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 a factory ( JABULA) but they had to provide work for the local workforce and not import  everything in already made up for distribution. The factory was situated at 10 Bunsen Street Industria, Johannesburg.

My guess would be that Jabula entered into an agreement pre-1955 with

Triang where they bought unlabeled toys from Lines Bros England, and then added their own labels, grill and colours. This was so successful that Lines Bros bought a controlling interest and changed the name of the toys to Tri-angpost 1955. ( I must stress that this is just my guess. We know the year1954/5 is the change over date from Jabula to Tri-ang, but we don't knowif it was the same company or two different companies.

Either way, Jabula South Africa became Tri-ang, and that explains the similarities.

BEDFORD Series In South Africa

Hi,
I am like you. I love the tri-ang toys and have been a collector for many years .I like your web site its very good indeed thought you might like to see some photos of two old models which were not produced in England because of the start of W.W.2.

The press tools were sent to South Africa and produced by a company there

known as  'Jabula' They are featured in the 1937 catalogue in England but were not made. The model of the ambulance is (as far as I know) is one of only a very few known to exist.
All the very best  Roy Callcut

Junior series in South Africa

The Yellow and   Maroon Junior Diesel (see photo below) is actually already Blue and Red 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

300 series in South Africa

The Tri-ang 300 series made in South Africa are different from the U. K. trucks.

Enjoy the below fantastic and very rare trucks !  

I received these photo's from three South African collectors :

Tom Southwood , Dallas du Toit and Peter Jack

(thank you very much for these pictures)

The grill on the 300 series are similar to the grill Tri-ang had on the Bedford series.

I restored the paper posters to their former glory. Aren't they beautiful?

(they are not for sale)

November 2009 the Artic shown below was in auction at Vectors auctioneers in England. I was surprised to notice that this Van had the regular Tri-ang paper posters at the site instead of the S.A. posters.

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