This Marx wind up toy car from the late 1940s is a wonderful example of the products of this company.  Louis Marx and Company was an American toy manufacturer in business from 1919 to 1980. They made many types of toys including tin toys, toy cars, toy soldiers, toy guns and model trains.  Founded in August 1919 in New York City by Louis Marx and his brother David, the company's basic aim was to "give the customer more toy for less money."  Marx listed six qualities he believed were needed for a successful toy: familiarity, surprise, skill, play value, comprehensibility and sturdiness. By 1922, both Louis and David Marx were millionaires. 

It is thought that the Marx company loosely based the design of their model car on that of the 1948 4-door Hudson Commodore Eight.  This was a landmark car that came from an unlikely source. When the independent automaker introduced its first post War, all-new car in 1948, the change was more than skin deep, though its exterior design was truly distinctive. The Commodore marked the debut of Hudson’s  famed “Step-Down” design, which turned the automotive world on its collective ear. It’s an unusual car today, as just over 62,000 Commodores were produced in 1948 — a fraction of the numbers turned out by the Big Three and even Studebaker.  

Marx's selection of this design is also noteworthy for the fact that Hudson did NOT make a woody station wagon version of the 1948 Commodore, and so Marx's toy designers had to create one.  Interestingly, one of Hudson's actual designers did draw up plans for a woody station wagon, but it was never made.  The plans survived and were later published in a 1982 Crestline book, "The History of Hudson."  The book then encouraged a Hudson enthusiast to build a station wagon out of a conventional 1948 Commodore.  The car made its debut at the 2007 National Meet of the Hudson Essex Terraplane Club at Auburn, Indiana. It was the star of the show, and not just because it was the only woodie station wagon in attendance, it was a woodie that no one had ever seen except on paper, or if you were fortunate enough to own the Marx model which had been brought to life.