The Purple Gang

A couple of nice Rover 2000s in the scarcer maroon colour have come in this week. These were mostly just found on a car transporter in one of the Gift Sets where they would also so often pick up chips from collisions with others on the top or bottom section or just falling off on corners.

This did get me thinking though about how fragile this brilliant colour has been in Corgi's paint history. Almost every one you'll encounter will be inclined to lose some paint if you do as much as wave a piece of paper at it.

I will start, though, with an impressive exception. The 322 Monte Carlo edition seems to have a much better coat than all the others. I have had a few of these and they may have had a chip or two but generally none seemed any worse or more prone to chips than other models in my collection.

The prize for worst culprit has to go to the last of the Rover 2000s, the quite rare Whizzwheels version, available for a very short time and now really quite valuable.  The purple metallic paint on this just seems to drop off if you're not very careful. It took me a long time and not a small amount of money to get this reasonable model.

One of the nicest applications of this colour was the amazingly deep and rich shade used for the strange Citroen DS Coupé. It really was, for collectors in those days, a most fabulous colour and a great finish. It was however, pretty vulnerable and just one chip would grow to a large slab of grey if you weren't careful.

In a slightly redder shade was the Mini Marcos with its Golden Jacks and wheels that could be removed. What we didn't realised, though, at the time was that the paint could also be easily removed. You may spot the large chunk missing near the headlamp on this one from my own original childhood collection.

The Chevrolet Sting Ray was a wonderful model and the pink shade of purple, usually called the more refined-sounding cerise, was the most common colour. It chipped very badly and very easily, though. Couple that with chrome that did the same and most of these are now covered in chips and showing yellow or cream bumpers and air intakes on the bonnet. Such a shame. Luckily, I have a few versions that have been well preserved and it is definitely not as bad a coat as some of the others here.

Its younger sister, the Corvette Stingray, came out some time later, right at the end of normal Corgi production, with Golden Jacks and this is a truly magnificent model. The paint on this is an extraordinarily beautiful mirror finish. It seems quite well-affixed too and doesn't chip anything like as much as the others, many of these models surviving still and looking marvellous.

Back to low production quality for the odd Whizzwheels Adams Probe. Mine is really good but I don't breath on it or let it sit near draughts.

Possibly a contender for the worst paintwork (in this colour, that is, the Mercedes CIII easily winning the overall prize) could be the Marcos Mantis. A Whizzwheels model again (and one where the scale inspectors had clearly lost their micrometers) not only did I have trouble finding one with decent paintwork but corrosion underneath is common too! It is a lovely colour but...

I think I have already awarded the worst prize to the Rover but this Renault ran it very close indeed. It is the pre-Whizzwheel version, not around for long and appeared in one of those big window-style boxes which offered next to no protection in the first place. This one has just about survived and that took a long time to find as every one I looked at closely was a mini disaster area paint-wise. the blue Whizzwheel one that follows is no better but that's another arti8cle.

There were a couple that did fare quite well for reasons I can't explain. I mean why didn't Corgi use the same paint for the others? First to come close to matching the 322 Rover finish was the purple mini, the last before Whizzwheels took over. There are lots and lots of these around and, naturally, there's a complete range of paint conditions but it is a pretty normal range that you'd expect with other colours.

The other model that also survive well was the massive Mercedes Pullman 600. Mine has been bashed a bit and, whilst the chips do show and seem bad I don't think the finish on this model was at all bad. It was one of the earliest to be released so maybe Corgi spent more time baking it or something. 

Have I missed one out? If I think of another then I will add it. I have also just noticed how many of the purple gang have yellow interiors! Bright yellow at that! It was the Sixties, I suppose.

Ecurie Ecosse Racing Car Transporter

Every year from 1961 to 1967 this would be on my birthday and Christmas lists but it has taken me until 2015 actually to have an Ecurie Ecosse Racing Car Transporter of my own.

It was an expensive item in those days. Quite frankly, it's not cheap now, either! I saw this going as a complete set - the Gift Set 16 with the later edition racing cars - and didn't expect my modest bid to win but at 2am not many others were around or hadn't set their maximum bids very high.

The transporter appealed to me at the time because it had steering and I loved how that system worked, something Dinky never matched, their steering being a most unrealistic whole axle rotation that just wasn't right! I also liked the idea of putting a car inside and carrying it around.

What didn't appeal to me at all, though, were the racing cars themselves. The BRM and Vanwall aren't too bad but seem very old-fashioned, even for those days.

Those two are in excellent condition, being the S versions with suspension added and slight changes to the paintwork, adding a silver nose cone and decals.

The Lotus is a weird looking affair that may have been what was racing around Le Mans in the Sixties but, in my view, it didn't make a very appealing model. This one is 151A, the A being the second edition which included a driver and a slightly different windscreen fitting. I think there were similar blue 151 models but most of those were silver. The paintwork isn't too bad on this one but those big wings fore and aft are very vulnerable and chunks are missing there. There was no space for suspension without major reworking so this never got an S suffix.

