Majorette

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the dancers and performers, see Majorettes

Majorette is a French toy manufacturer which mostly produces small die-cast cars, particularly in 1:64 scale.

1 History
2 Design
3 Majo-kit
4 Majorette Today
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Founded in 1961 by Emile Véron, Majorette became the first French manufacturer of miniature cars. Since then, the company has produced a significant number of licensed vehicles, focusing especially in everyday cars, and French models in particular.

Besides their important domestic presence, through large commercial channels, Majorette relies also in sales to foreign markets. In 1982 Majorette USA was established in Miami, United States, creating a niche that still remains.

[edit] Design

Two heavily played with Majorette cars, a Citroën Acadiane and a Mazda RX-7.

Over the years, Majorette has changed to adapt, with mixed results.

By the 1970s, they had established a reputation of making detailed, heavy cars of good quality, and incorporating features like opening doors and hoods, translucent plastic parts, and a characteristic suspension system.

Towards the 1980s, as a marketing strategy, the design was geared to emphasize the toy appeal of the cars. This included brighter paints, large tampos and slightly exaggerated bodies. However, this was well executed, and even if the cars lost some realism, they gained a particular, attractive styling.

The next decade brought financial troubles, which had a tremendous impact in the quality of the miniatures. After bankruptcy and a takeover, production was relocated to Thailand. But not only did the cars lose the proud 'Made in France' at their base; actually, the shiny metal base itself was missing from new models, replaced by ordinary black plastic, a solution previously deemed proper for lesser brands. The loss was not only visual or tactile: the Majorettes lost their characteristic weight, which gave them consistence and body.

Fortunately, the rest of the old Majorettes are still there. Entering the 2000s, new batches of good castings have been introduced, as well as a new image facelift that included a modified logo, and a toning down of the aesthetics of the '80s and '90s, in touch with the automobile industry's trend of using deep, metallic paints. Despite some occasional poor paint choices, and an intriguing fixation with the silver grey, the style change has been successful.

Mini Cooper Cabrio. Majorette 2005

[edit] Majo-kit

During the 1980s and 1990s Majorette made play sets called Majo-kit. Majo-kits came with plastic pavement pieces that locked together to form the streets of a town. The pieces came in straight pieces, inner corner pieces, outer corner pieces and straight pieces that could be used as parking spaces. Each piece had at least one hole on it where objects such as traffic signs, street lights, parking meters, rubbish bins, flowers and even buildings could be inserted. Some sets would include one or more Majorette car and other sets included figurines that could be played with in the city. The sizes of the Majo-kit, Majorette cars and the figurines were all out of proportion with each other but this didn't usually bother children.

[edit] Majorette Today

Nowadays, Majorette is owned by Smoby, and the 200 line continues to be made in Thailand. The distribution of Majorette via major retailers has been limited mainly to Europe, South America and Asia. New models are usually released later than originally expected. For instance, models such as the Nissan Murano, Fiat Panda and Mercedes-Benz SLK were due to be released in 2005, but they weren't until Autumn 2006. Instead, only 3 models due to be released in 2005 actually made it onto the market, and they were very hard to find. Somewhat ironically, the first sights of new models come from places like Chile, Spain and Japan long before they show up in France.