Júlio Penela remembers perfectly the first injection mold made in the factory, a Beetle: “My uncle tells that it was a challenge launched by my grandfather, who wanted to make the car into a toy, and that it was a headache.” It was the 50s, in the family toys had been made since the 1920s but the Volkswagen bestseller marked a new era when the first plastic injection machine with levers was used to make exact replicas of the original cars – there were molds to serve as a reference.
“When the Renault 5 came out we wanted to make the car into a toy too,” continues Júlio, “and it was also a party when we succeeded. We’ve always been perfect. We’ve always been forced to understand everything, too. We’d wash our hands and go to the office.”
Júlio started working at the factory at age 16, today he is fifty and is the fourth generation at the head of a family business that began in 1921 and which a century later keeps
making taxis, jeeps, dogs with wheels, horns, cranes, scales and toy stoves, in plastic and tin.