Scooters by Dalia of Spain
Andrew Ralston makes the move to two wheels and dons his Parka.
For over forty years since it started making toys in France, in the 1930s, Solido of France maintained a link with a Spanish partner, Dalia of Barcelona, which allowed the majority of Solido products to be produced in Spain. The colours were often different, and the boxes and bases of the models carried the Dalia name, but the vehicles were made from the same tooling, the one exception being that quintessentially Spanish car of the sixties, the SEAT 1400/1500 saloon, which did not appear in the French range. This was produced in a number of Spanish liveries, notably in the distinctive colours of Barcelona and Madrid taxis, and we examined these in a previous issue.
However, working closely with Solido did not preclude similar arrangements with other firms and, from 1957 onwards, a series of 1/32 scale Vespa and Lambretta scooters appeared, based on models from Mercury of Italy. Spain, at that time, was a less developed industrial economy than other European countries and it was only when the Fiat 600 began to be mass-produced as the Seat 600 that car ownership started to become a possibility for ordinary people. Until then, many people used scooters and these were also fitted with sidecars or a carrying platform at the front for making deliveries. Described on the boxes as “motocarros”, these provided Dalia with a fertile source of subjects to model.
Dalia made some minor modifications to the Mercury models in the course of production. For example, plastic seats and a spare wheel were added to the Vespa, and the headlamp moved higher up onto the handlebars. Similarly, there are two Lambrettas, the thinner front of the Lambretta B making it look significantly different from the
Lambretta A. Both Vespa and Lambretta can be found with a sidecar.
The biggest difference compared to Mercury is that Dalia produced the scooters in many more permutations and livery variations. In some cases, a logo is applied as on the black “Policia” Vespas, the yellow Vespas with the markings of “Obras Publicas” (Department of Transportation and Public Works) or the red and white Lambrettas in Coca-Cola livery.
The three-wheeled carriers are typical of their era, well suited to negotiating their way through narrow urban streets. The large tray in front of the rider offered Dalia plenty of scope for different loads - orange plastic canisters of 'Butano' gas, oil drums, barrels or six crates with bottles. Even these come in different forms - clear for mineral water, red for wine, and white for milk, in addition to what might have been the most popular with youngsters, Coca-Cola.
These are finely cast and well-detailed models, and their construction is quite complex for their time. On the Vespa pictured, the sidecar is attached to the scooter by a locating pin, and the makers have gone to the trouble of giving it a tinplate base, with a painted floor. There are no identifying inscriptions, so you need the box to establish that it is a Dalia.
French Solido expert, Bertrand Azema, covers the Dalia issues in detail in a chapter of his authoritative book Jouets Solido, 19321957, published some thirty years ago and he lists more than forty different variations of the Dalia Vespas and Lambrettas. Unfortunately, they rarely turn up in the UK, even at specialist auctions.