Volume VIII, Number 5 |
Portugal Presents Poliguri |
Toy cars made in Portugal are certainly not common, even in Portugal. At the
same time, companies like Luso, Novacar and Poliguri have all produced small-scale
diecast vehicles.
In the 1980's Poliguri of Lisbon began producing a selection of toy cars and
trucks. Carlos Almeida is a collector from Portugal who provided the catalog
images shown here and sent the individual models in a trade, indicates that Poliguri
did not survive the 1980's, closing in 1989. Little more is known about the company
but we do have their models as a reminder of Poliguri's
efforts.
The first reaction to Poliguri models is that some seem to have been inspired
by Siku or Majorette models. This is true in size and in the models Poliguri
decided to produce. The Mercedes-Benz Unimog could easily be mistaken for a Siku
as the quality is very high. Perhaps the most Siku-like feature is the wheels/tires.
Poliguri re-created their own version of the well-known 'Siku' wheel with it's
thin white-wall containing the company name. Substituting 'Guri' for 'Siku',
the Poliguri version looks much the same but it is actually a bit different.
Other models have wheels more like those used by Majorette.
Poliguri made the most of limited castings by producing a variety of Mercedes-Benz
vehicles with the same cab but different rear bodies. A tow truck, ambulance,
gasoline truck, camper, mini-bus and mini-truck all originate from this casting.
Another Mercedes-Benz model, a 200 sedan, also serves to allow police, taxi and
stock production versions.
The Peugeot and Fiat Uno models are a bit larger in scale with the Fiat identified
as 1:50 scale. The Fiat Uno also offers opening doors. A Lancia Integrale model
was planned by according to Carlos, but did not go into
production.
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