Both McTaggart and I have gone into to “unconventional warfare” mode over this whole dually fight and I’m keeping my end of the bargain up today by lobbing this sweet, sweet vintage Tonka dually ramp truck at him. There are some things that will never be “uncool” and old Tonka trucks are at the head of that list. Made of stamped steel and designed to take anything a kid could throw at them, the Tonka brand established itself as one of the premier ones in American toys. Although most of the stuff they make today is plastic, they’re still popular stuff for kids of all ages. This ramp truck seems to date from the late 1950s or early 1960s and it features a fully functional bed that can be lowered down with the use of a crank. There’s also a crank winch that needs the rope and hook replaces but it still there for the using.
When you look at this truck and see how it is made versus today’s stuff you’ll dig it even more. Collectors go nutso over this stuff and it brings strong money on eBay and other sites where they are traded. We love the fact that it is largely built like a real truck. You can see the frame rails exposed with the best angled up which is certainly a lot cooler than the molded plastic “floors” that most toys have now. My kids love die cast cars and they play with those things more than any of their other stuff. The crummy part is that because everything is plastic and 6/8 year old boys are not exactly gentle creatures, they break pretty easy. This thing with is beefy axles and the fact that the only plastic on it seems to be the tires, windshield, and the drum for the winch will hold up and it has. The seller says that it has been repainted at some point but that doesn’t bug us. If the thing didn’t have the price of a new car payment I’d consider grabbing it for the boys. They’d have hours and hours of fun winching their broken cars onto the deck and towing them to a repair shop made of wooden blocks in their bedroom. Hmmmm….maybe it would be money well spent.
Sure beats the stuffing out of video games, mindless hours of TV watching, and other activities that have no long term payoff right?
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE SOME PHOTOS AND THEN HIT THE EBAY LINK FOR THE FULL LISTING
Nice truck Brian, and what did Kerri give you for Christmas? 🙂
I had a lot of Tonka, buddyL and Nylint trucks back when I was a kid. I didn’t have this one, but I had a stake bed like it. I have no idea what happened to all of them.
IMHO, in the toy realm, Brian wins the dually thing hands down. As for the real battle of full-size rigs….that winner is yet to be seen. You all don’t need to put up tow trucks because that’s a whole different category.
I had the Ertl version, where the body just tipped back…not really a ‘roll-back’. But, I can’t tell you how many tractors I hauled on the back of that truck!
Really cool,stuff used to be way better. It was Nylint for us. Still in my Moms attic.
Cool, but not tow truck cool =D