While cleaning out some clutter from my house, I found a ziploc bag with some strange little toys from my childhood. They were these tiny wooden houses and animals and trees and bridge bits, simple little wooden bits you’d put together to make little villages. I think one of my dad’s business colleagues brought them back from Switzerland? They feel pretty damn Swiss.
This was our Minecraft, kids! Tiny chunks of wood, perfect for making little picturesque and bucolic cult compounds, sort of like whatever the hell was going on in Midsommar. But that’s about it.
There are a few cars in this set – maybe there were more but things this tiny get lost over time, and I think this set has to be well over 40 years old, so I just have a few left. Let’s see if we can identify what cars they may have been based on!
This one could be a few things, depending on the scale we see it as. It could be something like an Opel Kadett, a 1938-ish one, with that vertical grille and bustle-butt:
That roof is a bit flatter, though, so it could be something else? I’m willing to listen to other suggestions, of course.
What about this one? I think it’s trickier:
This one is really odd; the proportions are interesting. The hood is relatively short, the roof has a sort of peak about halfway through, and it may have a sort of fastback, but there’s a break in there, so it may be more of a notchback of some kind. It’s odd!
Is that a convertible top, maybe? What the hell could this be? It sorta reminds me, proportionally, of a Morris 1800:
The slope of that trunk feels right, but the roofline doesn’t work, exactly. Once again, I’m open for suggestions!
Okay one last one:
Ha! I got you! That’s a pig, which is not technically a car. If you caught that, pat yourself on the back, car expert.
Not sure where those came from, but we had the exact same toys when I was a kid, and I’m in Australia.
The second one looks a bit line one of those prewar, rear engined Tatras.
Jason! How do you, of all people, not see a VW Thing in that second piece. The downward-sloping hood, the prominent rear bumper, the peaked convertible top, it’s perfectly clear.
That’s exactly where my head went. The back end is kinda wrong, but it’s the closest fit I can think of.
That last one is obviously a VW Cerdo too, that obscure coachbuilt right-hand-drive model that was produced between April 7th and May 14th 1964 for the Paraguay domestic market only.
It’s obviously a cybertruck.
Playskool Village
Oh yeah! That has to be it!
The pig IS a car, technically. It’s the legendary AMG Rote Sau!
Or, the not less legendary 917/20, Die Sau!
That’s right kids. When I was a small child all I had to play with was scraps of painted wood. It’s called imagination! And we were so bored all the time that we enjoyed them immensely, dammit.
No go stare at the clouds and pretend it’s an iPad screen or something.
And we were so bored all the time that we
enjoyed them immensely, dammitinvented the internet and electronics and things. You’re welcome. Now go forget how to interact in healthy social relationships and scroll through things that are giving you severe mental and sociological disorders.FTFY
Seeing some Citroën Oli in the white one
https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/gallery_slide/public/images/car-reviews/first-drives/legacy/citroen-oli-2022-side-static.jpg
(Basically a Humvee rip off…)
I had this set too and am pretty sure it was made in Germany – it was sold in your quality stores like Habitat in the UK in the early 1980s.
My guess for the second one is a WWII Horch staff car – I remember making the Tamiya 1/35 model (I was a diorama fanatic) and it’s a really cool vehicle, kinda like the Dodge Powerwagon.
https://images.app.goo.gl/SdFkJs3DCd6QuoSZ6
Reminded me of the Rifton wooden cars my family’s church had in the kid’s stockade. Loved those.
I had these toys when I was a kid too, I don’t think they were from another country, they were around. I’m not sure how I got them, maybe hand-me-downs from my older brother but I remember playing with them! I’m 48 now so.. you know.. prob was the 80’s or late 70’s.
We had this exact set too, I recognized them the instant I saw that picture! My grandparents used them as Christmas decorations so I always played with them on visits over the holidays. That would have been early 80s, who knows when they got them, but this was in Oregon and my grandparents weren’t big international travelers.
Yes!! It was that they were holiday decorations! I wonder if our grandparents all had them maybe they were a pre or post-war thing, low cost etc.. Man this is triggering a lot of memories!
Maybe it’s just me, but these are very reminiscent of my old Thomas the Tank Engine sets. Feels like the side pieces you’d use to make the town, and would explain the pig. Doesn’t help with the cars ofc.
Oink Oink
Damn, I also see the Volvo TP21, but not the blue, but the last one. The TP21 is nicknamed (in Swedish) “Sugga” or “The Sow” …
That second one is giving off Kübelwagen vibes, but I think the roofline is wrong for that.
All I keep seeing are Flintstones vitamins. Maybe that’s where the rest of the set went?
The second definetly is a Humvee C Series. https://autogroupinternational.com/engineering-innovation/humvee-c-series/
It is funny, my dad threw away a bunch of these wooden toys around 40 years ago. I remember playing with those (as a 4 or 5 year old in Germany in the 1970s. Now I know where they resurfaced…
Thanks for bringing back those memories.
They seem to be from behind the Iron curtain. Erzgebirge: https://www.etsy.com/de-en/listing/1615040836/vintage-erzgebirge-wooden-toys-east?ref=share_v4_lx
Humvee was my first though on that one but there’s a weird lump at the rear like a bustle that doesn’t quite jibe. It’s still probably the closest match.
Jason’s 50ish, so no, I don’t imagine the Humvee could have served as inspiration for any of these toys from his childhood.
I knew it was a pig mostly b/c the Ioniq 6 wasn’t available back then.
All I see are
sprinterssplinters.Technically no, but it can be a mode of transportation. So it counts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_sfnQDr1-o
I’m calling Torchinsky Scheisse on the last one, the so-called pig. That is most definitely a Youabian Puma. Ergo, this set was once owned by Dr. Kabiz Youabian when he was ~10 years old, resulting in an obsession that was only fulfilled when he made it a reality 10 years ago. Unfortunately, the abyssmal failure of the Puma caused Doc KY to go into business illegally remanufacturing used medical devices and selling them as new.
Blue one could be a Volvo TP21
Here’s one with a little less stuff on it
And in that typical Volvo way, TP stands for Terrain Personel (vehicle) 😀
I’m confident that someone, somewhere, has constructed a PigCar—but am wary of googling it
https://www.porsche.com/stories/innovation/what-is-the-porsche-pink-pig/
Thanks. I had forgotten I’d seen that livery referenced on (a) Lemons car(s)
Looks like a Tesla Y to me.
Thanks Torch. I love posts like this and think of them often while playing with a vaguely identifiable car toy with my kids.
I don’t know, the second one looks more like the Kubelwagen Coupe that never made it to our shores…
(off topic, the article timestamps don’t seem to reflect your local timezone correctly post DST change)
I was thinking VW “Thing” as well.