Diecast Toys - Made in Hungary: Metchy

Due to the three big diecast manufacturer (Siku, Corgi, Matchbox) the Hungarian diecasts was the biggest part of the domestic toy market in Hungary at the end of 80's with 12-18 billion HUF (without exports) (HUF = Hungarian Forint - approximately 1$ = 100HUF in 1988).

The early 80's the spending power of the toy market was in big increase. The main reason was very clear - lot of children - who born the end of the 70's - grow up and reach the "car age". This tendency was quite a good turnout at the diecast toy market at this time.

After all the toy commerce was in trouble in Hungary because the manufacturer don"t able to produce enough diecast toy and usually these goods was very expensive even so the build quality wasn't very good at all. In this situation a lot on unofficial or illegal factory, dealer and stores established as expected.

Some small factory had no enough resources to develop and built a new model so they had just copy the biggest diecast makers cars as well. Sometimes they buy up the old and remaining Hungarian made Siku, Matchbox, Corgi diecast parts and after the assembly they sell their modell under the well-known company logo (for example: Matchbox – Metalbox, Siku - Rexi).

The other way was to built a "brand new" production line with the remaining (or stolen, "lost") mold and machinery. It was very common at this time because the political situation wasn't very clear in Hungary at late 80's - early 90's. (The socialist era is collapsed a few months later.) These factories put on the market their diecast cars very quickly but sometimes a poor quality.

Sometimes we got a lot of misinformation or a halfinformation for these products, because these diecast toys production wasn't fully documented. I try to fill my list as correct as possible but it should be exist another variaton of Hungarian diecast copys as well. That is why I can't indicate the cars color in my list because these models should be exist several color variations as well.

Diecast toys Made in Hungary - Metchy:

• Porsche 928 (illegal copy of Matchbox Porsche 928 SF-59) usuallay has got a varied sticker on hood and doors
• Jeep CJ-5 (illegal copy of Majorette Jeep CJ-5)

Porsche 928 (photo: Breki Finnland)

(photo: Breki Finnland)

Jeep CJ-5  (photo: http://zh1968.hp.infoseek.co.jp)