Coca-Cola Holiday Caravan Toy Truck Collector's Guide

Coca-Cola has been selling small-scale die-cast trucks for a long time. It wasn't until 1997 that they began selling these larger-scaled Holiday Caravan trucks.

Most of you remember or know of the Coke commercials with the full-size tractor trailers with Santa images and tons of bright lights traveling on snowy roads. These toy trucks began as replicas of those trucks.

I'm not sure how I first found these trucks but it was on eBay around 1998. It was probably while doing a Hess truck search. Once I saw it, I just HAD to get it. I started buying them each year. The 2001 flatbed caboose is my favorite and costs twice the price as the rest.

These trucks are collectible but not yet highly collectible, like similar trucks such as Hess trucks, as shown in my article, Hess Toy Truck Guide..

Designs

The truck designs have been pretty uniform. All have been tractor trailers so far, in the 1/43 scale, compatible with O scale. The trailers are where the changes are. The 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, and 2005 trucks have changes. 1999, 2001, and 2005 have trailer windows on the sides to see the removable vehicles inside. 2000, 2001 flatbed, and 2003 have flatbed trailers with vehicles that lie on top. And 2004's trailer is white with a window cutout to see the Mickey statue inside,

The boxes say some trucks have 240 lights but they're really just one or two lights with holes around the trailer to give the illusion of 240 lights.

Most, if not all, trucks require two D batteries, which are not included.

The trucks usually come packaged in sturdy, windowless boxes. The last few have come with windows, which can be easily damaged.

Color Schemes

The trucks have generally followed the Coca-Cola color scheme of mostly red with some black, silver, white, and gold parts. A few have a majority of white. The 2000 has an almost all white helicopter. The 2004 has a mostly white trailer.

Another standard is the Santa image that is present on most trucks. The 2001 flatbed only has Santa on the caboose. There is no Santa image on the 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 trucks.

Every truck, of course, has the Coke logo.