Spain's Toy Empire: Rise and Fall

Spain Once Exported the Toys It Now Imports

There was a time when Spain did not import toys but exported them. According to the debate, Ibi, in Alicante, became the capital of plastic manufacturing, while Barcelona concentrated the brands that defined childhood for several generations. Montaplex, Geyper, Exin, Famosa, Congost, Borrás, Joal, Guisval, Payá. The list is long and today sounds like industrial archaeology. The starting point of the debate is uncomfortable: that industrial ecosystem grew and consolidated during the dictatorship, and those who champion it use it as a weapon against the present.

The thesis hovering over the entire conversation is that this was no accident. It was an industrial policy with tariffs, a protected domestic market, and a middle class beginning to buy. Dismantling it, they argue, was a decision.

From Ibi to Barcelona: Mapping Spain's Toy Industry

The core lay in the Levante region. Ibi, in Alicante, specialized in injection molding and reached a density of factories hard to imagine today. Barcelona provided scale, design, and internationally projected brands. From there, Exin placed Scalextric, Tente, Ibertren, Exin Castillos, and Exin West around the world.

Expansion did not stop at the peninsula. Exin peine a toy division in Mexico, and Mexicans eventually built their own factory, with catalogs and colors distinct from the Spanish ones. This material is now the most sought after by collectors. The history of Mexican toys, with its ecosystem of copies and local versions, is a separate chapter claimed here as part of the same legacy.

The most repeated detail concerns cross-licensing. Mattel entered Spain in 1975 seeking a foothold and chose Congost as its distributor. From this came the original Autocross and the Turbo, two versions of the same toy now kept as collector's items. Confusion over who copied whom is itself a symptom of how that market worked.

Why Did Spain's Toy Industry Disappear?

Here the diagnosis splits in two. One school attributes it to trade liberalization and the euro: with Asian wages, no tariffs, and rising labor and tax costs, competition was impossible. The calculation cited is stark: between social security, VAT, and fees, importing five containers of toys without these burdens is cheaper than manufacturing locally. The other school points to something simpler: children changed their toys. From Western forts and Scalextric, attention shifted to screens, and production moved offshore without anyone defending the sector.

What almost no one disputes is the result. The brands listed initially, almost all, no longer exist or survive only as memories. The footwear industry in the Levante suffered the same fate, a parallel echoed repeatedly in the discussion.

Toys as a Political Battleground

The topic quickly shifts to historical framing. For some, those years were an exception of prosperity built on repression and autarky; for others, proof that Spain could be self-sufficient and that Brussels and Segarro have turned it into something else. The argument heats up when mentioning the post-war period: gold reserves transfers and subsequent famine are recalled, countered by claims that the Republic's accounting offers no lessons.

One fact confuses both sides: Spanish toys were exported to Mexico when isolation was the narrative. Autarky was not absolute in the toy sector. And the consumer buying a Scalextric was not thinking about geopolitics.

What Remains of That Empire

Original boxes found in village attics remain, along with collectors paying high prices for Mexican variants and forums debating whether Congost's Autocross predates Mattel's. Above all, there is the realization that a country with low wages and medium technology can build an export industry if someone decides to protect it.

The question is not whether Spain can manufacture toys again. It is whether anyone wants to.