Playart

Plastic cars and trucks of 1:43, and 1:24 scale were also made, while trains and other theme toys also appeared.

Playart (the name in all lower case with a larger "a" in "art" and dots in the bowls of the letters) die-cast cars were made in Hong Kong and mostly were distributed with the name Peelers, the in-house brand of toy cars for Woolworth.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Sears sold blister packaged Playarts as Road Mates.

In another twist the American distribution company for Playart was Model Power which focused on train accessories.

On another Playart series, the name was printed with each letter a separate color, on bright packages marketed as FASTWHEEL (see photo).

The phrase "really fast - die cast" was also printed on these blister-paks and boxes with the checkered black and white background.

[1] These were marketed as Charmerz Super Singles and packaged in a blue blister card with many different vehicles listed on the back.

Despite tooling origins, however, one gets the feeling that the makers of Playart cars were auto enthusiasts perhaps more than other toy manufacturers.

The existence of 48 vehicles have been confirmed from the above sources and examination of the bases of the earliest editions (see Appendix 1 below).

All of these vehicles can be found with one or both types of the "hub-cap" style wheel, inside a black plastic tire.

The Porsche 910, Man from Uncle Oldsmobile, Carabo and Alfa P33 are also similar to the Husky/Corgi Jr. dies or to larger-scale Corgi castings, as are the later Chevrolet Caprice and Opel Senator.

A series of fire trucks in approximately HO scale was made, some of which were American LaFrance and Mack 4 to 6 inch in diecast often with ladders with as many as four segments.

For example, a late 1970s Toyota Celica fastback was a bit more rough and toy-like than other Playart offerings.

Other World War II planes were the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, German Stuka fighter, British Spitfire, and the F4U Corsair.