Victor Bonnet was the first successor to Fernand Martin who started producing cars
He released a series of trucks named: Les Auto Transports that started with number 246
It was a “tip up truck”, the truck has an automatic tipping and driving mechanism.
This model was released in various colors, I have seen models in Yellow, green, gray, black and brown
The length is about 20 cm (7.9 Inches)
These models have a very advanced and ingenious engine, the start-stop part sits like a handle next to the driver’s steering wheel.
After winding, you can put the car on the ground and twist the lever, then it will drive, after a short time, the car will stop and the bucket will slowly move to the side to drop its load, and then the bucket will go back to the old position and the car starts moving again and everything repeats itself.
In the production years, the box has been changed a few times.
The first boxes only contain the production number No 246
Boxes are known to have a sticker added with the text Déverseur No 246
Later the label came with the text Déverseur No 246 printed as fixed on the label
And I found boxes with the text Le Déverseur No 246
The next two boxes has the same picture of the catalog site on the front, these catalog pictures usually had less information than the original box labels, are they original??
I’ve come across some of those boxes before.
On the inside on the bottom of the box an extra text sheet could have been applied to indicate the operation, this is found in two languages; in French and in English.
The text on the outside of the box is only found in French, also on the boxes with an English text sheet inside.
There are boxes contained with no text sheet inside but a separate manual with the (freely translated) text:
AUTO-LE DÉVERSEUR
OPERATION :
Reassembly… Put the Engine to Stop and turn; with the key to the right, making 10 half-turns.
Starting… Push forward the Crank which is to the left of the driver.
Stop… Bring the Crank to the rear which is to the left of the driver.
Direction … Bring, by pressure from top to bottom, the Joystick located at the front of the Hood, in one of the 3 notches. The walk in a circle is obtained by using the 2 notches on the left.
There are models without a text, models with a text on the side or back and models with a text in the inside of the loadig area, and when they have a text it was in French or in English
The various texts I found till now are:
The body has also been available in two variants, with an angular body and with a rounder body, the truck with the rounder body (I found them in de colors gray, black/gray and yellow), and has no texts on the body, only the brass plate on the bonnet.
From this version with the rounder body, I found one with a different nose/bonnet in the color: red body with a bleu loading area. This one has the nose/bonnet from trucks from the production after 1933 and on top of this nose/bonnet there is no longer the well-known brass nameplate.
So you can see that over the years this truck has had many different varieties.
Many Fernand Martin, George Flersheim and Victor Bonnet toys have sometimes been produced for many many years and have received many small adjustments or other colors over the years.