The Tootsie-Toy model that (almost!) beats out a cool, antique Lesney Matchbox casting - a stalwart model of any Lesney aficionado's collection!

Who would ever think that a Tootsie-toy could ever compete with a Matchbox car?

Tootsie-toys were cheapy - without interiors - without glass - without suspensions...  ...cheap drugstore 5-packs of cars that uncles and aunts would give you to fill out your collection - with their undiscerning eyes failing to grasp how much of a throw-away toy they just got you...

So imagine my surprise when I found an antique fuel tanker in a hobby store, with a solid heft to the model, and turned it over to read "Tootsie Toy" on the bottom!

I lined it up with the red Matchbox Major-pack No 8 fuel tanker ("Thornycroft Tractor" and "Thornycroft 2400 Gallon Trailer Tanker") and the resemblances were astonishing.  The colors matched almost exactly.  Both were labeled as "Mobil".  The sizes were almost dead even - the Tootsie-toy is slightly longer only due to the nose of the conventional tractor vs. the cab-over design of the Lesney Matchbox.  Neither had window glass (window glass would not become a common item in Matchbox cars for another 5-10 years) nor suspensions (not common until the advent of Hot Wheels cars 10-15 years later).  In short, the 2 were true competitors in almost every way.  Sounds like a recipe for a "Matchbox Frenzy" comparison test!

But once we get to an actual comparison, it becomes clear - the Lesney Matchbox is obviously the nicer and higher quality model.  The level of trim detail is just greater (by quite a margin).  The wheels are higher quality.  The tractor has a base plate to it.  The trailer hitch is less stone-age.  

So what is it about the Tootsie Toy that got me so excited?  Well, mostly its the heft of the trailer.  It feels like its carved from a solid block of metal - as if there is no empty space inside of the trailer.  The heft of it is truly amazing - it is obviously heavier than the Matchbox.  

While the detail can't compare to the Matchbox (the Tootsie-toy comes off as somewhat crude in a direct head-to-head comparison), on its own it appears nicely detailed - especially for a Tootsie Toy!  And then there is the size comparison - which is dead on equivalent in scale proportions.  This is indeed a Tootsie-Toy that directly competes with a classic stalwart of the Lesney Matchbox line.  And that's really where my surprise and astonishment came from.  

So chalk this one up as the one Tootsie-toy that every true Lesney Collector should have in their collection - the only Tootsie-Toy that I've yet found that truly deserves to have a place alongside other classic Lesney models!

P.S.  If you are a Stephen King fan, you might be familiar with his first film "the Duel" - a short movie about a psycho in a fuel tanker truck terrorising a salesman out on the road.  If either of these trucks were black instead of red - they'd almost be candidates for the duel's tanker truck!