Corgi Chevrolet Impalas

 

You will, of course, be familiar with this recent issue of the wonderful #248 Chevrolet Impala, the second edition of the saloon model, this time in a butterscotch and cream flavour, as opposed to pale blue or salmon. What you will not be familiar with, however, is the finish on this delightful example, which really should be described as Impala à la Pearson, having being expertly polished so that what the Club sent us by way of a strange satin-finished model (and attempted to assert that this was how it was intended to be issued to boot!) now looks much more like it should.

My 'satin finish' Club edition placed next to Chris Pearson's shows the difference clearly.

Mr Pearson also likes to replace the rivets with something that better matches the originals.

Mr Pearson tells me that his Aunt Iris worked at the Corgi factory from 1958 to 1983 and he would sometimes accompany her as a child and he recalls seeing a number of 'prototypes', not that he would have known they would have been prototypes at the time. One was the #481 Chevrolet Police Patrol Car with a white lower section. The other was the #482 Chevrolet Fire Chief Car but with a black lower section.

As luck would have it, the two issued models can simply be taken apart and the sections swapped and there we have very nice copies of the 'prototypes'! It has since occurred to me that what he saw at the factory may just have been some 'mistakes' or someone having fun with the two halves with #481 and #482 probably rolling down the production line at similar times in 1965/66. I feel this is more likely, certainly for the Fire Chief model.

My research indicates that the Fire Chief car is unlikely to have existed in the 1959-style. In 1959, General Motors completely broke the mould with a wildly low, wide, and aggressive space-age design. The massive protruding rear "batwings" and sprawling trunk lines made it a styling masterpiece, but highly impractical for utilitarian city fleets. Because of the extreme rear fins, municipal fire and police departments overwhelmingly rejected the 1959 Impala sedan for official duty.

 Instead, the rare 1959 Chevrolets that did make it into fire service were almost exclusively 1959 Chevrolet Brookwood or Kingswood Station Wagons (which flattened out the wild fins to carry ladders and equipment), or stripped-down, lower-trim Biscayne sedans. Corgi took considerable artistic license by reusing their existing, highly popular 1959 Impala civilian saloon diecast mould (originally released in late 1959 as Corgi #223) to create the Fire Chief edition.

I have been able to find just one example of the 1959 style Impala in genuine use as a police car, this image, courtesy of the Ypsilanti, Michigan Community archives at https://www.reddit.com/r/ypsi

Nevertheless, the two variants that Mr Pearson very kindly sent me are very well constructed and fun to add to my own collection. I have always been a fan of the Impalas (although not the final throes of vehicles for kennel services or poodle display).

Here they are for your admiration.

Lastly, I am not at all sure now that there was ever such a thing as the 1959 Impala as a taxi in either all yellow or the later yellow and red, other than, perhaps, much more recently, in Cuba! It was the Police car that came first, in December 1959, and I can see that there will have been some evidence of a vehicle they could reproduce. After that, I do believe it was a matter of making the most from an excellent casting.

One might say that the Corgi Model Club are doing the same, and I am not referring necessarily to the Impalas here. Take a look at their forthcoming issues:

R345 MGC GT

R303S Mercedes-Benz 300SL Open Top Roadster (cream edition)

R246 Chrysler Imperial (Kingfisher blue edition)

R275 Rover 2000TC (white edition)

R302 MGA (teal edition)

R318 Lotus Elan S2 (copper edition)

There is also a store-only issue of an MGA in off-white in October by way of celebration of Corgi's 70th anniversary. I quite like the idea of a variation of one of the early models for this purpose but with the teal edition already in the pipeline at about the same time I feel they would have been better advised to choose one of the actual 1956 releases, not this one, which was May 1957, nearly a year later. There is, of course, a fair case to be made of economy of scale, using resources in several different ways but the frequency we see now does make me wonder whether all is well back at the Corgi ranch. I know that just about everybody who reads this has enjoyed collecting diecast models but I am not so sure there is such a certainty of a continuing robust market for people collecting new diecast models.

It will be quite nice to see fresh-looking examples of the Chrysler, Rover and MGA, the Chrysler and MGA being extremely hard to find in any condition. The Rover is not that common either. So I can see that the Club provide a way for people to fill missing spaces. I am also quite content with the production of models that were not actually issued, such as the Lotus Elan in copper and the MGA in off white. These are interesting and could be collectible as a group on their own although, having said that, it could be argued that every Club issue would fall into this category as none are ever quite right!

