in 1961, strombeck-becker, later abbreviated to 'strombecker' was a hobby company purchased by dowst / tootsietoy (strombecker 2004). strombecker had previously made popular plastic models mainly for slot-car racing — and continued to do so, but by the end of the 1960s the slot-car niche had largely run its course (strombecker 2004). later, plastic as well as die-cast toys were identified with both names as "tootsietoy-strombecker". the name tootsietoy was often applied to larger, but fairly realistic plastic cars and trucks through the 1990s, but some die-cast were also still made like the hardbody series in matchbox size and slightly larger than 1:43 scale.