The steering wheel was broken on this one and the driver didn't look right. I have replaced the steering wheel and used another driver but I'm still unsure. I feel he needs to be leaning back further so maybe both are wrong. I think I'll leave that to a new owner to sort out. The steering wheel is simple to fit and a driver can easily be installed on this model too.

As I said, the thing I really wanted, though, was the truck and it has some delightful features, including the little vice in the workshop area. The windows are remarkably clear and the interior all good but the paintwork has quite a few chips. The top deck folds down very nicely with a clever mechanism and locks in place again when the tailgate is returned to vertical. Corgi were good at this sort of thing, although many examples have had to have replacement tailgates from what I can gather looking at others on sale. This one is all original.

The steering works but the turning circle is about as big as the real thing would have been!

I'm glad to have got this and seen it up close but I won't be sorry to see it or the racing cars go to a new owner. It will be quite a decent bargain: about £45 for the truck, £29 for the Lotus and around £40 for each of the BRM and Vanwall. I think the whole set could go for about £130 and I expect it to sell pretty quickly.

I guess I will still have to get the original racing cars, without the S or A suffixes, one day but I can't get too enthusiastic about them and, despite longing for the truck 50 odd years ago, now that I've seen it and checked it off my list I won't be that sorry to see this one go either. My dad was probably right not to buy it. 

Simca 1000 Coupé in blue

A blue Simca 1000 arrived yesterday. I wasn't expecting ever to have one of these. OK, so it has quite a few chips on the paintwork and the windows are a bit scruffy but it is all original and not actually damaged, just worn in places. The wheels, tyres and base are good.

It's the first I have seen for sale in a year or so of looking and the owner wasn't a Corgi collector and probably just regarded it as one of many bits of junk in a box of old toys.

So now I've crossed this off the list it will be available for someone to purchase. One catalogue-type site lists this at about £40 but that has to be way off the mark as there simply aren't any anywhere and it's easier to find a Pop Art Mini! QDT show recent examples, (admittedly looking near new with boxes), that have sold at prices between £800 and £1010 so putting a price on it is really difficult as there is nothing reliable to go by. I'll start around £130 and see what happens.

Land Rover type illustrations

These may be helpful!

vertical front edge near vents

large triangles

small triangles

   

clear rear window

frame in rear window

plate on cab roof

smooth cab roof

detailed canopy

first circle-like arches

second curved arches

later straight edge arches

vertical element near vent on 417S

Land Rover types

If you look at Corgi's Land Rovers for long you will soon see several differences in what might have seemed the same model. Because they kept the same number, 438, of course there will be plenty over its long life that are easily spotted but here I'll tell you about some that you may have missed.

Body types

By this I mean the main structure of the truck and, in particular, the area on the front edges of the window frame. In 406 there was a large triangle shape jutting out. In the first 438s this has a vertical edge. I thought this was the only variety but then I spotted some examples with something very much like the large triangle. I have seen red and green trucks with this type. Later models, the blue and metallic green ones, have a much smaller triangle there, making a third distinct type.

On the roof of the cab the first 438s all have what looks like a plate fitted and spanning three of the ridges. This is very raised on some and much less distinct on others but the quarter circle edges are nearly always visible in this type. Later, or at least I am assuming it was later, the cast was changed to removed this impression of a plate and the cab roof is smoothly rounded all across the front edge.

Then we have the matter of wheel arches. On the old 406 these were almost semi circles, being better displayed on 438s as less curved at the start but by the time of cast wheels and the blue and metallic green issues the rear wheel arches have a very clearly straight edge along the top and a more angular design. I haven't seen this on any of the earlier colours, dark green, brown or red with normal wheels, nor any of the US Army Weapons Carriers so it seems comparatively recent.

The rear window

Now you really would think that they'd all be pretty much the same, wouldn't you? No. There are two distinct types of window element and can be seen as either a clear window or as one with a sort of frame line running just inside the metal frame itself. This can be found from the very earliest days of 406 where I have seen a framed window on a green one but not on either the yellow/black or blue/white ones. Amongst the 438s the distribution is about equal with all colours showing one or the other type.

The tilt or canopy

Tilt had always meant an amount of leaning until quite recently when I found everyone describing the bit on the back of a Land Rover as a tilt. You'll know that the early ones were tin and there are only two places where you'd find them: a tan one on a green Land Rover in the Gift Set 2 with the horsebox (which is the only place the green 406 was available so, logically, all green 406s should have a tan tin tilt), the other being a 438, strangely enough, as the first Chipperfield Land Rovers had blue tin tilts for a year or two. Again, the Chipperfields Land Rover was only ever issued in one or other of a few Gift Sets so tin tilts would not have been the order of the day in normal boxed models at all.

438 came with a nice, detailed plastic canopy. Initially I think these were cream as I had one of the first but other experts seem to think it was grey first. Grey is a scarcer colour to find and, to date, despite accumulating an embarrassingly large number of these trucks I have yet to encounter a grey canopy! So the others may be right. There will be blue for the later Chipperfield Land Rovers and a darker blue for the RAC edition. There may be an RAF blue for 351S but I have yet to see one! It looks like that in the catalogue, though and I am sure I'll find one one day. The US Army editions used a sort of grey green and darker green-khaki and there was a white one of the blue Land Rovers pulling the Pony Trailer in Gift Set 15. There is also a strange orange colour on a late Whizzwheels one in bright pale green.

