The Base Toys range of OO scale road vehicles originally started in 2007 with a mixture of both car and lorry models, all the models are plastic mouldings although the lorries do have a metal chassis.

Initially all the lorries were produced in plain unbranded liveries, a number of different cabs covering the period from the 1940's to 1990's were produced along with a range of different bodywork and axle layouts.

Since September 2007 the range has been enhanced with a growing focus on lorries carry more complicated livery applications used by a number of well known British operators and brands. British Road Services & British Railways liveries have both featured in high numbers, perhaps reflecting the attraction of these models to those with an interest in model railways.

These more detailed models also adopted a new catalogue number series which saw all the models issued with a D prefix number and saw the end of the somewhat haphazard system used for the earlier releases.
A further enhancement introduced in late 2010 was the inclusion of loads with some of the models. Ten of these loads were also made available as sperate items and it seems likely that the range will see further expansion in the future.

A range of eight cars was also produced in the early days but no further new models have been added to this side of the range for several years now, the growing range of more detailed die-cast models now available from both Oxford & Classix Pocketbond may have something to do with this. Most of the Base Toys cars have been produced in plain colours, but a number of police cars and a London Transport traffic control Ford Cortina were was produced.

Several of the Base Toys models were re-issued in June 2008 in the Bachmann Scenecraft range, the early releases were identical to the Base Toys originals with the only difference being the Bachmann branded card sleeve and different product codes. During 2010 a further list of models was published by Bachmann and these appear to be totally original models based on the existing Base Toys tooling. To date none of these have been released however.

In August 2011 Base Toys announced it was to change it's trading name to B T Models and would also be expanding it's range of plastic bodied models with the introduction of a Duple Dominant Coach. A new range of N scale lorries was announced in October 2011, the first nine models were copies of earlier OO scale releases.

The release dates shown below are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate but I believe they are still a good indication to when these models were released in the UK.
The release information has been collated from my archive of weekly email newsletters sent out by Hattons Model Railways, these included details of all the latest model releases.
If anyone believes they have more accurate dates, can correct any errors or can provide any of the remaining missing information please email me.

Special thanks also goes to Hattons Model Railways for kindly allowing me to use many of their photographs to illustrate this section. You'll find a good selection of the models below are still available on their website.