Welcome to the dinky toy garage

Denzil collected dinky toys in his youth.

I did not have dinky cars growing up.

I had only one dinky toy growing up. It was a die-cast lorry. I played with it the whole day. Dinky cars were a luxury many could not afford in Sri Lanka.

I did not think much of dinky cars again until later.

My childhood fascination with dinky cars erupted again when I saw them in toy stores in Dubai. In my early twenties as a young man, I was late to the party to play with dinky cars. I started acquiring them to make up for my lost time.

Why vintage area models?

The supreme era of automobiles occurred from the 1920s to about the 1940s. The models from that era are exclusively detailed and beautifully made. They were colourful and had distinct features, strong characteristics, shapes, and detailed wheels. Pieces of art. They are snapshots of history from a bygone era.

I have 18 vintage models.

I have a range of models, passenger cars, racing cars, trucks, lorries, utility vehicles, buses, tow trucks and ambulances in my collection. All of them are from that ace manufacturer of dinky cars, Matchbox from the U.K.

How did you get them in Dubai?

I got them from one of the largest toy stores in Dubai, part of a chain of toy stores in the U.K. My friend from my teen years, Keith Bocks, who worked there, helped me to collect them, a few at a time.

It is interesting how cars have changed over the years.

Yes. I grew up in the late sixties and seventies, fifty years after Henry Ford introduced the first mass-market car, the famous Model T. Transportation was never going to be the same from then onwards. More than a century later, we have autonomous and electric cars. Self-driving cars will be the norm in a few short years.

How old is your collection of Matchbox cars?

They are over 40 years old now. They are so well made; one could never guess they were made nearly a half-century ago. My collection has traversed three continents; made in the U.K., bought and collected in Dubai and now secured in Australia.

What are their brands?

Some of these brands exist today. Ferrari, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, Bugatti, Ford, Renault, Hispano Suiza, British Leyland, Packard Victoria, Yorkshire, Crosley, and Mack Trucks.

What do you plan to do with your historic collection?

They are for my descendants, particularly my grandchildren and the future generations. I hope one day, they would marvel at such a beautifully crafted set of vehicles made in the early 1900s and cherish them.

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