Auto Review AR89 Triang Toys BY Rod Ward

Lines Brothers produced a bewildering array of ranges of toys and models in many factories, sold by many different subsidiary companies. Just to list the thousands of items produced down the years would fill our 32 pages many times over, without any pictures. We have therefore tried to concentrate in this publication on those products of greatest interest to readers of Model Auto Review. Those toys and models were mostly made under the brand names Minic, Frog, Penguin, Spot-On, Scalextric and so on. Some of the product types not described in detail here are pedal cars (see Auto Review 90 for more on such miniature vehicles), bicycles, fairy cycles, tricycles and scooters. Also not listed here in detail are dolls and doll's carriages (including prams, pramettes, pedettes, folders, sunkars), push-along toys, rocking horses, garden equipment, coasters and baby walkers Lines Bros also made children's and doll's furniture: desks, chairs, blackboards, high chairs, cots, cribs, ironing boards and kitchen equipment. Toy buildings included dolls' houses, forts, garages and service stations. More general pre-school toys extended from building bricks to games and educational toys. Lines Bros claimed, with some justification, to be the biggest toy manufacturers in the world in the 1950s. This publication is only concerned with the Lines Bros era, so therefore even if a product, such as Scalextric, continued to grow and develop, later items are not included in our lists.