Steel Monsters in the 1987 Tonka Catalog
I first mentioned the Steel Monsters toys last year, and today I thought it would be fun to share Tonka’s 1987 catalog pages featuring the Steel Monsters series. A combination of 4-inch scale action figures and vehicles depicting a post-apocalyptic wasteland not unlike that in Mad Max and Car Wars, the Steel Monsters never did all that well and was pretty much dead within the first year of release.
These pages show off just how cool the toys looked, and I can honestly say that if I’d been aware of this line back in the eighties I would have chased down at least a few of the toys. Those brutal trucks and construction vehicles look great, and scanning over these pages makes me wonder just who owns these rights today. Tonka, which is now owned by Hasbro, or are the rights sitting somewhere lost and completely forgotten?
I remember thinking they seemed cheap as a kid. And that I didn’t care for the figures.
I had the Bomber vehicle when these came out back in the 80s. I loved the figures, solid molds and 5 points of articulation like the star wars figures made them easily compatible with SW or GI Joe.