Auburn Rubber Company
Major rubber toy producer known for vinyl vehicles and figures.
The Auburn Rubber Company made rubber products, but it is most remembered for its children's toys. It was likely the largest global manufacturer of rubber and vinyl toys, with major European competitors including Norway's Tomte Laerdal, Finland's Plasto, and Sweden's Galanite.
The company began in 1913 in Auburn, Indiana, as the Double Fabric Tire Company, initially producing tires for the Auburn Automobile Company. During the 1920s, it changed its name to Auburn Rubber Company, stopped making tires, and started new products like rubber sheets for shoe soles. In 1935, it began manufacturing rubber toys, including toy cars, trucks, tractors, and animals. Most vehicles were four to eight inches long and came in various colors. During World War II, the company made soles for combat boots and gaskets for jerry cans.
Toy vehicles came in many styles, models, and sizes, with fairly good proportion and detail for vinyl toys. The most famous were likely the four-inch models. Clever selections included a 1955 Thunderbird, a Triumph TR-2, a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL, a 1957 Ford Ranchero, and a Ford Model A-style hot rod. One sports car looked like a cross between a Cunningham and an Aston Martin. A convertible had fins and dagmar bullets resembling a Cadillac. Another sedan had Pontiac-like fins, a Kaiser Traveller front grille, and a forward-look Chrysler shape. Small utility and service vehicles were popular, such as a fire engine, a telephone truck with two ladders (looking like a Dodge), and a flatbed truck. Police cars (molded in blue) and fire chief cars (molded in red) resembled 1955 Chevrolets. A policeman on a Triumph single-cylinder motorcycle and a Harley three-wheeler were also popular. One clever vehicle was a boy molded in a waving position on a tricycle.
Models were simply constructed, typically with seven parts: the body, four wheels, and two metal axles with flared tips. Wheels were a harder vinyl, usually black or yellow. A popular coloring feature was sprayed-on silver for windows, grilles, bumpers, and other highlights. People's faces in bas-relief were often molded into car windows, with separate views from driver to passenger side. Entire torsos were molded into open interiors of convertibles or roadsters.
- Founded
- 1913 as Double Fabric Tire Company
- Location
- Auburn, Indiana
- Name change
- 1920s to Auburn Rubber Company
- Toy production began
- 1935
- Company sold
- 1959
- Deming plant closed
- 1969
- Toys available through
- early 1970s
Lore & Background
The company began as the Double Fabric Tire Company in Auburn, Indiana, in 1913, making tires for the Auburn Automobile Company. In the 1920s it was renamed the Auburn Rubber Company and phased out tire production, introducing rubber sheets for shoe soles. Toy manufacturing started in 1935, producing a variety of toy cars, trucks, tractors, and animals, most four to eight inches long and cast in multiple colors. During World War II the company continued making soles for combat boots and gaskets for jerry cans.
Toy vehicles were simply constructed, typically with seven parts: a body, four wheels, and two metal axles with flared tips. Wheels were a slightly harder vinyl, usually black or yellow. A popular feature was sprayed-on silver coatings for windows, grilles, and bumpers. People's faces in bas-relief were often molded into car windows, and entire torsos appeared in open interiors of convertibles. Vehicles were shipped and sold clumped together in a single box, not individually packaged.
Larger toys ranged from about five to ten inches, including an Indianapolis-style open wheel racer, a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, and a 1955 Plymouth station wagon airport limousine with nine people molded into the windows. Utility vehicles included a detailed fire truck, tractors, a road grader, and an articulated cab and stake bed truck. Other toys included an antique wagon with horses, toy soldiers, cowboys, trees, farm animals, and a life-sized horseshoe game labeled as Auburn 'safe play' toys.
Reader's Guide
Auburn Rubber's significance lies in its scale and the distinctive character of its toy vehicles. As probably the world's largest producer of rubber and vinyl toys, it supplied a vast range of affordable playthings for decades. The vehicles, though simply constructed, showed clever design choices—such as the 1955 Thunderbird, Triumph TR-2, and the famous Ford Model A-style Hot Rod. The use of bas-relief faces and torsos in windows and interiors gave the toys a unique, almost narrative quality. The company's legacy is also marked by its unusual corporate history: sold in 1959, its dies were moved to Deming, New Mexico, in a transaction later cited as an example of organized crime's penetration of legitimate business. The Deming plant closed in 1969, but toys remained in stores into the early 1970s. Today, the Deming-produced toys are the most commonly found Auburn Rubber products at flea markets and online, representing a tangible link to a mid-century toy phenomenon that blended rubber manufacturing with popular automotive culture.
Did You Know?
- The company originally made tires for the Auburn Automobile Company.
- Toy vehicles were typically made of only seven parts: body, four wheels, and two metal axles.
- A life-sized horseshoe game was marketed as Auburn 'safe play' toys because the rubber horseshoes did less damage when hitting someone.
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