccessful. But then, Corgi renewed one of their cars with a figure of The Saint and a decal of the stickman logo, which sold them a lot more units than just the normal version. They eventually figured things out and licensed their famous Aston Martin DB5 with the special features to belatedly tie in to the popular Bond movie Goldfinger and, even with 36 trucks waiting to take the Bond toys to the shops, couldn’t keep up with demand of the millions of units they sold in such a short time as they launched. A sales arc unmatched until their Batmobile from the Adam West Batman TV show the following year outsold even that.

But having this chapter after the self explanatory chapter entitled ‘Sad Endings as Britain’s Little Wheels Come Off’ seems a bit of an add on, to be honest... I’d rather it was all included in the running history of the companies but, hey, it’s a small criticism of a great book.

The writer, who is obviously a collector, trader and reseller of the toys himself, finishes this handsome tome with a round up of his own take on collecting these things and gives some facts and figures about how much things sell for today. So if you’re wondering what to look out for as an investment, there’s some interesting stuff to be gleaned from this final chapter.

And that’s me done with Britain's Toy Car Wars - The War of Wheels Between Dinky, Corgi and Matchbox... a true gem of a book and worth more than it’s weight in red hot, molten metal poured into a steel mould. Definitely a welcome and valuable addition to the book shelf, for sure.