|
Jouef are a long established toy firm in France. They were founded in 1944 by Georges Huard, who previously made plastic kitchen utensils. The company began by making tinplate toys such as boats and cars but the first train they made was a railcar "Alger - Timbouctou" (Algiers to Timbuktu) in 1949. It was an African-liveried railcar with lithographed sides but was a very toy-like object, with an elastic band drive. This was replaced by a clockwork version after about 18 months. The scale was believed to be 7mm / foot i.e. 'O' gauge. In the early 1950`s HO scale production started and later included the ubiquitous 0-4-0 tank in both clockwork and electric, a small diesel loco and various primitive wagons and short coaches in HO in both metal and plastic. From 1955 the famous 'Sud-Express' set was introduced. In the early 1960's Jouef produced models for Playcraft/Mettoy and introduced them into the UK. The range included some British prototypes but was HO rather than OO gauge (3.5 mm/ft rather than 4mm/ft) which meant that it was not very popular in a country brought up on 4 mm scale. Jouef's range of trains expanded rapidly towards the end of the 1970's and into the 1980's. They marketed a considerable range of models including examples of most of the European railways. The standard of their models improved dramatically during this period and they produced some exquisite items. However they were never considered in the same light as, say Märklin or Fleischmann. Jouef bought the Egger-Bahn narrow gauge
(009) range in 1967 to add to
their own Decauville models but this finished in 1973/4 although
Egger-Bahn
itself was revived much later.
They suffered several financial crises over
the years and following a takeover ended up in the the Rivarossi group,
which also includes Lima and Arnold. Their original factory was at:
The factory was closed in September 2001 and all production was to transferred to the Rivarossi factory in Isola Vicentina near Vincenza with the administration HQ at Brescia, Italy. However Jouef models were confined to the toy end of the market but some of the range was sold under Lima and Rivarossi branding. In December 2004 Hornby announced that it had completed the acquisition of certain assets of Lima S.p.A. Hornby is planning to re-locate the manufacturing and
assembly of the Lima & Jouef products to China. Hornby has managed the
outsourcing of its own manufacturing and assembly processes to China
successfully over recent years. Several shops still sold the Jouef range until 2004 and remarkably a number of items from the early 1970's were still produced until recently. |