| It’s Thursday night and everyone about to head for dinner, but there are chores to deal with like preparing the rubbish bins for Friday morning. It is a normal routine for most western countries like Australia that there’s a scheduled pick-up for the rubbish on a daily basis and those were the regular routine.
But Friday morning you’ll never notice but the whole neighborhood had all their rubbish set-up at their driveway. If you’re not paying attention that much you won’t even bother, but for the curious it’s like watching a wildlife documentary. |
Of course, for most western world that has a well-organized city, which coordinates with an efficient sanitation firm this comes pretty much common. But if you’re in Asia particularly in the Philippines collecting rubbish is different. You don’t see a garbage truck speeding to pick off each rubbish bin with a side arm. But an overly manned garbage truck that takes too much time than being efficient.
In a busy city efficiency in collecting rubbish is always a priority and there’s not much appreciation for this type of vehicle. But in diecast form it has been adapted several times even Tonka has a fair share of garbage trucks in the past that invites curiosity and fun for kids. This one though has more play value due to its target demographic.
These days that’s a rarity to find children who would bother to watch a garbage truck arrive in their driveway with an extending side arm to get their parent’s rubbish hauled on whim and at the same time leave them excited with that type of technology.
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Diecast Big Rigs | Garbage Truck
Tonka is popularly known for producing trucks and other types of service vehicles based from real life, which was their bread and butter for almost seventy five years. Those were the diecast of old that would become highly collectible today. But that doesn’t mean the brand is focused on producing collectibles for the kids who grew up with them. The brand's rebirth focused on the heritage of Tonka's early years for the reason the aesthetics is carried over into today's brand.
They are still a kid-centric brand and Funrise is leading the way in continuing that heritage even though Hasbro owns the rights after acquiring them in 1991 including the rights for the Gobots toyline. Funrise has started producing new Tonka trucks in 2011 and also reissued three of its iconics and popular diecast big rigs.
Although this Side Arm Garbage truck is considered a Big Rig it is part of an entirely new range of diecast trucks that is more scaled close to 1:64, but not entirely accurate as what you’d expect and it is packaged in a blister card with a cross sell of other featured trucks of the same series.
Moving Parts | Side Arm & Rear Door
The Side Arm Garbage Truck is unique to the Big Rigs range as there are other trucks being offered that is entirely tractor heads with different types of trailers from transporting wooden logs to tanker trailer trucks that is the most you’ll find that is common with the Big Rigs Range.
What you can’t find in the other trucks in this range is how simple and yet unique the Side Arm Garbage Truck for the reason it is the one that gets sold out. It is not based on any existing license truck, but it has the sharp edge of an Iveco service vehicle.
This Garbage Truck has moving parts too like the Side Arm that goes up and down, but that doesn’t extend to reach for the bin that is already attached to the arm. In real life the side arm, which is the signature for this truck folds on its side like a robot arm after it reaches the bin and dumps the rubbish to the open side.
Due to production cost and since this series is targeted to a younger demographic Funrise has to simplify the side arm function by eliminating the open side, where the rubbish is being dumped. This makes the side arm only do a limited function of going up and down without the ability to extend. It is understandable why it was done for this since this was not made for collectors in mind.
Scale | Diecast Comparison
Besides the simplification of limiting the side arm function and only have the back part with an opening door to also save cost not to include truck interiors. You can only see solid grey windows due to that this was produced to have child safety features in mind to eliminate small objects that may harm younger children.
Although not being detailed it is still in a big scale if you compare it to other brands that are more focused with the 1:64 size scales. It kind of works to see the Side Arm Garbage Truck to be realistic side-by-side with a van or even a hummer since they are actually full scale trucks that haul a lot of garbage that they pick up in each suburb.
Overall the Side Arm Garbage Trucks has good and not-so good points in terms of detail as it sacrificed them for more child safety as this was not made for collectors, but to younger demographic eliminating the interiors, details side arm, and that also including the hole where the rubbish gets stored. But it includes an opening rear door to teach kids where the rubbish is being collected as this can also be an education toy.
Though they sacrificed all the important details Funrise was not stingy on the quality aesthetics of the garbage truck from detailed rims and tires to the colors that more like based from Adelaide, South Australia’s Solo Resource Recovery livery that has the primary colors of green and white.
Tonka Big Rigs: Side Arm Garbage Truck was manufactured by Funrise underlicensed from Hasbro and sold on retail in the Philippines for ₱499.75 Pesos ($14.57 AUD | $9.82 USD**) and this was acquired on clearance at Toys R’ US for ₱250.00 Pesos ($7.29 AUD | $4.91 USD**), which is distributed by Bankee Trading.
This was sold in Australia retailed at $10.00 AUD (₱343.28 | $6.75 USD) sighted being sold at Big W in Adelaide.
** - Currency converter
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