EditLouis Marx
1955 Louis Marx Time Magazine Cover
Marx's toys included tinplate buildings, tin toys, toy soldiers, playsets, toy dinosaurs, mechanical toys, toy guns, action figures, dolls, dollhouses, toy cars, and HO scale slot cars and trains, as well as O scale toy trains. Marx's less-expensive toys were extremely common in dime stores, and its larger, costlier toys were staples for catalog retailers such as Sears and Montgomery Ward, especially around Christmas. Although the company is now largely forgotten except by toy collectors, several of its toys remain well known. Rock'em Sock'em Robots, introduced in the 1960s, remained popular for years and has been reintroduced by several different companies. Its last hurrah was the Big Wheel ride-on pedal toy, which was introduced in 1969 and became one of the most popular toys of the 1970s.
EditLouis Marx Slot Cars
The Louis Marx company involved itself in slot car racing by means of collaboration with Sears department stores. They built very basic, fair quality sets packaged in low quality corrugated cardboard boxes. The cars weren't very attractive and lacked the detail found in competing sets from Monogram, Cox, Revell, etc. Inspired by Scalextric’s, most of the sets were in 1:32 scale. However, with their competitive pricing, they sold quite well. Several track configurations and even different scales were used, including HO.
In 1966, they introduced a few 1:24 sets with a revised track system. These sets typically included a Chaparral II and Ferrari GTO, which was an unlikely pairing in real life racing. Notably, the track system's redesign included wider track spacing for a 1:24 scale, deeper slots for commercial style guide flags - some were even wired for brakes!
The slot cars themselves included an inline steel chassis with a sprung drop arm and were powered by the latest
Mabuchi FT16D Motor painted mustard yellow with black endbells. The bodies had crude detailing and were simply clear coated in lieu of paint. A full decal sheet was typically included.
A “Trak-Pak” was also available, the black plastic case containing a controller, spare tires and a huge bottle of oil, enough for at least ten years of serious racing. These sets sold well because of low price, and can be easily found today.
Many body styles were available, including a Jaguar,
Mercedes 300SL convertible, Maserati T61, a Ferrari TR, a 250GT and several Indianapolis cars. The first were sold in cream-color boxes, with later slot cars available in clear plastic boxes with card inserts. They also made some slightly smaller cars, notably an Aston Martin DBR1 and a Lister-Jaguar, which could only be found in slot car racing sets.
EditAurora Acquires Louis Marx
In 1972, Marx sold his company to the Quaker Oats Company for $54 million ($246 Mil. in 2005 dollars) and retired at the age of 76. Quaker owned the Fisher-Price brand, but struggled with Marx. Quaker had hoped Marx and Fisher-Price would have synergy, but the companies' sales patterns were too different. Marx has also been faulted for largely ignoring the trend towards electronic toys in the early 1970s. In late 1975, Quaker closed the plants in Erie and Girard, and in early 1976, Quaker sold its struggling Marx division to the British conglomerate Dunbee-Combex-Marx, who had bought the former Marx UK subsidiary in 1967.
A downturn in the British economy in conjunction with high interest rates caused Dunbee-Combex-Marx to struggle, and these unfavorable market conditions caused a number of British toy manufacturers, including Dunbee-Combex-Marx, to collapse. By 1978 the Marx brand disappeared, and Dunbee-Combex-Marx filed for bankruptcy and was liquidated in 1980. The Marx assets were then liquidated, with many of the patents and molds going to Mego Corporation, another famous maker of dime store toys, and a large number of them going to Canadian toy maker
Aurora Plastics Corrporation.
EditLouis Marx HO Slot Car Ad
EditLouis Marx Slot Cars Parts and Accessories