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King Star
Diecast Cars from Korea
by Doug Breithaupt

Few diecast collectors are aware of the only diecast manufacturer to come out of Korea. King Star appeared in the diecast market during the 1980's and appears to have vanished almost as quickly. Fortunately for collectors, they also left us with some delightful little cars.

No one seems to know much about King Star. Their toy cars were mostly sold at low-priced emporiums, the equal of today's 'dollar' stores. Unlike much of the cheap diecast available through these outlets, King Star offered a product of equal quality to competitors like Matchbox or Majorette.

King Star cars were sold in a variety of international markets including Australia and the United States. They came in single blister packs like the example above and in six-car sets. Anyone familiar with Hot Wheels of the mid-80's will recognize the inspiration for the King Star package. It appears that they hoped that un-suspecting buyers might purchase their product if it appeared to look like a Mattel package. This technique has been used by Real Toys more recently. It is a shame that the company felt their toy cars could not be appreciated in their own right as they are actually very nicely done.

Four of the five models shown here are reasonably well represented in lines of other diecast manufacturers. The exception is the Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC. Many SL models were done but this is one of the few SLC models ever offered in small-scale. If there are other King Star models, they have not surfaced. Comments from readers would be welcome.