Dinky Toys

Of the toys I had as small boy, my Dinky Toys were among my favorites. Over the years I acquired are fairly large collection, most of which I still have. As the photos to come will show, they now reflect many years of hard play. With my meager skills at the time, I attempted to repaint most of them. Knowing nothing of airbrush painting, I used house hold enamel applied with a brush.

As time permits, I plan on restoring my old toys. Not necessarily to as purchased condition, but perhaps as I would have liked to finish them years ago had I then possessed the skills to do so.

Thanks to Keith Harvey of England, replacement tires are available. I've purchased the necessary tires to complete my restoration project. Now to find the time.

The first few pieces in my Dinky Toy collection have been stripped and repainted. I used Strypeeze to remove the layers of paint I'd put on them with a brush so many years ago. Paint is Tamiya acrylic. This is the first time I've had success airbrushing acrylic paint. The finish came out smooth and glossy. For this purpose, no need to buff it out. Now to drill out the floor pan mounting lugs in the body and attach the floor pan. Last will be painting the wheels and adding the replacement tires I bought a good many years ago From Keith Harvey in England. Apparently he's no longer supplying replacement Dinky Toy tires as his website no longer exists. Fortunately I purchase all I will need while they were still available.

Here we have the beginnings of a restoration project. My old bulldozer gave me many hours of pleasure as a boy. It was well worn already when relegated to a storage box. Over the years the rubber treads rotted away. Thanks to Kieth Harvey in England, replacement treads are available as can be seen in the photo. I will have to recreate one of the hydraulic cylinders as one is missing.

The other vehicle in the photo is and Alfa Romeo "Alfetta" Grand Prix car. When I first acquired my Dinky Toy G.P. cars, I had no knowledge of Grand Prix racing and simply assumed these were models of Indy cars. My Dinky Toy model will be restored to represent the car driven by Juan Fangio. The new replacement tires can be seen by the car.

This photo features my collection of heavy trucks an farm equipment. The farm equipment will not require much in the way of restoration. It has survived the years in quite good condition. Fortunately I was never moved to repaint it as I did with much of the rest of my collection.

The green and orange on several of the vehicles represented my childhood idea of company colors for my fictional construction company. The big flatbed in the left foreground was used to haul the bulldozer in the previous photo. This vehicle was originally sold as a military tank hauler.

The cranes will be interesting to restore. Making them function once again will probably require some ingenuity.

More heavy trucks. In center is a green truck I remember receiving for Christmas sometime in the 1950's. It was given to me by my parents friends, the Apfels, who lived up the street from us. They were a husband and wife team who ran a photo studio out of their home. All the baby/childhood portraits of my sister an myself were taken by them.

In the back row are my car carrier, fuel tanker,horse transport,which I re-purposed as a moving van, a trash truck and an out of scale double deck bus. In the right foreground I have a jeep, a tow truck and behind that a Land Rover.

The left foreground shows a military vehicle in its new life as a construction company utility vehicle. Alongside that is my lone fire truck. A dinky toy ambulance used to keep it company in my Plasticville two stall fire house.

These are my light trucks. On the far right is a stake body farm truck with trailer. There are several more trucks here that I painted for my imaginary construction company as can be seen by the green and orange paint jobs. Across the back row is my meager collection of military vehicles. These well be difficult to restore as the tank treads were made from a type of chain which is not available from Keith Harvey. The ambulance is on the far left of the back row, it was originally a military ambulance. The three yellow and brown trucks were supposed to represent a small fleet of milk delivery trucks. The truck in the center with the blue cab carried milk cans, all of which are long gone. I'll have to see what I can do to replace them. Across the front is one of my oldest dinky toys. An appropriately 1930's era, light dump truck

And last, my automobiles. On the front row are my sports cars. Most of them painted with racing numbers. Having read about early road racing being held on public roads, I held races through the streets of my Plasticville village. In the back row are my police cars. Why my village needed so many is a mystery. Two are actually British Rover automobiles that I used because they resembled the Studebaker's that made up the rest of the force. On the right are two Rambler station wagons. One is in original colors and the other, at one time belonging to friend of mine, is painted with factory touch up colors, to resemble the wagon his parents owned. Ahead of the wagons are a pair of London taxi's. Most of these cars will be restored to believable appearance. The two Rambler's however, will be left as is. The three Studebaker police cars will be redone

as police cruisers. The race car in the foreground is the only other open wheel racer I still have. It will be restored as it was when new. Once there were four, now there are two. Long gone are my F1 Ferrari and Cooper.