There may be more Jeep FC-150s than you think!

In April 1959 the strange little Jeep FC-150 appears. FC stands for 'Forward Control' which I can only guess refers to the driver sitting above the front axle and the engine mounted much further back than had been the case for most trucks and cars previously with their long bonnets. It helped the truck's manoeuvrability and had good traction for climbing. It was a 4-wheel drive vehicle but not something that was common on UK roads so an odd model to issue.

Corgi didn't supply a hood with early models, much as they didn't with the first Land Rovers and they were all light blue. Although there was not much in the catalogue to attach, it did have the usual tin hook so there was some good play value in filling the back with stuff and towing a trailer.

The spare was mounted in such a way that you couldn't actually get at it!

To me the casting is a little different to most other Corgis, The door outline, for example is raised rather than inset and the base design is unusual. I wondered whether they had to use a different method for this one for some reason but it may just have been one of those things.

The model did stay in the dealers' order lists until 1965 and is one of the few models which can be found with smooth wheels, fixed shaped wheels and free-spinning wheels. The last, shown above on a model I have just acquired, are quite scarce and would have required a different piece of equipment for the wheels to be fitted. Instead of having a sort of press which pushed the wheels on to the axle the ladies would now be operating some device which produced the enlarged radius dome to keep the wheel in place.

I cannot quickly think of another model car or truck that had no interior or suspension but which had all three wheel types. There is the flatbed trailer which had all three and the Gift Set 14 edition of the Jeep can be found with the three variants but that's all. The red Jeep with the Hydraulic Tower, lamp and Electrician is also scarce with the late wheel type and worth looking out for as sellers who don't read my articles will almost certainly have no idea of this!

The Gift Set 14 edition appeared in February 1961 so only the early editions will have smooth fixed wheels. They are, though, much more common than the free-spinning ones merely because the vast majority of models would have been produced at the outset with just a trickle coming from the factory thereafter. This model did cease in 1964 too so will be harder to find with the free-spinning wheels, in theory, than the 409.

In March 1965 the truck is revised as model number 470 and gets suspension, an interior, a plastic rear canopy, a plastic hook and a fresh coat of mustard or blue paint. The mustard one will nearly always have a red interior and I have yet to see a lemon interior in that colour. The blue edition, much more blue than the pale blue of the 409, can have either lemon or red and they seem pretty evenly distributed. There is also Gift Set 64 edition with a working conveyor unit installed in the back in June 1965. Confusingly for collectors, this is in the same red as the old Gift Set 14 model and, where the conveyor mechanism has fallen off, the remaining model can look initially like either a red 470 or a 409 with interior and suspension!

In December 1965 the Gift Set 14 edition now appears as simply number 478 without the lamp standard but it does, for a while have the electrician. At some point, and I don't know when, the electrician chap is removed too. The Jeep does get a nice metallic green paint job, suspension and an interior and the interior can be either lemon or a quite hard to find red.

The Gift Set 14 box included the red, no suspension, no interior Jeep with a lamp standard and an electrician figure.

The first 478 boxes show that the electrician is included.

As can be seen below, however, later 478s do not include the figure (although the person selling the one illustrated has included it!) Perhaps he did continue to be slipped in to some? I can hardly imagine an order from the bosses going out to the factory floor that from a particular date no more electrician figures were to be added to the boxes. Corgi didn't sell the figure separately so if there were any lying around when the boxes were being put together then I am sure some will have still made it to the outside world. 

Finally the 470 gets another revision with the addition of cast wheels in 1968 and a different shade of blue becomes available too. I have seen darker blue 470s with both shaped and cast wheels so it appears that the colour change did not coincide with the wheel change. Again, with both interior colours.

The 478 in metallic green may have a grey-painted boom or (initially shiny) bare mazak. This model ceased being supplied in 1968 but had cast wheels fitted at the very end of its production. I have not seen many and need to add this to my own collection but the cast wheel was a common enough type in the late 1960s so there will be some around.

So, there's quite a few Jeeps to collect, including some satisfyingly scarce editions so the 'set' won't be that easy to complete!

Updated 31/3/24. Thanks to John Bowyer for some corrections and interesting advice about the electrician figure!

Corgi Model Club: Volkswagen Breakdown Truck

 

This month the Corgi Model Club issue the latest model to be 'revived'. This is #490 the Volkswagen Breakdown Truck. 

