BILOFIX

The BILOfix wooden toy construction range was produced and marketed in Denmark in the 1960s first by the Lego company and then by a separate BILOfixcompany.

The brand name is a combination of the first three letters of Billund, Denmark (the birthplace of Lego and BILOfix ), the first initial of Ole Kirk Kristiansen (founder and inventor of Lego and Bilofix) and the word “fix”, referring to putting things together.

The BILOfix range – a kind of wooden Meccano – was made of kiln-dried furniture-grade birch and expensive moulded ABS plastic.

The range was modular and expandable, and marketed in large sets and small supplementary boxes (with ideas for an unlimited number of models).

When Lego decided in 1960 to stop producing wooden toys, two sons of Kristiansen – Karl Georg and Gerhardt – decided to leave the Lego company and to start BILOfix as their own independent business in a new factory in Kolding, Denmark.

Initially, Gerhardt sold the toy in Scandinavia, and later it was distributed or licensed in most of Western Europe, Canada, Japan and the UK. It was never distributed in the US.

At its peak in the mid-1960s, the BILOfix factory was producing 40,000 blocks and 150,000 beams a day and was processing three truckloads of wood a week.

In October 1965, the toy won the Meilleur Jouet Award in France. This was followed by the Jeppe award in Denmark and later by awards in Germany, Japan and Canada.

Gerhardt eventually contracted with the American plastic model kit company Revell to market the system internationally.

Revell renamed the system BILOtoy and even had Gerhardt design new parts and sets.

Revell dropped the line in 1972, stating that “high price increases from the Danish manufacturer would not be acceptable.”

The result was catastrophic for Gerhardt, who was left with a warehouse full of unsold inventory and had to sell his factory and lay off most of his staff.

He spent the rest of the decade trying to find new distributors, but ultimately couldn’t compete with the rise of electronics and video games. He sold the company in 1980 to the Danish toy distributor K.E. Mathiasen A/S.

Mathiasen – and their Japanese distributor, Bornelund – manufactured and marketed the toy under the name BILOtec and later as HANSEtec.