355 ‘Tioxide’ Lunar Rover

There’s an interesting  version of the 355 Lunar Rover on eBay at present (Buy It Now listing ends 28th April 2019).  It’s the ‘Tioxide Paints’ version and priced at £225 – not cheap but they are pretty rare.

But it was not just the Lunar Rover or even Dinky that only caught the marketing people at Tioxide Paints’ eye. A Corgi Concorde and a Spot-On Land Rover were also branded with Tioxide. I am led to  understand that all three toy companies provided unpainted models to the firm who then coated them with a Tioxide based paint (the Tioxide bit is a whitening chemical and still used today) and stickers, and this done was around 1967/68.

There were only a few models produced for senior managers and favoured clients.