Tonka Trucks

Posted by admin on May 26th, 2010 filed in Tucker Diecast

Tonka was born in 1946 as Mound Metalcraft to make garden implements and the founders decided to try metal toys as a side line. That side line soon became the main business of the company, which changed its name to Tonka in 1955. Tonka is a Dakota-Sioux word which means “great” or “big.” Tonka trucks are the best-selling and most long-lived of the company’s line of toys. How could we at Diecast Toy Cars get by without mentioning thsi most well-known name in diecast toys?

Probably the most well-known of the company’s toys is the Tonka Mighty Truck also known as the Mighty Dump Truck Tonka toy. It’s the iconic symbol of the company, outside of their logo. Of all Tonka toy trucks, this Tonka chuck truck is easily the flagship of the line. It was part of a “Mighty” line of construction-related equipment, which introduced in 1964.

Other diecast toy cars the company has produced include the highly collectible Tonka Fire Truck line, the Tonka Garbage Truck series, and a handful of short-lived or discontinued Tonka toy trucks from the 1970s and 1980s.

If you’d like to see some of the rarest and most interesting of the Tonka toy trucks, had over to Winifred, Montana where the Winifred Museum has a collection of Tonka trucks and toys spanning more than 3,000 in number. That, friends, is a lot of Tonka trucks!