Corgi Model Club: a matt Impala?

 There is something about the #248 Chevrolet Impala that takes me back to the 1960s and how I admired it in my own Corgi collection. I remember my dad telling me that the man in the shop in French Row, St. Albans had told him this one was worth looking after as there weren't many issued. Now, I guess that he wouldn't have known in August 1965 that, along with the #480 Chevrolet Taxi, production would only be for a year at most. So it may have been later that year or early 1966 when I got this one and then the chap in the shop would have seen it deleted from his order form. The colour scheme is just right - I called it coffee and cream - and, despite nothing opening and no jewels, it really did stand out in my layout and has always been one of my favourite issues.

In particular, I now cherish the cast wheel editions which seem particularly scarce on the saloon and taxi models. So it was with some delight that I heard that the Corgi Model Club would be releasing this, with mine arriving (a little late) yesterday.

As the Hollies sang, just one look was all it took to see a quite different model to what I had expected. Yes, it is beautiful and the chrome and details are stunning but that matt or satin finish . . . no, that's not how the original was produced.

The Club people tell me and anyone who asks that the satin finish is a deliberate choice they made to reflect the finish that they declare many originals had. I have to challenge that and wonder just what model they had been supplied when they set out to reproduce this. I know from looking at several photos they have released in the past that they either dig out old models or ask people to send in theirs and I can only guess that they have been rather misled by someone sending in a decidedly less than shiny model. I am quite certain that all the original issues of this model had the usual quite glossy paint finish. None were issued in a satin or matt finish like this, however lovely it might be. It simply didn't happen and it really would have been best for the Club people to say so and just say that when the models arrived from China they decided to stick with them or, indeed, that they chose the satin finish but accept it was not as the original.

We can live with that. But not with an assertion that there are a few extremely rare #248 models out there that we all now need to go searching for as there is now a gap in everyone's collections - maybe two gaps if we also have to have a satin edition with cast wheels!

So, now for the model itself - it is, as I have indicated, a thoroughly excellent reproduction in most other ways and is a delight to own. The interior is the wrong colour, a much darker colour than the original and, as always, the shape of the wheels isn't right. One day maybe they will tell China, or Bangladesh to have another go with the wheels but, for now we have to put up with them always being not quite as the originals on all the issues with shaped wheels.

Once again there is a howler in the text on the Certificate card accompanying the model. When talking about the split casting for these second generation Impalas, they refer to the #221 Taxi. That, of course, was all beige and didn't have a split casting, nor any chrome for that matter. They meant #480 and this is another example of both poor editing and a little less than the sort of knowledge one might have expected from the Club staff claiming to be such enthusiasts. One wonders whether the success of the series has brought many inexperienced people onto the team to assist with the volume of work and not enough with the knowledge or research skills in quality control.

I am pretty sure that, if we could listen to some conversations behind the scenes when the first satin models appeared, we would here a suggestion that staff counter objections with an assertion that this reflects a scarce early original finish and that this was the Club's choice, not in any way an error. Standard responses to queries prepared, on with the show. People can return them if the wish but no replacements.

Corgi Toys @ 60 : Two Americans

 

August 1965 sees two lovely American cars on the shelves in your local Corgi Toys shop.

You need to be fairly quick to find one, though, as the plain version of the new split Impala was not around for long at all, less than a year on dealers' order lists. So this is a comparatively scarce model but one that also gets cast wheels later in each production and this version seems particularly hard to find.

It is always in what I call coffee and cream and I am not aware of any variations in the finish at all. These colours do suit the period well, although I guess they're not a combination you'll see on the streets today. This Chevrolet Impala is the last of the four reworkings of the old 220 model. There are two last gasps to come when it gets a sort of box shape added to the rear for two dog wagons, one in 1967 and the last in 1970 for a Chipperfields Circus edition. The 248 model, however, is the last Impala saloon.

The other American arrival was heavily advertised as having a 'surprise' in the boot. I was rather disappointed to take this one out of the box and find quite a dull-looking Chrysler Imperial inside and the surprise was a golfing trolley with a set of clubs!

The car was big, very rectangular and everything opened. I suppose that should have been quite impressive as it was an open convertible too but I remember finding it all a bit clunky, with very far doors, a screen that looked as if it had just fallen onto the car and a rather basic-looking dashboard. 

