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Tomica (トミカ) is the line of die-cast toy vehicles and related products that Tomy Co. of Japan produces. This is not the same as Tomica World, which is a line of motorized trains and vehicles and accessories that Tomy Co. of UK produces since the late 1990’s. more...

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Tomica World motorized trains and track systems are based on Plarail, which is the brand of motorized toy trains that Tomy Co. of Japan produces since 1959, but Tomica World more heavily focuses on Thomas trains. However, the motorized vehicles of Tomica World are the same as Motor Tomica, which will be explained below. This article is about Tomica, not Tomica World.

History

Tomy Co. of Japan (referred to as “Tomy” for the rest of this article) was founded in the late 1920’s and produced various toys throughout its existence, but it’s not until 1970 when they realized the surge of interest in die-cast cars that they started to produce Tomica. Although Tomica of various scales have been made, the term “Tomica” when used alone refers to the 3-inch models. Regular Tomica refers to the mainstream Tomica sold at the regular price—domestic series, foreign series, or common series, depending on the time of release.

The Typical 3-Inch Tomica

Tomica Domestic Series (“Black Box”/“Red-and-White Box”)

Initially, Tomy only produced Japanese cars. This started out with the concurrent release of 6 models in 1970. The seventh model was issued later in 1970. From then on, the Tomica line grew in number until there was a total of 109 concurrently-sold models in 1978—no.1 – 108 plus no.110. The first no.109 model was proposed and seen in catalogue but was never realized. The variety of models also expanded from the initial coupes and saloons to taxis, buses, lorries, work vehicles and other commercial vehicles, to even steam engine and an ocean cruiser. As new models were issued, each was assigned a number within 1 to 110, thus replacing the existing model. The replaced model was called a discontinued model. In the early 1980’s, Tomy experienced financial difficulties. Subsequently, the domestic model line was down sized to only 80 models (no.1 – 80) in 1983. These models were mainly packaged picture. The boxes used a black background until 1984, and since then a red-and-white background. Hence, domestic models are commonly referred to the “black box”or “red-and-white Box”models depending on their boxes.

Tomica Foreign Series (“Blue-and-White Box”)

To share a piece of the toy car market in the other parts of the world, Tomy had great plans of exporting their models early on, and this was done starting in 1974 with the appearance of “Tomy Pocket Cars” in the United States of America. But as they found out, Japanese cars weren’t good sellers overseas, so Tomy started producing “foreign” models in 1976. These models included cars from countries outside of Japan and hence they’re “foreign” models. American, German, British, French, and cars from other countries could be found, making the Tomica product line more colourful. For the ones sold domestically in Japan, their packaging was equally colourful. Each foreign series car was packaged in a picture box that showed a flag of the country of that particular car. Since these boxes have the base colours of blue and white, they are also called the “blue-and-white box” models. At a single time, a total of 70 models were produced under the foreign line, numbered F1 to F70. The same rules for numbering domestic models apply here as well.