In February 1958 Tri-ang introduced the Junior series.

Starting with 7 different models as shown below.

The Junior's came in over 20 different versions of which the most common

must be the Milk Bottle lorry. I think this must have been one of Tri-ang’s big sellers as there are so many of them still about. You could use the milk bottles for either carrying water or as a set of skittles to knock down. Great play value! There was amongst others a Fire Tender, Mobile Shop, Airport Radar lorry, Animal transporter, Breakdown lorry, Petrol and

Bulk Liquid Tankers, Army transporter and a host of others.

Here they all are:

Tri-ang Junior Tip lorry

Tri-ang Junior Brick Truck

Tri-ang Junior Break Down lorry

The Breakdown lorry is very collectable. Take care that the crane parts are in place.

Look at the close up photo's of the parts on this crane.

Tri-ang Army Transport Truck

Together with the R.A.F. truck  this Army truck are the only Junior's with a different door decal.

Tri-ang Junior Ice Cream Van with Music

On top of this Van there is place for a key to wind up the inside music box.

Most of these boxes are perished.

Tri-ang Junior Delivery Van

Tri-ang Junior Milk lorry

For the popular milk lorries Tri-ang produced several

milk bottles and drums. On the bottom a number was printed into the plastic.

Most common numbers are 6180 , 6181 and 6144.  The Milk bottles had various colored lids.

For these popular milk lorries Tri-ang produced milk bottles with various colors covers. A variation are the lorries with drums.

On the bottom of the milk bottles a number was printed into the plastic. Most common numbers are 6180 , 6181 and 6144.

Tri-ang Junior Milk lorry with drums

This lorry is an equivalent of the Milk lorry. Instead of  bottles there were two different kind of drums.

Tri-ang Junior Police Van

Take a look at the back doors of this rare Police Van!

The rear doors of this Van are deviating to the regular rear doors

Tri-ang Junior Wheels

For the Junior, Tri-ang had three different options to mount the wheels on the axles.

Left is a 1958 classic nut. In the middle a 1961 push nut and on the right photo a sample of the later used chilling push nut.

It is hardly impossible to remove these chilling nuts without destroying them!

On a Tri-ang drum lorry we found two different rims.

The rim of the front wheel had a L. Bros Ltd marking

while the rims of the rear wheel had no markings.

Rim of the front wheel

Rim of the rear wheel

Tri-ang Junior Fire Engine

The Fire Engine has an extended ladder and a bell. It was supplied two different decals.

Tri-ang Junior Mobile Stores

The Mobile Shop lorry was supplied with several accessories.

The Junior trucks with disc wheels, like this Coast to Coast lorry,  are known as the "Merton" series and were available at about 10 shillings cheaper then

their rubber tire equivalents.

Tri-ang Junior Air Control Truck

This Junior was supplied with "radar" unit. This truck is hard to find and very rare.

Tri-ang  Junior Airport Crash Tender

This Junior was supplied with a cupola, a searchlight and a fire engine. This tender is hard to find and very rare. 99% of the present Crash Tenders lost the cupola, the searchlight and the fire engine

Tri-ang Junior Bulk Liquid Transport

If the Bulk Liquid Transport ever was made?

I had never seen this lorry. Tom Caren however told me, he once had one in a poor condition and gave it to the children to play with. A fitting end for this toy. .

January 2009 I did a stunning discovery. A German auction house had put this lorry in auction.

After receiving this Bulk lorry I was surprised to notice that it has in contrary to the Shell tanker a plastic tank. The filling lid and the drain pipe are also different to the ones on the Shell tanker.To "click" the tank on the lorry, Tri-ang made an extra sparing in the platform as you can see on the photo with the white arrows. I'm very curious how may of this Bulk Liquid transport models are left.

Tri-ang Junior Ambulance

with two stretchers

Tri-ang Junior Fruit Lorry

Tri-ang Junior Farm Lorry

The Farm lorry was supplied with or without 3 black and 3 white pigs.