The 'chrome' elements were now a solid chunk of silvery metal, including two bars for the cills. There were two people included with the car too although they often got lost and are missing in all the photos I have taken of those in my possession.

Here they are.

You will find this model with two colours for the interior - chalky green or chalky blue, similar to the colours found in the Mustangs. In my experience the blue seems a lot more common than the green but I cannot say which came first or perhaps they were both produced over the years and the difference was merely down to the current supply of interior materials at the time.

I have always found the door panels to match the interior, however.

The early editions had shaped wheels, replaced pretty soon after issue with cast wheels. I bought my own model very soon after it was issued and that had cast wheels and the green interior. Shaped wheels are quite a scarce variation.

I show here too the very rare 'Kingfisher blue' edition which some people have found in 246 boxes, with the two people and the golf trolley, always with cast wheels. This was supposed to be a replacement for the Bermuda Taxi but never made it into production as such. Clearly a batch of models were prepared in that finish and I can only guess that it was decided to sell them off as normal 246 models instead when the Bermuda Taxi idea was dropped. This would, though, have been sometime later than August 1965.

The #246 model stayed in production for a couple of years and sold quite well, despite is heavy 9/3d price tag, only 8d less that the James Bond Aston Martin which would come out a couple of months later.

Update on Corgi Model Club issue plans

 Here are the next few months' models, as proposed by the Club:

492		VW 1200 European Police Car (Dutch edition)
107		Batboat + Trailer
334		BMC Mini Magnifique (green)
430		Bermuda Taxi
348		Ford Mustang Flower Power
1126		Ecurie Ecosse Racing Car Transporter
270		James Bond's Aston Martin (silver grille)
270		James Bond's Aston Martin (gold grille)
233		Heinkel Economy Car
248		Chevrolet Impala

and here are two further issues to be added to the list:

268 The Green Hornet's 'Black Beauty'

416 RAC Radio Rescue Land Rover

The earliest dates that anyone will have received the #406 Land Rover in yellow with a black roof will have been mid-June so add a month for each row and that'll give you an idea of the when you should see these first appear.

So there may be some lucky people getting an Ecurie Ecosse Racing Car Transporter for Christmas!

With the Batboat will be the device issued originally to connect to the first issue of the Batmobile, fitting over the flame-thrower at the back. These devices are very hard to find as originals as you can imagine how easily they can get lost so expect sales for this little boat to soar. It will, of course, also attach as normal to the second issue which is also available from the Corgi Store.

The two silver Aston Martins are expected to be issued at the same time in January, members getting the one with a silver grille and the other version being available for anyone to buy from the Club Store. As for the matt black Batmobile, expect to see several appear at high prices for the member editions as they will be in comparatively short supply, certainly at first. The matt black Batmobile still sells quite easily at £100.

The Mini will be a green edition of the blue one issued in November 2023. I rather suspect that it will be no more than a fresh coat of paint at the factory with the sliding roof remaining with narrow bars and not the wider variety, so you'll still have to search for an original of that one!

The Dutch edition of the VW Police Car is all white and a good-looking model that is hard to find and usually expensive if you do. It's a model I have never had myself so I won't be able to do a side by side comparison. It will, no doubt, be just the May 2023 issue with different paint and decals.

The Bermuda Taxi will be the November 2021 issue with some fresh paint, a change of driver and a funny roof. That could be a useful addition as many collectors will have lost the driver and roof from the original or may even need the roof for a Ghia Jolly. There appear to be two different drivers for the Thunderbird in its Bermuda Taxi guise so it will be interesting to see which survives through to 2025.

The little 'Bubble' car was issued in a few colours: red, shades of mostly pale lilac, metallic blue and orange with either fixed smooth wheels or free spinning cast wheels. I have only seen the orange edition with both types, the other colours having only the fixed smooth type. I wonder what the model club will provide us with? 

I am a big fan of the coffee and cream Impala so look forward to that one. The Club are certainly making the most out of the split casting but one can hardly blame them. I just hope the price reflects the fact that they have had a lot less work to pay for in its production (although I would be delighted if they changed the wheels for some cast ones). In contrast, however, the Ecurie Ecosse Transporter, their first Corgi Major, will have cost a veritable fortune, even in Chinese yuan. So that's not going to be cheap but perhaps by charging the 'normal' £30 or so for the Impala and some other relatively cheap variations the price of the Transporter will be reasonable. Needless to say, I see it being extremely popular and is typical of a model which many of my generation will have had on their Christmas lists for a few years but not received.

