Mini JCBs

Tonka was the name in building site toys. The hardwearing, hard-hitting (particularly if one was dropped off a wall onto your head) playthings were the delight of young boys (and tomboy girls) everywhere. Best known for their trucks, Tonka made rock solid, die-cast metal vehicles, with real rubber tyres and tough-as-old-boots paint jobs. To paraphrase Henry Ford, they came in any colour you liked, as long as that colour was yellow.

Unlike the toys of today, they were genuinely built to last. If you were to play “chicken” with a Tonka Truck and any other vehicle of the time, there was absolutely no question who was going to come off worst. You could smash them into anything and though they’d get chipped and dented, they would still outlast your parents’ car. You could even leave them out in the rain. Although they would eventually rust, by such time you’d have grown up, moved home and forgotten about them.

Every boy wanted one, to be in charge of such a destructive construction vehicle - but such engineering quality came at a price. If you were lucky enough to get the Fire Engine or Dumper Truck for Christmas, you probably didn’t get much else that year. But it was worth it, because they’d still be there the following Christmas, battering hell out of any new trucks on the block. Eventually, we’d all grow out of them, but somewhere out there is a scrap yard, filled to the brim with six-inch high hulks of slowly-degrading Tonka trucks. Presumably there’s also a driver, sitting bored in the cab of the huge Caterpillar bulldozer that’s shifting them, who can’t see the irony.

Further reading:
Tonka by Dennis David, Lloyd Laumann