fall inside a hole

Car Transporter (1980)

 

The Car Transporter is a medium sized orange auto carrier car that includes two small cars and a rotating ramp. The ramp allows the cars to be "driven" up into the carrier and stored inside as well as on top of the carrier. The original 1980 packaging was a plastic bag with an illustrated yellow hanging tag that matched the style of some larger boxes at the time.

 

The cars are fairly simple mostly hollow shells with two axles with integrated wheels clipped into the bodies. The Car transporter could hold four in total, two on each level. A blue version of the auto carrier with yellow and red cars was also released in 1987 as part of the updated D51 with Light pack.

1980s auto carriers and their cars were made in Japan until the molding shifted to Thailand for the 1990 made in Thailand reissue of the D51 with Light. The All About Plarail book suggests the individual release went off sale in 1983 while the Plarail Museum says it was discontinued in 1987, but it still appears in the 1990 Plarail catalog. Either way, the individual orange release would not have been produced in Thailand.

Chassis were originally molded with Tomy and made in Japan with cars also being marked Japan underneath. The later Thailand-made versions made for the D-51 with Light were updated to say Thailand.

In 1989 the Play Wagon set included an updated single car carrier that was a mix between the even older flatbed car carrier and this more caged-in design.