What happened to www.toytruckcollector.com that sold Lionel approved trucks?

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

Does anyone know the fate of www.toytruckcollector.com?

They created collectible Lionel items that you can see here:

http://www.tcamembers.org/articles/reviews/taylor/index.html

They were located at:

The Toy Truck Collector
117 Cedar Lane
Englewood, NJ 07631
201-816-1166 or outside of NJ 1-800-685-0333

Here's a couple of the items they sold:

http://www.tcamembers.org/articles/reviews/taylor/lt99s.jpg
http://www.tcamembers.org/articles/reviews/taylor/lt20s.jpg
http://www.tcamembers.org/articles/reviews/taylor/lt20cabs.jpg
http://www.tcamembers.org/articles/reviews/taylor/lt501s.jpg

Thanks,
Brad
2

There was a series of articles about their offerings and company history in OGR a few years ago. They’re apparently now defunct.

3

Toy Truck Collector (TTC) was, of course, the birthplace of the RMT “BEEPs”–at least as we know them today in their improved versions (similar, more crude models were produced much earlier by Kusan, and subsequently by Williams).

TTC’s first powered BEEP was one that was painted green and yellow, and lettered for Toy Truck Collector. I bought one of those when I first heard about them because years earlier I had a Williams version. I still have the TTC version, but now it’s only the shell because I used the powered chassis to a Lionel Lines BEEP. Turns out that TTC later offered a Lionel tractor-trailer rig fitted with a dummy Lionel Lines BEEP as a load. I bought one of those too; removed the shell from the dummy BEEP; placed it on the powered chassis, and that gave me a powered Lionel Lines BEEP. Never have used the truck itself, and it’s still in its box.

For one reason or another, Walter Matuch sometime later branched off on his own and began producing BEEPs under the RMT brand. We all know how successful those little critters became, and he’s still going strong with BEEPs, BUDDY RDCs, and the soon-to-arrive BEEF F-units and PEEP passenger cars.

In its day, TTC offered a very nice line of die-cast vehicles, and I’m not sure what, besides competition from places like Die-Cast Direct and others, that may have caused them to close-up shop.