Sign in

Private company

Jouef

Logo: Hornby, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

French model railroading brand

Jouef is a French brand and former manufacturing company specialized in scale model railroads. The brand name is currently owned by Hornby. Apart from model railroads, the company also produced model cars and slot cars.2 It is part of Hornby Hobbies Limited.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1944Founded1
  • Industrygame industry1
  • HeadquartersChampagnole1
  • Founded inChampagnole1
  • Websitefr.jouef.com
  • Legal formprivate limited company1

See how the biggest companies compare on our leaderboards

Jouef sudex
Photo: Pantoine, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons5

Jouef is a French brand and former manufacturing company specialized in scale model railroads. The brand name is currently owned by Hornby.2

Corporate structure

Jouef is part of a group headed by Hornby Hobbies Limited. 10 entities, 5 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Manufacturer Georges Huard founded Jouef in 1944 toward the end of World War II. The traditional home of the company was in Champagnole, France. In the early 1950s, as with many manufacturers, the company abandoned the use of lithographed tinplate for trains in favour of plastic injection moulding.

In 1979, Jouef opened a factory in Limerick, Ireland, but the ill-fated venture closed in 1981. In 2001, Jouef was subsumed by the Italian Lima. After Lima shut down in January 2004, the Jouef brand was acquired a few months later by Hornby Railways.

From Wikipedia’s article on Jouef, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

  • model car
  • rail transport modelling

Listed on Wikidata.1

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Owners

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1944Founded Founded in Champagnole1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5