More Jean Vehicles

We have heard from our very good friend Andreas Dittmann about the Jean vehicles. He sent this information for us on the Jean vehicles
 “The so-called JEAN tanks were made during the early and mid seventies by the company Johann Hoefler. The boss of the company decided that his name was not “cool” enough for a company and decided to name his firm after the French version of his first name. “Johann” or “Johannes” is “Jean” in French. The Tanks are quite difficult to find due to two reasons: First they were made of hard plastic which did not easily survive the play actions of children, and second there came a law at the end of the seventies in Germany which did not allow anymore that war-toys were made and sold as toys. The only allowed exception from this rule were model kits. As a result of this new anti-war-toy-law ready made toy tanks were banned from the shops and became rare.
JEAN made four different tanks:
– the main battle tank Leopard 1A,
– the anti-aircraft tank Gepard,
– a tracked canon artillery (somehow like a M-109)
– a tracked rocket artillery (somehow like a “Screaming Mimi”)

So the four armored vehicles not really are all “tanks” in the meaning of the word. The first two types and the latter two had similar bodies but different turrets/weapons. The four AFV came in two colors green and tan. These were also the colors of the 60mm JEAN infantry figures. Another piece of JEAN´s army ensemble was a guard house (sentry box).

The tanks had a big play value due to wheels under their bodies so that they could move around quickly. I remember happy childhood hours playing with the artillery and the AA tank whose right barrel broke during fierce battles in the sand pit. Up to today I am still looking for a mint green Gepard.”

We thank Andreas for this information.