Norev
Norev is a French manufacturer of diecast metal model cars. It has normally has produced modern and vintage European vehicles, especially French vehicles - though Italian, German, and American vehicles were also produced.
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Norev |
According to the official website, Norev was founded by the Veron brothers, in the suburb of Villeurbanne, near Lyon, France, in 1946 (Rixon 2005, p. 54). The name Norev was an anagram (a reversing of the letters) of the family name. Their first product was a small service garage with several plastic cars. Other products at the company's start were plastic toys for infants.
In 1953, the first vehicles manufactured were plastic and in 1:43 scale. They had colorful bodies and were notable for their red plastic hubs with white tires. Detail and proportion were very good and though the models lacked windows, they were very successful. Force's book (1991, pp. 164-235) shows that throughout the whole run of all Norev vehicles, without regard to scale or type, models were sequentially numbered from the first car as no. 1 in plastic (a Simca Aronde - 1953-1956) through no. 899 in zamac (a VW Golf Rally - 1984-1988) and beyond.
Through the 1950s the red hubs were replaced with silver and tires gradually became black (though some white tires were used until the late 1950s) and windows were added. In 1957, a 1:87 scale '500' series appeared, mostly these were the same models appearing in the 1:43 scale line.
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In 1961, Emile Veron of the Veron family started Majorette, a separate company, also in the Lyon area. This new smaller line of cars would be competition for Matchbox and Siku Toys.
