Tonka toy truck collectors enjoy arguing over whether or not Tonka ever had a research and development division during its formative years from roughly 1950 through 1955. Art Morby believes the company did, and he has one of the division’s trucks to prove it.
Lynn Baker, Avery Crounse and Alvin Tesch founded Mound Metalcraft in 1946 in Mound, Minn. Intending to manufacture garden implements, Mound Metalcraft purchased both the building and tooling from the E.C. Streater Company, believing the production of toy trucks might make a good sideline. Soon, Mound Metalcraft was manufacturing trucks full time. In November 1955, Mound Metalcraft changed its name to Tonka Toys Inc., taking the name from a Dakota Sioux word that meant “great” or “big.” And Tonka trucks lived up to their name. At its peak, Tonka made 325,000 toys a week and employed more than 2,000 workers.
“Tonka only had three ‘scales,’” Art Morby said. “They were regular size, mini size and mighty size. While I like all of them, regular size seemed to best represent the Tonka name.”
Art, who lives in rural Galena, Ill., purchased his first Tonka in 2005 in Dyersville, Iowa. “My wife, Dawn, and I have visited the summer and fall toy shows for as long as I can remember—probably 30 years or more,” Art said. “I purchased my first Tonka, a 1961 white wrecker, at one of these shows. The wrecker was a regular Tonka production toy for 1961. The wrecker was, as I later learned, a square body or generic style because of the hood design. It also had a reinforced front frame and rear trailer hitch, which were all part of the stamped design frame. It’s actually possible to trace the Tonka wrecker’s design progress by careful observation. Starting around 1949, the wrecker/tow truck would take on many design changes, from the cabover to the round nose to the generic hood and then to the generic-style side. All were quite different.”
It is this “different” design and obvious evolution of Tonka trucks that has led Art to believe the company had an active research and development department, even in its earliest years.

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The entrepreneurial spirit thrives throughout the world. However, that spirit was stifled in Romania during the communist reign of Nicolae Ceausescu. But Dan Silvestru of Ploiesti, Romania, had a grand vision. 
“It was impossible to have your own business when communism ruled. Small clubs gathered to create handmade scratch models. Plastic kits were extremely rare. A few trickled in from the Czech Republic and former East Germany. During this time, my vision for making models never left me. After Ceausescu was overthrown and communism was eliminated, it was easy to start your own business,” Dan reflected. 
While other entrepreneurs had their priorities, Dan was the first to launch a model business in Romania. And now, others have followed as they learned from his successes. 
“I consider myself a really passionate and nonconformist model craftsman. My profession is designing. I started young; scratch building model military vehicles using unconventional materials. Kits to build models were unavailable in Romania before the revolution when Ceausescu was taken out of power in December of 1989. A few years after the revolution, I started building conversions for a hobbyist from France. Through this experience, I discovered new materials, tools, paints and documentation that elevated my work to a higher quality,” Dan elaborated.
With this experience, Dan’s vision for building models began to formulate. He shared that progression, “In 1995, I convinced a businessman to provide the financial needs to launch my vision. This monetary assistance set my dream of building resin models into action. After several months of research and trial runs, I managed to start the production process.”
During 1996, he discovered many talented people and created affiliations  with model builders with a like mind. It was also in 1996 that he attended the Nuremberg, Germany, Toy Fair for the first time, which helped him create more contacts. 
“That original financial backer had unrealistic demands for sales. In addition, I lacked the business experience needed to run a business. Consequently, I was forced to stop the business and regroup,” Dan shared. While these setbacks were discouraging at the time, Dan readily admitted, “They were valuable learning experiences.”