I.D. Guide

Identifying production years for NZ made Tonka’s is not as straight forward as their USA made cousins. With the USA ones it is very easy to narrow a toy down to a 1-3 year period. For the NZ made toys the best we can do is narrow this down to 2 periods, 1964-1968 and 1968-1972.

• The Standard sized toys for the 1964-1968 period have been dubbed Gen1
• The Standard sized toys for the 1968-1972 period have been dubbed Gen2
• There is a crossover as both include 1968, you can find toys with Gen1 cabs but Gen2 stickers or hubcaps.

Therefore there is no real hard or fast rules when it comes to restoring trucks perfectly correctly, in fact, when it comes to NZ made Tonka’s, perfect is usually wrong!

Below is a bit of a guide to help you narrow things down so you know what parts will at least fit your truck.

If you need any further help or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch using the form at the bottom of the page.

Check any stickers for a start, if any of them say New Zealand (or you have the Oil Bearing sticker) then you know it’s NZ made.

No stickers? Then check the wheels, they might have Tonka NZ on them too.

Next is to check the dash in the cab, if the longer “steering wheel” tab is on the right side then it is a NZ Tonka.

Other tell tales are the use of pop rivets and colours not used in USA.

Please note, early NZ made Tonka’s still used the Mound Minn door decal. So it is possible to have a NZ Tonka with USA decals.

Gen1 trucks use the USA 62-64 cab but with the 61 grill and bumper. This combination of parts is unique to Tonka NZ. It’ll also be right hand drive. The pressing often looks more rounded than its USA cousins due to NZ using old dies sent over from USA. Gen1 trucks can be found with Mound Minn stickers and on the very odd occasion even NZ Gen2 stickers. Pumpers will have pop rivets holding the hose/ladder racks on and will also have a flat tray floor as opposed to having ribs like the USA ones. They may also have Tonka Tonka whitewalls or even Tonka Toys USA script whitewalls. Things were a bit messy at the start!

Gen2 trucks use the USA 65-67 cab and grill with the only difference being right hand drive. Again the pressing is usually a bit more rounded due to the older dies. Gen2 trucks can be found with Gen1 stickers also. Hence both Gen1 and Gen2 including 1968. Gen2 trucks usually always have Tonka NZ whitewalls. Pop rivets are now rarely seen at all.

NZ Mighty Tonka’s are different again. The big give away here is in the cab. The area in front of the exhausts is dead flat (pictured), no pressed “vents” like the USA ones. The orange/yellow colour combo is NZ only. NZ Mighty Tonka usually have the Gen2 logo on the front, with a few exceptions. The “Under Licence” sticker can be found on earlier ones also.

NZ Mini Tonka will sometimes have Tonka NZ tyre walls, NZ stickers or be a unique colour.

NZ Tiny Tonka’s usually have either of the Tonka New Zealand logo stickers depending on age. They may also have what look like melted wheels/tyres. This is often thought to be excessive glue and poor manufacturing. However, it is actually a chemical reaction between the 2 plastics. It is evident in a few USA made trucks but most of the problematic parts were tossed or sent down here to NZ. Again, colour combo’s not seen anywhere else are also present.

Crazy A’s hotrods look the same as the USA ones with the only changes being a blue Tonka New Zealand sticker and “NZ MADE” stamped into the plastic under the running boards. They may also suffer from the wheel melt mentioned earlier. There is one Crazy A that is unique to NZ, that is the white “Rat-A-Tat-Tat”.

NZ Scramblers are very similar to the USA ones. The major difference was that they had no stickers applied at the factory. Instead they were packaged with a sticker sheet so the kids could customise them however they pleased. Very hard to ID as an NZ toy as there are no other NZ markings on them. If it has stickers that do not match the USA cars then chances are it is an NZ one.