Umex

Umex was an Austrian company that produced assembled plastic models of construction equipment from the 1960's to the 1980's (?). There were about a dozen models which were all accurate in scale. Almost every model was moulded in a bright yellow plastic with black detailparts and soft plastic tires. The Euclid truck and the Hamm rollers were also moulded in orange.

Ref#	Model	Colour
U301.25	Caterpillar 4-wheel tractor	yellow
U302.39	Caterpillar 4-wheel tractor (pictured in the wrong packing !)	yellow
U302.25	Caterpillar Traxcavator (pictured below)	yellow
U303.39	Caterpillar 16 grader	yellow
U304.39	Universal backhoe crawler	yellow
U305.39	Caterpillar D8 bulldozer	yellow
U306.39	Hamm roadroller	yellow / orange
U307.49	Universal crane truck	yellow
U308.59	Caterpillar 631A scraper	yellow
U309.59	Euclid R45 dumptruck	orange
U310.98	Construction crane	yellow
U311.29	Hamm tandem roadroller	yellow / orange
U312.49	Universal clamshell crawler	yellow
U313.??	Caterpillar grader	yellow
U314.??	Caterpillar 4-wheel scraper (for U301)	yellow

Umex and Roco seem to have cooperated in some way since the Cat grader was also available in military green in the Roco minitanks series during the 1960's. Eventually Umex disappeared from the market but three of the models were reissued by Roco (they probably bought the moulds) in 1982. There were some changes to the models but the imprint on the bottom still read Umex. The Roco models were all released in a dark yellow that resembled the original Caterpillar yellow. In 1988 the models also disappeared from the Roco catalogue.

1403 - Caterpillar 16 grader
1404 - Caterpillar 631A scraper
1405 - Caterpillar 630A tractor plus 482C scraper

In 1999 Puget Sound Casting began manufacturing an Umex copy, it appears to be a 'remould' in resin.

97013 - Euclid R45 Dumper