The Lego Group began manufacturing plastic toys in 1947. That year, the company bought a plastic injection-moulding machine and expanded beyond its established wooden-toy business.
The move came after World War II, when plastics and injection moulding were becoming more available in Denmark. Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred used the new machinery to experiment with plastic products, including a truck that could be taken apart and reassembled.
This date is sometimes confused with 1949, when Lego began producing its own interlocking construction bricks, initially called Automatic Binding Bricks. Plastic toys came first; the familiar Lego brick developed from that manufacturing capability two years later. The modern brick’s distinctive tube-and-stud design was patented in 1958.
Lego initially continued making wooden toys alongside plastic products. A 1960 warehouse fire destroyed much of the wooden-toy inventory, helping persuade the company to concentrate fully on plastic products and the Lego system. The shift begun in 1947 ultimately transformed a small Danish workshop into a global toy manufacturer.