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Submitted by N Eversole
Tonka Trucks have been around since the ’50s. It’s perhaps one of the few brands that your parents also played with when they were kids, except when your folks had them, they were made of metal. Anyone know when they switched from metal to plastic?
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Don’t know when they switched, but I was able to buy my oldest a metal Tonka trunk when we was two (he’s nine now). Tonka is indestructible, I swear, and can all the beating three little boys can give. The trunk is still around and I’m sure it’ll be here for some time to come.
Tonka started to make their trucks out of plastic in the late 80’s IIRC.
i was born in the 88 and had metal tonka trucks except for the cement one the spinning mixer was plastic but the shoot that the sand came out of was metal. I guess i got lucky to get the metal ones plastic would have never lasted very long with me i was always hard on my toys and still am.
I had metal and plastic Tonkas and that was the late 80s/early 90s. I even had a giant pedal-car/backhoe tonka which, living in a house with many a pile of sand from constantly having sheds and driveways added, was fantastic!
God, I remember moving into a house and me and my brother excavating the previous occupant’s kids’ Tonka trucks from the abandoned sand pit. (They were metal FYI, what was left of them)
You can still get the metal ones, but they’re harder to find and more expensive than the crappy plastic. I found one last year for about $40. Metal is so much better, not only because the trucks won’t break easily, but because they’re heavy enough to knock your siblings out!
My brother had a metal one. He’s 17 now. I guess the person above me is right, you can still get them, but they’re harder to find.
When I was little (23 now), my best friend had a metal tonka truck that was big enough for us to sit in the back part and ride it down hills. THAT was some epic win. Regarding when it was made, I dunno whether it was bought new for my BFFs little brother or if maybe it belonged to her dad and he passed it down? Not sure.
My mother has one that has been handed down from my brother to all 6 of the grandsons. (With the occasional swipe by the girls) That truck’s been around since ‘72, yea, it’s rusted a bit on the bed, but since it’s been hauling gravel and dirt for almost 40 years….I’d say it’s held up quite well. Better than I can say for the life size cars.
Tonka…FTW!!!
When i bought one for my daughter 3 years ago i couldnt find the plastic one anywhere. I didint want to buy the metal one cuz i remembered all the bruises i left on my parents and on my siblings.
Plastic is cheaper, that’s why they changed it. If a kid wants to bash a sibling, he or she will find something if there’s no metal toy to use.
When I was a wee tike in the early eighties, metal ones were still around. Bulldozers and backhoes were good for the sandbox, the dump truck a bit dull in the sandbox. Great for riding down a hill though.
Tonka toys are Tonka tough for fun fun fun.
I’m seventeen, and I had them in the metal style when I was little.
My 2 yr old nephew loves trucks, and recently I was asked to be the godfather at his christening (kinda later than normal, but still…). In addition to an official christening gift, I took the opportunity to bring my old metal Tonka truck (I’m 33) and give it to him.
To say he was enthralled is an understatement. Everyone thought it was so cool, due in large part to the fact that it’s of course metal, plus b/c it has sentimental value since it was his uncles/godfather’s. He and his bigger (7) sister play with it all the time, and love it.
So this Epic Win entry obviously struck a chord with me. Epic Win for this Epic Win!
Cool story man, it’s wonderful to see the kinds of memories these epic wins can bring out of people. To add to the discussion, I remember having a metal tonka truck or two when I was around 5 and, being born in 1988, it seemed that they were in no short supply. It must’ve been sometime in the early or mid 90s when they switched to plastic. Either that or some stores Washington were late in getting the memo.
You can find them in metal occasionally, walmart usually puts one out for 20 dollars around Christmas that is HUGE! I won’t buy plastic tonka, I suppose they did it for safety reasons more than anything else, but hell, my mom still has my brothers tonka set from the early 70’s. Both my boys have said 20 dollar tonka dump trucks. They’ve broken every other toy truck bought for them but those tonkas have been moved 4 times now, dropped from the balcony all sorts of usual boy stuff and not even dented or scratched.
I suppose I should mention, that my youngest is Just now 5, so I bought the last one not more than 2 years ago.
and one more comment, Just checked out tonka.com and you can buy metal ones there online, or through several retailers. 29.99 is the list price in the description
I’m 22 now, and I remember having the big, metal dumptruck when I was younger. That thing was one of my favorite toys as a kid, and I was a girl. Metal was the way to go.
I, too, am a girl and absolutely LOVED my metal Tonka dumptruck! To make even cooler, I had put a flying ant sticker on the driver’s window. Awesomest toy EVA!
I had the big old metal one when I was younger (i’m 25 now). They went to plastic sometime in the 90’s I think… Around the same time they started making them remote control, which was neat but ruined the fun of crawling around in the dirt picking up piles of sand
A fun thing to look for in B monster movies – the word ‘tonka’ on the bottom of the cars that are being tossed around by critters like Godzilla or the Deadly Mantis (also nostalgic wins, come to think of it.)
Epic Win! My brothers had one in the 50’s.
metal, plastic, it doesn’t matter what they are made of if you leave them under the dual axle of your father’s 1-ton pickup before he heads of to work. o_0
Did that, took me most of the summer to pay for the tires! The tonka survived oddly enough, I guess the pothole we left it in was just deep enough! B)
My family still has the metal ones, right now, my two year old cousin has them, but it makes me proud that from generation to generation, every little boy in our family can experience the joys of having metal trucks.
