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COMPANY HISTORY:
Since the foundation of Cyclops,
Peerless and other smaller wheeled toy manufacturers had, and were,
eating away the dominance of Lines Bros. (Tri-Ang) in the Australian
market, they realized the need to re‑establish themselves in
Australia, their aim was to either buy Cyclops or set up their own
manufacturing workshops. Import restrictions in the 1950's saw
their interest in Cyclops increase even greater and by 1951 had
acquired 49% interest in Cyclops although strong attempts were made
to fight off any amalgamation to merge with Lines by 1955 Lines
Bros. had acquired the remaining 59% in the company to become
Cyclops & Lines Bros. (Aust.) Ltd. As Cyclops was primarily a
pressed steel and wheeled toy factory, the Lines company sought to
buy an established plastic manufacturer to produce their British
made products such as Tri-ang Railways and Scalextrics etc. by the
late fifties they had achieved this through the purchase of the
Melbourne based company Moldex Ltd. now Lines Bros. wore ready for
their assault on the Australian market, and by the start of the
sixties there were twelve varieties of pedal cars available alone!
At their peak Lines Bros. was claimed to be the largest toy maker in
the world, product ranges included: rocking horses, doll houses
tinplate, die cast and plastic road vehicles, Pennybrix, Pedigree
Prams and dolls, Minic vehicles, Minix cars, Mininmodels, Model
land, Sindy, Wrenn Railways etc. etc. the list is just phenomenal
(oh and Pedal Cars) there were associated companies world wide
selling Tri-ang under their own brand names. The middle of 1971 came
the news of the financial collapse of Lines Bros. Fortunately for
the Australian operation of Cyclops Tri-ang, as it was then known,
Tube investments (T. I. Ltd.) purchased the group and so Cyclops
could continue business as usual.
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