There are many variations of that model too but these are early days. There will be some previews in a while but my money is on the darker shade of metallic blue with yellow lettering and a lemon interior. As for the extent of silver paint around the front, I have no idea and can hardly recall the different editions as I write! My guess is that the precise silver paintwork will be like none of the originals at all.

Update 5 July:

I have just noticed two more proposed issues that I have now added to the text above.

Black Beauty is probably one I shall not be too concerned with although I can see it will be poplar amongst the Film and TV-related model collectors, especially if the grille stays closed!

The Land Rover casting gets another outing with what appears to be the early edition of the RAC Radio Rescue Truck. Now, will it have a headboard? Smooth wheels or will we finally get to see some fixed shaped wheels? A clean and well-shaped tin canopy will be useful to replace a worn one, or more often missing) on an original!

Corgi Toys @ 60: A Jeep on the farm and two Chevrolets

 

June 1965 brought us an American trio. I suspect the left-hand drive Jeep would not have been something you'd have seen on many farms at the time but it was another marvel of Corgi engineering. In the box was an attractively illustrated inner tray carrying the Jeep with a farm hand slotted in a corner and four brown sacks. 

This was another re-working of the FC-150 model, now with suspension and an interior. Always in red with a bright yellow conveyor frame, I am not aware of any variations. The wheels appear to be shaped free-spinning and, whilst it stayed in the catalogues until 1969 when other Jeeps got cast wheels, I have not see any of these with that type.

The conveyor mechanism also gets mounted on a trailer and towed by a Ford Tractor next year!

The other two models were the first of the revised Chevrolet Impala castings. It was in December 1959 that the first Impala appeared, only the second Corgi with suspension, and it proved very popular. The classic style with the sweeping rear fins was about the change on the real car but Corgi extended its life in their catalogues by slicing the casting in two and inserting a chromed plastic element which ran the whole length of the model, creating splendid shiny chrome grille, bumpers and a rather fat side lining. Otherwise it had the same interior and suspension and no more features, just fresh colours for the new Police Patrol Car as #481 and the Taxi as #480.

Both models will be found with shaped wheels and cast wheels, although cast wheels on the Taxi are quite scarce. This model was really not around for long, being deleted from dealers' lists almost as soon as it was listed, available for less than a year. So not many had a chance to be fitted with the cast wheels.

The Patrol Car, however, stayed in the lists until 1969 and the majority have cast wheels, with shaped wheels being the slightly less frequently seen. Aerials tend to get broken on these models and I have just noticed that both used in these illustrations have suffered in that respect!

  

You will note that, despite a 6 year period elapsing, the fares didn't change! The same transfer has been used on the new model. The Police Car has stickers on the doors, as did the preceding issue but this time they're quite different. Neither the old nor new Police stickers strike me as being very well done.

I am not aware of any other variations for these two.

Corgi Model Club update

 

To bring you up-to-date with the Corgi Model Club issues, I have just received the Oldsmobile Super 88 #235. This is a super version, very well reproduced and, whilst I notice that some people have been unsure about the colour, I find it pretty much identical to my original.

As always with the Club issues, the detail is far more accurate than Corgi could have achieved in the 1960s. I think someone does need to have a word with the Chinese, though, about the wheels which have never looked quite right on all the 'shaped wheel' models. You'd think that getting the profile right would have been relatively easy compared to all the bits that they have matched perfectly.

I have always been a fan of this very simple model that has no special features but was great to play with and reliable in that it didn't have anything to go wrong. I only had the metallic silver-blue model myself and was delighted to find this colour many decades later! 

Last month we had another use of the Impala casting, this time in Police Patrol finish. Again, it is a lovely version and just like my original.

The second edition Impalas have also been a favourite of mine and I am always on the look-out for the saloon and taxi editions with cast wheels, considerably scarcer than the shaped wheels which are themselves not that easy to find as production of the originals was very short. The Police and Fire editions, however, did last rather longer and in those cases it is the shaped wheel editions that are less common.

Two months ago saw the arrival of another use of the Mini casting. 

The RAC International Rally edition #333 is reproduced in its later 'Morris' badged form with cast wheels. The axle ends are a little big, I feel. As always, the detail is super but those plastic 'jewels' are simply not 'jewels' and let things down a bit.

We get a fortunately peelable label across the ends of a 225 Austin Seven box, reflecting well what was on the shelves at the time of the original issue.

