Bowman of Luton is in no way connected to the bowman company of the 1920s from Dereham. The company Piece Parts and Assemblies Ltd was looking for new markets after world war II, and bought the Bowman name to revive it, much to the disliking of the woner of the original Bowman company. Between 1946 and 1949 they produced 4 stationay engines, 4 steam launches and a valveless marine engine.

Mamod was founded in Birmingham, U.K. by Geoffrey Malins in 1936. After producing engines under the "Hobbies" name for a while (the same company that sold the Bowman engines) Geoffrey Malins Decided to sell them under his own name, and Mamod (malins models) was born.

The first models produced were all stationary steam engines, the company later also created model road rollers, traction engines and steam cars. These models were aimed at the toy market, so were simple to operate and ran at low boiler pressures for safety but were not accurate scale models.

In 1980 the family control of the company ended because the company went into receivership. Since then the company has had several owners and manufacturing bases. It is currently in the ownership of the Terry family

A lot of information about mamod models can be found in the book "Mamod, the story of malins models" by P.S. Malins, ISBN: 0-9529237-0-x

S.E.L. steam engines were made between 1946 and 1965. The range comprised four stationary engines and various accessories. S.E.L. was the first to use Bakelite on toy steam engines. A feature that not everyone is overly enthousiastic about.