I remember my mom finding me a metal one at a garage sale when I was young and it quickly became the most-fought-over item in the backyard.
My nephew turned three in August, and I got him a big, metal Tonka truck that I found online. My sister and I (both girls) played with one when we were little in the mid-eighties. My dad works in a quarry, and to this day when someone asks me what he does, I say he drives Tonka Trucks for a living.
I have two kids aged 3 and 1 and Tonkas were a no brainer for me. THey needed them and they have em! Had to look long and hard to find the metal ones, but it was worth it. The first one I got was the grader. I always wanted the grader!
My bro had a few Tonkas, he is 50 now. I remember him playing in the sandlot with his friends, all with Tonkas, for months. Some of the paint wore off, otherwise his Tonkas made it through all 2 aunt’s kids, my kids and now his kids.
I just wonder why a Carmaker didn’t rename itself TONKA and make a line of indestructable 4×4s and trucks?
My husband’s grandmother worked for Tonka for YEARS, and when we finally had boys of our own we were given all of my husband’s (metal) trucks that his grandma actually made. Now they are fought over by our sons and 2 nephews.
i had a metal truck when i was little, i used to run it into my little cousin, now he owns it, and does the same thing to his brother
To answer the question about the conversion to plastic, it was in the late 90’s (about 98-ish), but they still had quite a few die-cast ones around. I remember my first Tonka truck was a CATERPILLAR earth mover (which was actually a hand-me-down from my brother; wasn’t every boys’ first Tonka truck an earth mover?). My first one that was mine outright was one my dad bought me for Christmas from Toys “R” Us when I was 6 (22 going on 23 now). I was so excited that I got my construction mixer that year, but once I started playing with it, the wheels fell right off! I was so disappointed that my dad promised to get it replaced (that bastard died before he even made attempt to replace my damn Tonka truck, R.I.P.). Oh well, that’s why we have yellow trucks on the freeway. Yay, Tonka trucks!
The trucks were part metal/ part plastic in the ’80’s (e.g.: Cement Mixer–the barrel was plastic). My grandmother kept some of my dad’s and uncle’s from the late ’50’s-early ’60’s that were all metal–though I can’t remember what the wheels were made of. My first one was a small dump truck. Tonka ain’t just for boys!
Part plastic, but still bulletproof. All of mine (save one that got lost in the garage, had a bag of road salt tear on it and rusted out) still survive.
I have 3 older brothers, but I always had the best Tonka trucks – so Little Sister always got to play.
I have a metal one from 1958 that my Grandfather gave my dad, then to me, then to my daughter. It’s rusty, it wieghs 54763 pounds, it sits in the back yard and gets played with by the raccoons, my bunny likes to go for rides in it down the driveway *seriously, we’re not punishing her* and that thing has outlived any $100,000 real-life dump truck, and has probably hauled more loads from one end of the yard to the other.
I had metal tonka trucks and that was prolly only about 13-15 years ago
If they’re not made of metal I don’t want them.
Ah, I loved Tonka trucks… IIRC, the metal ones even came with a tetanus shot right in the box!
Had a half dozen metal Tonkas in the 60s. When you hit somebody with one of those bad boys, they knew it.
My brother had metal Tonka trucks and he was born in 1988. I remember we totally tried to use the dump trucks as roller skates in our basement. Talk about a trip to the hospital waiting to happen, luckily it never did!
My mom has a ton of old, metal Tonkas from when my sister and I were really little. Now that we’re older, she has them arranged in the planter-box on her front stoop, looking like they’re digging up her geraniums. xD
Awsome! I had a fleet of the metal ones when I was a kid (at least 10) and would play with them for hours on end!
Back in the ancient 1980’s, I had one of the bigger dump trucks, and a backhoe. The great thing about the dump truck was that I could sit in it and push myself around the house on it. It was also fun to ride down the driveway with, as our house was, well still is the only one on the block that was on an incline.
I had the Grader and the Dump truck. They were metal when I had them. It was early 80s. So it had to have been after that when they switched.
I loved those toys more than any others.
you can still sometimes get a real metal tonka truck from toysrus, usually a special christmas run. I actually still have my tonka dump truck and my digger thing…though the truck got painted green after it rusted baddly. many a breyer horse was ‘haulled’ in the tonka truck. now I think my dog uses it as as a frustrating food dish.
Tonka trucks ruled the world whe you were a kid. Big, durable and made of metal… what more do you need?
My brother used to get tonka trucks all the time,but when they started making them plastic, he quit getting them. He got the ones that are metal. He has the dump truck, front end loader, a mixer truck, and there was one other he has but I forgot what it’s called. Anyway, growing up we used to play with them for hours. They were pretty fun. I was always the dump truck. =D
My sister had–no, scratch that, probably still has in her room or the basement somewhere–a yellow Tonka trunk. I s’pose it would be a dump truck. Her’s was metal, she probably would’ve gotten it early 90s. I remember when i was little, I’d sit in it and push myself around backwards.
good thing it was metal, or I would’ve busted it. As it was, I think I bent the sides out a little when my butt started to get too big for sitting in it…..