Well, I hope everyone had a merry christmas, I certainly did 
Since I'm likely to be busy with some very important personal work [working towards an important job opportunity] in the coming months, I admit i'll probably be going quiet for a while again soon - But, when i've got time I'll still check in Even if my new job comes off, my collection is going nowhere
Still, can't help but pop this one in here, as I admit I snared rather a neat and slightly rare bargain
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/B8vXPbXq/image.png)
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/G9MX0z5M/image.png)
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/N5nY065D/image.png)
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/6ypW03dg/image.png)
I found this, an unusual export version of the Tomica R/C Car Carrier - It carries a different colour scheme to any of the 3 variants I have seen, but from what I can tell this was sold from the early 1990's through to the early 2000's in Japan, with this version turning up in the early 1990's here in the UK.
The reason I can tell this one's from the early 1990's, as opposed to later? Because this one's tied into the original 'Tomica World', not the Tomica World we are all more familiar with. According to the Tomica Wiki [so take this with a pinch of salt], these are referred to as Tomica 'T-Series' to differentiate them from the Tomica World we all know. Maybe they do have more subscribers than Pewdiepie [if you know, you know
]
It's probably been covered on here before, but I'll just put the history in here anyway.
At some point in the late 1980's, the line of Tomica cars sold within the UK and Europe rebranded from 'Pocket Cars' to 'Tomica World' or in the case of single cars, just 'Tomica'. This coincided with a release of a variety of re-badged Tomica playsets that had all [for the most part] seen release in Japan, all of which carried the 'Tomica World' branding.
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/YvHqc3gG/image.png)
Most of the playsets were re-branded with British company names attached to the stickers [I believe the marketing and design was handled by TOMY UK for this reason, for example the classic 'Tomica Tower' carpark set became the 'NCP Car Park' set, after NCP Car Parks, the UK's biggest private parking operator. Later sets were handled in much the same manner, except that they were re-packages of the original Tomica Town connectable building/pavements system, with sets like an Esso petrol station [virtually identical to it's Japanese release], a Toyota dealership, construction site and a road-pack with unique reprints of the cardboard road that carried British road markings rather than the typical Japanese.
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/948hwyfJ/image.png)
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/4nwz7dvn/image.png)
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/bZG31xdJ/image.png)
In any case, I picked this lorry up because aside from the fact it can carry a nice large potion of my Tomica collection [instead of keeping them in a box ], the actual driving controls fascinate me. Instead of the typical R/C system of having a directional stick/sticks/control pad and a speed control trigger, this controller has one big red button, and that's it. The button has a surround that makes it look like it should have more buttons or possibly directional controls, but nope, apparently not.
On the cab of the lorry is a flashing red 'warning' light for both decoration, and controlling the thing - Each section of the light corresponds to one of 4 directions; Forward, Reverse, Left Turn Right Turn. Pretty obviously, you wait for the light to light up the direction you want, and then press the big red button to drive the lorry in that direction. Now the thing is, to me [and my limited experience of R/C driving], this sounds like a seriously complicated and potentially difficult system to master due to the [seeming] inability to turn in reverse or change direction quickly, but what do I know? I guess I'll get to find out soon enough.
Interestingly, the trailer disconnects, and has an auto-couple mechanism meaning that part of the 'challenge for driving this unit is detaching and loading the trailer, then steering the cab to couple to the trailer and then drive off. Also, according to the Japanese box only [but it's the same model so I'm sure it'll work], one can load Motor/BO Tomica models onto it too; In a way, I guess this is possibly one of the only 'T-Series' Tomica World accessories that is also compatible with the later, better known Tomica World, even if not advertised on the export box
Since I'm likely to be busy with some very important personal work [working towards an important job opportunity] in the coming months, I admit i'll probably be going quiet for a while again soon - But, when i've got time I'll still check in
Even if my new job comes off, my collection is going nowhere Still, can't help but pop this one in here, as I admit I snared rather a neat and slightly rare bargain
I found this, an unusual export version of the Tomica R/C Car Carrier - It carries a different colour scheme to any of the 3 variants I have seen, but from what I can tell this was sold from the early 1990's through to the early 2000's in Japan, with this version turning up in the early 1990's here in the UK.
The reason I can tell this one's from the early 1990's, as opposed to later? Because this one's tied into the original 'Tomica World', not the Tomica World we are all more familiar with. According to the Tomica Wiki [so take this with a pinch of salt], these are referred to as Tomica 'T-Series' to differentiate them from the Tomica World we all know. Maybe they do have more subscribers than Pewdiepie [if you know, you know
]It's probably been covered on here before, but I'll just put the history in here anyway.
At some point in the late 1980's, the line of Tomica cars sold within the UK and Europe rebranded from 'Pocket Cars' to 'Tomica World' or in the case of single cars, just 'Tomica'. This coincided with a release of a variety of re-badged Tomica playsets that had all [for the most part] seen release in Japan, all of which carried the 'Tomica World' branding.
Most of the playsets were re-branded with British company names attached to the stickers [I believe the marketing and design was handled by TOMY UK for this reason, for example the classic 'Tomica Tower' carpark set became the 'NCP Car Park' set, after NCP Car Parks, the UK's biggest private parking operator. Later sets were handled in much the same manner, except that they were re-packages of the original Tomica Town connectable building/pavements system, with sets like an Esso petrol station [virtually identical to it's Japanese release], a Toyota dealership, construction site and a road-pack with unique reprints of the cardboard road that carried British road markings rather than the typical Japanese.
In any case, I picked this lorry up because aside from the fact it can carry a nice large potion of my Tomica collection [instead of keeping them in a box
], the actual driving controls fascinate me. Instead of the typical R/C system of having a directional stick/sticks/control pad and a speed control trigger, this controller has one big red button, and that's it. The button has a surround that makes it look like it should have more buttons or possibly directional controls, but nope, apparently not.On the cab of the lorry is a flashing red 'warning' light for both decoration, and controlling the thing - Each section of the light corresponds to one of 4 directions; Forward, Reverse, Left Turn Right Turn. Pretty obviously, you wait for the light to light up the direction you want, and then press the big red button to drive the lorry in that direction. Now the thing is, to me [and my limited experience of R/C driving], this sounds like a seriously complicated and potentially difficult system to master due to the [seeming] inability to turn in reverse or change direction quickly, but what do I know? I guess I'll get to find out soon enough.
Interestingly, the trailer disconnects, and has an auto-couple mechanism meaning that part of the 'challenge for driving this unit is detaching and loading the trailer, then steering the cab to couple to the trailer and then drive off. Also, according to the Japanese box only [but it's the same model so I'm sure it'll work], one can load Motor/BO Tomica models onto it too; In a way, I guess this is possibly one of the only 'T-Series' Tomica World accessories that is also compatible with the later, better known Tomica World, even if not advertised on the export box
Been building Plarail worlds since 2001; Building when I can in 2023 
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