Just for one year, 1963, this Farm lorry was sold as Sheep Truck. Instead of 6 pigs, 6 sheep were supplied.

Tri-ang Junior Shell Tanker

with two filling lids at the top and a drain pipe at the back

Tri-ang Junior Export Van

One of the Junior lorries shown in the 1961 catalogue is the Junior Export Van.

The Junior bulk Liquid Transport was one of the Junior lorries in the 1962 catalogue.

Tri-ang Junior R.A.F. lorry

The Royal Air Force lorry is a special one. It has not been mentioned or shown in any catalogue. It is one of the only models Mr .Tri-ang and friend Tom Caren is missing. There are several rumors about this lorry. One of these rumors is that this lorry was in 60ties of the last century special made for the overseas soldiers who were encamped in Germany. We will never(?) know if this is just a rumor, but it was no accident that I found this lorry in Germany and that the seller told me that his dad got this R.A.F. lorry as a gift from an English soldier. . Is it a special model? No it just had as gray blue hood and R.A.F. decals, but this lorry is very rare and hard to find. As far as I know, there are just four collectors worldwide, who owns this scarce lorry.

The side decals and the one at the rear of the lorry are paper decals. The most special decal is the one at the rear.It is the coat of arms of the R.A.F. with this text:

Tri-ang Junior Arctic series

This Circus on tour lorry was supplied with four of the same animals as supplied with the 300 series. The red version is pretty rare .

Junior Mech. Horse trucks

In 1963 Tri-ang introduced two Arctic trucks : a Rocket Launcher and an Arctic truck with trailer and 21 various colored bricks. This Mech Horse truck with bricks was only produced in 1963 so it is obvious this is a rare one. Later on another Arctic truck turned up :

the car transporter with 4 really ugly cheap plastic cars.

There is a striking difference between the front of an Arctic truck and a regular Junior.

(look at the yellow arrow Arctic front)

The Tri-ang Junior is the only model which had a head shield on its cabin.The original head shields were made of fragile plastic. On one side it had a Tri-ang decal while the backside had the text:

"Bend slightly before insertion". In the replacement section we offer replica's.

You can expect that a catalogue shows toys as you can buy them in a  shop. Wrong!

The 1966 folder shows the Red Cross as well as the Police Van with its own head sign. It could be the fantasy of the editor of this folder. We are not sure if they were ever produced  

The same catalogue shows green and blue head signs on other toys. We have never seen them in real. Did you? For the benefit of the doubt we made replica's of these head signs as well.

Tri-ang did have a factory in South Africa but most of the toys were exported out there from the UK as knocked down kits ( CDK ) The parts were put together by the local workforce.

SA law at that time allowed Tri-ang to buy the factory but they had to provide work for the local workforce and not import  everything in already made up for distribution.

The Yellow and   Maroon Junior Diesel (see photo below) is actually already Blue and White underneath and it has gone into SA and been re sprayed locally. The door transfers were masked off and the South African wheels fitted. All Juniors has a typical transfer on both doors, as shown below

In Australia Tri-ang used the same transfer in red on some Diesel toys, like the Diesel Fire truck.

Tri-ang's were produced in several countries worldwide.

Junior metal strip

The metal strip mounted on the bonnet is easy to make. Buy a tin can with vegetables or fruit. Enjoy the content and remove the label. Email us to get the diagram how to make this metal strip.

All you need is a pair of scissors to cut this strip out of the tin can. Don't forget to remove the grill when you mount this strip!

It is no secret that boxed toys are of a greater value than unboxed. Till 1959 these boxes were light brown with on one side a paper sticker with the name of the truck.

In 1959 Tri-ang introduced an ingenious "take away" box to transport the Tri-ang's home .These  and a lot of others pictures on this site came from a Dutch collector Mr. A. Guest.

Andrew, thanks for your contribution.

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