Majorette (toy manufacturer)

Majorette became the main French manufacturer of Matchbox-like miniature vehicles (which scale variously pegged to 3 inches long).

Though French cars like Peugeot and Renault were emphasized, other licensed marques included European brands, and North American vehicles from General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.

In 2008, there was talk that Majorette, then called Smoby-Majorette, was to be divorced from Smoby and sold to MI29, a French investment fund which owns Bigben Interactive for €3,900,000.

This venture was abandoned in 2009 when Majorette found itself insolvent again, and through a tribunal at the commercial court of Paris, a sale was granted to Simba Dickie, who bought Smoby.

These were promotionals advertising the new bus service, but although the labeling was true-to-life, the toy Majorettes decorated bore little resemblance to the real London buses.

For example, 1970s 300 series cars and trucks sported a nostalgic looking somewhat art-deco-style blister card package with yellow at the bottom which changed upwards to orange, red and then purple.

About the same time, especially for the U.S. market, vehicles were often placed in clear plastic containers – not blister cards – colored in gold, white and red.

Into the 1990s, vehicles normally appeared in bright red blister cards with more graphics and illustrations with a yellow band around the Majorette name..

Scale varied whether a Majorette vehicle was a small mini car like the cutely-done Renault Twingo or the Volvo Yoplait truck – all being anchored to the 2.5 to 3 inch size.

Today Majorette "Light and Sound" vehicles fill this gap – though they are larger, with pull-back windup motors.

Regular cars were offered with tampo printing of various food companies' products pad printed on them, such as Willy Wonka "Gobstoppers", "Nerds", "Dweebs" and "Runtz" candy, "Swanson Kids Fun Feast" and "Swanson Kids Grilled Cheese Barnie Bear", "Campbell's Dinosaur Vegetable Soup", "Campbell's Teddy Bears", "Cry Baby" candy, "Pepsi" and "Diet Pepsi", "Cheetos Chester", "Peter Pan Creamy", and "Franco American Spaghetti Os".

Each piece had at least one hole on it where objects such as traffic signs, street lights, parking meters, rubbish bins, flowers telephone booths and even buildings could be inserted.

Although mainly a die-cast car and truck producer, Majorette has had a plane and helicopter line to compete with Matchbox Skybusters.

The Majorette airplane and helicopters line was expanded in 2013[citation needed] to include such airlines as Air Mauritius and TUIFly, along with eleven others and five fictitious ones.

[15] Though realism and detail were not always as good as Matchbox or Tomica, by the early 1970s Majorette established a reputation for making quality, heavy vehicles, incorporating features like opening doors and hoods, translucent plastic parts, and sprung suspension systems.

For comparison, Norev wheels are now detailed replicas of the real thing compared to Majorette's more generic offerings.

Into the 1980s, a marketing strategy emphasized the toy appeal of the cars, including brighter paints, large tampo printings and slightly exaggerated bodies.

In the late 1970s to early 1980s, the Brazilian toy firms of Inbrima and Kiko manufactured Majorette models under license.

In 1992, bankruptcy was followed by a takeover by Ideal Loisirs, and most Majorette production was relocated to Thailand, where a factory was built in the Nava Nakorn Industrial Promotion Zone, in Pathum Thani Province, comprising 1,000 square meters.

Actually, the shiny silver metal base itself gradually disappeared from new models, replaced by ordinary black plastic, a cost saving solution common in many toy brands.

After Majorette's parent company Ideal loisirs was purchased by the German entity Triumph-Adler, now entering the 21st century, batches of better castings have been introduced, as well as an image face lift that includes a modified logo, and a toning down of the bright aesthetics of the 1980s and 1990s.

Circa 2010, the Majorette lines offered today are standard "Singles" packaged in various ways, "Extractor" series (construction), "S.O.S."

Lastly, a new line of "Eco Tech" cars features electric, hybrid and other 'green' and environmentally friendly, but cool, vehicles.