our new bruder

My son recently acquired this excavator from Bruder.

I'm pretty impressed with this toy. It moves nicely, and I'm amazed at how realistic it is. It's made by German toy manufacturer Bruder Toys.

http://www.brudertoys.com/en/usa/

I'm completely fascinated by this company. This excavator came with a catalog of other construction, farm, and utility equipment that is 31 pages long. It goes far beyond the standard tractor-excavator-crane-fire truck selection you might expect and includes items like hay bale wrappers, logging trucks, and four-wheelers.

They also offer multiple choices for some of the more common equipment; for example, there are 34 different tractors, each a mini replica of an actual model. 34 tractors!! I love it. This is a toy company for the child (or adult?) who has delved deeply into their love of a particular piece of equipment and knows they don't want just any excavator, but a CAT excavator with wheels, not tracks, for example.

Being an engineer, I can really appreciate stuff like this. I love that this company has paid such attention to detail and placed such a high standard on creating toys that are realistic. Check out the description from their webpage about how they make the toys:

"BRUDER toy vehicles are developed and designed using state-of-the-art CAD computer applications and 3D design workstations before they are turned over to the in-house mould construction department. There, state-of-the-art CNC milling machines are used to make mould inserts and assemble the individual steel parts to form the total mould. Once the injection mould is complete, in-house plastic production is ready to begin. Our machine outfit includes approx. 70 CNC injection moulding machines. We use only plastics of the highest quality some of which are also used in the car industry. We collect the scrap plastics, recycle them and re-introduce them to the material flow in an effort to save resources and protect the environment."

Thanks, Bruder, for blowing my mind with your dedication to detail and obvious love of what you do!

Author's Note: The opinions in this post are solely my own. I received no incentive or compensation for writing this post.