Tekstvak: TOMY Tomy as a licensee was transferred to the international division in 1978. Our vice-president of marketing Richard Wadsworth serviced the Japanese market. In the overall product presentation Tomy followed the international approach, based on our philosophy “THE CLOSEST THING TO REAL RACING” In the 1978 international catalogue we see for the first time a reference to Tomy. A picture of HERO SUGIMOTO together with MARIO ANDRETTI In 1984 after the disaster in the US we were working on a restart of Aurora based on the success of the European organization. The banks supported the plans and we had already a deal with the receiver in Singapore,Mr. Rawlings about the purchase of the molds and the inventory. However a US group of investors, headed by the former in house attorney of Aurora,Barry Pielse offered a higher price to the Canadian receiver for the patent and trademarks. Molds were useless without patents and trademarks, so we cancelled the deal with the receiver in Singapore. Barry Pielse sold the intangibles to Tomy. They wanted to keep the product line for the Japanese market in their competition against Bandai, despite the fact that volumes in the Japanese market were rather limited. During the 1984 Paris toy show I tried very hard to offer the European organization and know-how to Tomy, but they were unable to make a fit with there existing two European affiliates. In my opinion not a very wise decision as we had the knowledge how to handle the European hobby market and the link between hobby and real racing. Two years later Tomy tried to make a come-back in Europe with AFX, but the market had disappeared to video games and Tyco. The first two pages of the 1986 TOMY catalogue was a contribution to the old AURORA Tekstvak: THE AURORA AFX STORE On our site we have shown several AFX items, specially made for the international markets. In our ebay store we will offer some of these special items for sale. Of course together with other special AFX items. Comments (and compliments)how to improve our site are also appreciated. Tekstvak:

Dutch AFX Racing Center

 

 Han van den Berg

Albert Driessen

 

Telephone:

 

 +31321848143

 

Fax:

 

 +31321848143

 

E-mail:

 

  aurora.afx@chello.nl

 

 

 

Contact: