Keep on truckin'

What started as a thoughtful Christmas gift from mom when I was still in diapers turned into an ongoing holiday joke and eventually a collecting obsession. The Hess truck. I can't say I have a true passion for much—aside from rooting for the New York Football Giants—except for Hess trucks. Show me coins, stamps, antique vases from the Ming Dynasty, I'm not impressed. But roll out a vintage Hess tanker and I take notice.

As a youth, my brother and I would be gifted with that year's Hess truck, or perhaps more correctly, vehicle, on December 25th. Working headlights and hoses, the tankers were the perfect gifts for two boys to ram into one another until rendering them inoperable.

Years later, it became, “Mom, another Hess truck? Don't you think I've outgrown theses things?”

Years after that it became, “Cool, this year's is neat. Don't dent the box corners. That devalues the product.”

This holiday season the Hess truck celebrates its 40th anniversary with an SUV containing two motorcycles, 18 working lights and four independent shock absorbers and a SRP of $19.99. That's a far cry from the original 1964 tanker.

As the story goes, Hess Oil Company founder Leon Hess wanted to thank his loyal customers for their patronage and came up with the idea of a toy truck. But Hess was an oil man, not a toy manufacturer.

At a New York Jets Football game, Hess by chance struck up a conversation with a man seated behind him, who happened to be a toy manufacturer, Hess voiced his toy truck idea and the two were soon devising a prototype. Hess had one stipulation: the toy had to be high quality with elaborate detailing. That first prototype took three years to go from idea to an actual consumer product.

The first Hess truck launched in 1964 as an 18-wheeler tanker painted in the company's traditional dark green with white and yellow accents. It had a removable hose and working headlights and taillights. The price was a whopping $1.99.

As the holiday gift developed, Hess made his first departure from recreations of the company's fleet by offering a race car in 1988. Later models included a police car with flashing lights and siren, a truck with a helicopter with working rotary blades and lights, as well trucks carrying a space shuttle and airplane.

One thing that has held true throughout the 40 years of production is that Hess is not a toy company, thus the only place to find the toys has been at Hess retail outlets. While sales volume could dramatically increase if the products were sold though mainstream toy retailers, that has never been, and never will be, a Hess strategy.

“We maintain that we are an oil company, not a toy manufacturer,” says Jay Wilson, vice president of investor relations at the company. “We want our [toy] products to continue to be what Leon Hess wanted them to be: A family-oriented and affordable gift the entire family can enjoy. He wanted to do a fun thing for the family, for his customers, for the kids, and he succeeded at that.”

Now, 40 years after its debut, the company is still creating unique toy trucks and are as popular as ever.

While producing a yearly vehicle offering to the public may seem like a relatively simple task, the average research design and development averages about three years from start to finish. The items feature many working parts that make the products more hands-on than a typical vehicle, such as the first tanker truck, which could be filled with water and dispensed though working hoses.

“Three years would be a good, typical estimate [of the development process],” says Wilson. “But if you remember when we did the space shuttle a few years back [1999], we spent six years on that one product.”

That quality aspect of a Hess offering has created something of a cult following, turning basic vehicles into a collecting sensation (see sidebar for eBay search results.) Today collectors scour flea markets, garage sails and online auctions looking for prized specimens. Condition of a toys box, if it has been used much, and year of launch are concerns for someone looking to establish a quality Hess collection. The company, though distances itself from the collectible market.