Another favourite - there are so many interesting variations of the Mini-Cooper (never mind the Minis generally!) - so this group has been nice to receive and briefly review.

I wrote about the previous issue - the #276 Oldsmobile Toronado some time ago. The next models due to come our way are as follows:

• #224 Bentley Continental in black over silver
• #803 Yellow Submarine (red hatch edition)
• #436 Citroen Safari ID19
• #266 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• #406 Land Rover in yellow with black cab roof
• #492 VW European Police Car (Dutch export edition in white)
• #107 Bat Boat & Trailer (incl. connector piece)
• #334 BMC Mini-Cooper Manifique in green

I detect a considerable amount of influence on production by those fans of TV/Film-related issues! I guess that's also where the profits are with a wider audience than just those of us happy with fairly 'normal' vehicles. This particular group has no really new issues other than the Yellow Submarine, Chitty Chitty and the Bat Boat which must have meant a good saving on production costs, especially with the Bentley, Citroen, VW and Mini which required merely some fresh paint and a decal or two.

These also follow, as I am sure you will have noticed, three models that are re-workings of a previous release in each case.

I continue to receive these models but only now keep one or two of particular interest. I have several of the releases over the last few months available should anyone wish to have these at not a great deal more than cost price, including some matt black Batmobiles which will be more expensive although not as much as some seem to go for on Ebay at the moment.

Some interesting Corgis

 

A couple of interesting Corgis arrived this week. Firstly this delightful VW1300 Corgi Driving School car in really lovely condition. The blue paint on these is very prone to chips and even a strong draught can take it off if you're not careful!

The interesting bit is that this has the base with 1200 on it whereas the vast majority of models you'll find have a raised plate with replacement text including 1300 as the second illustration below shows.

The '1200' version is quite scarce so I shall hang on to it as part of my own collection unless someone persuades me to part with it for a vast sum. The early issue in April 1974, when it was #400, may have used the base that would have been around from the #373 and #383 production (although a silver base was not a common feature amongst those issues and this is substantially different). I am not convinced about that, though, and just reckon that this was the first base produced for the model and, for some reason best known to Corgi, it got changed to 1300 pretty soon afterwards. Maybe someone noticed that the box read 1300 and they had to make a quick adjustment!!

I would love to get the German version (or any other if there are any?) some time if anyone over the Channel can help. Incidentally, I am pretty sure the German edition is still Right Hand Drive!! That's a little surprising as they took the trouble to produce two versions of #256 despite there actually only being one version of the East African Rally Car! And I am sure #492 must have been Left Hand Drive?

The next one is an old favourite, although this one does look a little worse for (play)wear.

I find these #248 Impalas difficult to resist. they just look tremendous when they're in top condition, the colours so Corgi and 70s (although it was issued in the 60s, I know.) The thing about this one is, of course, the cast wheels. The model was not available for very long anyway, not much more than a year, and the cast wheel version seems to be particularly scarcer than the shaped wheel version.

Even with chips here and there, this is still quite a valuable model.

Lastly, I don't know what to make of this Triumph Herald. You can see straightaway that the bonnet has a different shade of gold to the body. I hadn't seen that in the photos published by the seller which were not very clear and it was not mentioned in the description. So when it arrived I queried this but I'm still waiting for a reply. The chap said he'd think about it.

There is absolutely no sign of the model being tampered with underneath. These are phenomenally difficult to put together anyway and this one is original in that the two rivets are untouched. The base is the same colour as the main part of the model. I can understand that the bonnet could have been painted at a different time to the body and so it is possible, I suppose, that there was a change in paint supply and this model got an unfortunate combination of one and the other. That being the case I would have expected to have seen a few of these over the years but I haven't.

Neither this being all original nor someone somehow being able to paint just the bonnet without some paint going somewhere it shouldn't around the engine or hinge areas in particular seem likely, yet one, presumably has to be the case.

It only cost me a few pounds so I am not worried too much. If it is some after-sales work by someone then the chap can have it back as I wouldn't want to sell it or keep it. If it is original, though, then I'll keep it as one of those oddities that I have so many of!

On the subject of Triumph Heralds, what I am trying to locate is one of these in white and gold (ideally the same shade throughout!) but with shaped wheels rather than smooth. They appear from time to time but they're definitely not very common. Similarly, I'd like the blue and white one with smooth wheels if that exists. Maybe it doesn't.

These re the sort of things that make Corgis forever interesting.