The French Dinky Ford Plateau Brasseur After the Second World War, the Meccano magazine did not return until 1953. Therefore, in 1949, the launch of the new Ford beverage truck took place in the French Dinky catalogue. The Ford plateau brasseur or beverage truck, 25H, featured prominently among the new range of models. The 102mm long model cost 160.00 fr. (old francs), about 3/-. The zamak model had a cast flat-bed, with a tin-plate backboard and a hook cast into the bodywork. The brasseur came in various colours, red, cream, turquoise, blue and more commonly, green. Between 1949 and 1950, the model possessed black painted metal wheels but in 1951, when modified, concave hubs and black M tyres became standard.

French Dinky based the brasseur truck, 25H, on the ill-fated Ford F917WS, a product of the joint venture with Mathis, a Strasbourg-based motor manufacturer. The vehicles manufactured by this project were badged, Matford. Subsequently and as a means of getting out of the arrangement, Ford set-up a new plant, in the Paris suburb of Poissy, to produce new vehicles, but the war intervened and manufacturing was taken-over by the German military, who installed the management of Ford’s German subsidiary, in Cologne. The 2-ton truck, which came in several formats had its bodywork made by Chausson. The lorry had a maximum speed of 72 Km/h.

French Dinky used the out-dated Ford-designed truck as a genuine French alternative to the models based on the war surplus Studebakers left behind by US forces when they returned to the states.

Cost 160.00 fr. available in green, red, cream, turquoise, blue finish. French Dinky in detail...