This is a very detailed model with many features and it must have been much more of a challenge than last month's MGA. As a result it does have some noticeable differences. The first is simply how shiny the device installation is at the rear. Mine was a rather tired-looking grey even when new and I am not aware of any shiny silver variations.

The ratchet which should prevent the hook from becoming free is very weak on the re-issue and it was quite difficult to keep it back in place. The grey plastic hook is made of stronger stuff than the original but looks pretty much identical.

The greenish olive colour is good, maybe a little on the brown side but acceptably so. As always, the silver paintwork is very precise and bright when compared to the original. I see that the bottom of the V shape design in the front panel appears much less sharply defined than the original. I expect to see the bright silver and some shinier materials here and there but this front end is one that I would have thought the inspectors would have rejected.

The side view and dimensions are excellent and accurate. You will find the rear tool box and compartments constructed from much harder and shinier material than the softer plastic of the original and they have a darker colour too. The tool box does open and close satisfactorily - something that the original didn't always do as well!

It contains the usual bright chrome tools and a couple of small-size tyres.

One thing I have noticed with this and several previous models is how the shaped wheels aren't right, the inner convex element being too small and giving the appearance of something more like a Dinky wheel than a Corgi. Perhaps the Chinese factory is using wheels produced for Atlas Dinky reproductions or something like that. These need to be revised and not just accepted as 'nearly' right. they're not, as the images below show.

In many early articles on the Corgi Club Models I have been critical of their lack of attention to the font style used on the boxes. They're still in need of attention but they do seem, at last, to have got the numbers at the end right. One step at a time, I guess. It would be so simple to get the small text right, though, and this would make a big difference

This will arrive in the usual flat box with minimal outer packing but inside the box there's a big piece of tissue paper wrapped around the whole model, protecting the box against all the pointy bits and a small square piece of foam which, I think, is added protection for and against the rear end.

Overall, I was not disappointed by this model and I recognise the good work done in getting the majority of it right. It has plenty of  'play appeal' in that one actually do something with it although I suspect that all these new editions will seldom leave their boxes.

Corgi Toys @ 60: A VW Pick-up truck and a new tractor and plough

 It's February 1964 and we're down on the farm with a new Fordson Power Major tractor and a new plough but only if you buy Gift Set 13 at 8/6d (which would have been about a month's pocket money for me at the time!)

The tractor may look identical to the #55 model from 1961 but there are many differences. Firstly, the steering is now more realistic, although it is sad to say that a later revision with the Ford 5000 Super Major reverts to the ugly swivelling axle. Next there are now headlamps inset in the radiator grille - much simpler for casting I imagine and one has to wonder how many of the 55 models never made the box with their little headlamps protruding on either side very vulnerably. In the seat is a driver now too, the light-haired Farmer George.

At the back is a far simpler device for attaching implements, including the now very basic plough. Looking more realistic with its shiny shears replacing the yellow plastic this just slots over the attachment at the rear and there is now no need to fiddle around with several linkages. The previous tractor and plough were delightfully well-engineered and very much like how the real devices would have been put together but really hard work for us to play with. Having said that, there was nothing else for us to attach the plough too and not a great deal else for the tractor to pull along either but never mind.

Most models of the new Fordson have orange plastic wheels but you may find a few with the red plastic wheels which were intended to be fitted to the Massey-Ferguson tractors but easily mixed up in the factory. I think the orange metal wheels will have only been fitted to the earlier #55 model so should not appear on the #60 models.

You need to wait a few months until later in 1964 when the tractor and plough would be available individually.

The other addition to the local shop stock would be the Volkswagen Pick-up truck #431.

This was always a bright yellow but could have either a red or dark green canopy. The canopy was made of thick plastic and most seem to have disappeared now, with few models being available to buy with one. It is interesting to note that Model Supplies only offer a tin replacement and I am not aware of anyone who does make what ought to be a relatively easy part. There are many very good copies for the Land Rover but it seems no-one is too concerned with the lowly old VW. So if you have a canopy, take good care of it!

There are two interiors - lemon and red - and both are right-hand drive. The lemon flavour seems to be the more common of the two and most trucks that I have encountered have had the red canopy.

The wheels are always the normal shaped a and free-spinning variety on this edition. In years to come this will be revised with a tool box in the back, a winch added and issued as a Breakdown Truck in olive or white and in a number of Gift Sets. This will continue in that form until well into the 1970s but, sadly, the Pick-up had a short life, disappearing from order lists a little more than a year later.

A gold edition is known but is almost certainly a colour trial rather than an issued variation.