I think that's all the colours and you may well encounter all sorts of combinations which may not have ever been issued that way as over time people mix them up. I like to try to return them to their rightful bases and would urge you to do so as well before passing them on so maybe some order can be restored!

Something you may have missed, however, is that there are two varieties of the plastic canopy: one is very detailed, including, for instance, the tapes holding back the side pieces, whereas the other is much smoother, often shiny and much less distinct. The latter type also doesn't sit squarely either, with quite a bit protruding above the cab and at the sides whereas the detailed one fits beautifully. I have often wondered whether the smooth ones are, in fact, reproductions but I have a Chipperfields one that is smooth and the stickers look very original. So I am not sure yet. Maybe someone will know.

It would seem that the more detailed, and actually far nicer, canopies come on the earlier editions but, again, I don't have enough to be absolutely sure. I do have one of the very last ever 438s in a rainbow type box and that has a dark green shiny canopy so I think I'm right but we'll see. Again, you need to look out for the two types.

In similar vein, the breakdown trucks have similar variations but, thankfully, all the 417 models should have the twin pole affair at the back and one body type, window type etc., while the 417S models will have the closed, solid type of support and, whilst different body and window types to 417, they will be all the same. There are just two 477 types I've seen so far - the first type with large triangles on the front frame edges and the second type, possibly those with cast wheels, having the smaller triangles.

If you're lucky enough to find a 406S then I think you'll find there is only one type of that!

A sheet listing the variations mentioned in this article is available below:



The sheet shows models that I either have in stock or know to exist having encountered them somewhere. There may well be more - if you know of further variations do let me know and I shall endeavour to make the list comprehensive for future reference.

What Corgi shouldn't have done to a Ford Mustang

It was an ignominious end for the Mustang casting when someone decided to use it one more time for the dreadful 'Organ Grinder' dragster edition in 1971. The original, despite the metallic mauve and pea green colours, despite the annoying doors that seldom shut properly and despite the vulnerable suspension, had been a favourite and represented a great Corgi model. It received some slightly embarrassingly big wheels in some later 'Competition' versions and also in 'Flower Power' guise but still looked the part and was a car we'd be proud to have on the tracks.

Although in excellent condition all round, this thing is pretty bad. I think I might have accepted it more readily if it hadn't had what looks like an oversized driver stretched out inside whose head appears to stick through the rear window frame too. The wheels aren't bad, I suppose, for Whizzwheels but that engine affair is just a joke. The red plastic fore and aft I could accept but that engine and interior is not so much a joke as just a toy - and that's the way Corgi were then heading, making things that were just toys for little kids, not appreciative young children with an actual interest in real cars.

There may have been a group of dragster loving lads for whom this and a range of others with one sixty type numbers were just what they wanted to collect and play with but this was a move way off in a direction far removed from where I wanted or, indeed, even now, want to go. 

I have deliberately avoided getting the crazy long dragster editions but I felt I had to get this purely because the cast was based on that lovely original. Like the sad misuse of the Citroen DS for the Cycling Race Manager's car, these are cars I had to get but will now happily get rid of having taken the photographs and added them to the catalogue. It was also ridiculously cheap.

So I am hoping someone will buy this soon. I'll put the money towards a nice 'Flower Power' or Competition edition as there are variations of them that I still need.

Citroen 'Le Dandy' Coupé

Another elusive edition to strike off the list. The Citroen DS in slightly weird Le Dandy Coupé form was certainly not something we'd see on the streets of Hertfordshire in the 1960s. It came in two colours: a fantastic metallic maroon and two-tone blue and white. I only knew about the maroon in those days as that was the one that the toy shop had and it was a gorgeous colour, quite unlike anything else I had in my collection then. 

Yes, it was an odd vehicle but I didn't mind and it became one of my favourites, really just because of its colour! The interior was a garish yellow that would have been absolutely dreadful if it had ever appeared in the real thing, necessitating sunglasses at the very least. The doors opened as did the boot, although that was a strange shallow affair reaching far inside the car. The wheels were the excellent spoked ones of the day and it had four jewelled lights, the two headlamps and two chrome fog lights.

The model was unlikely to stay pristine, though. Firstly that paint was a precursor to many examples where the merest tap would mean bits flaking off and, although nothing like as bad as the later models' paint, it did suffer rather and my Citroen Coupe didn't survive well when my son got hold of it at some time in the late 1980s. Secondly, it had terribly vulnerable suspension that would give up under not much more than a little pressure, being provided by a piece of chrome plastic running through the car but miserably weak and even if it didn't actually break, once it had been bent it tended to stay curved in a way that left the axle floating around in space. My maroon one has lost its rear suspension completely but, luckily still sits reasonably on display.

The third component to cause trouble would be one or other of the fog lamps which were vulnerable to break off. I lost one and used the other to repair the blue and white version. That arrived this week with just one fog lamp but in much better condition otherwise so I decided to make that as good as I could and it also gets the original box that my maroon one came in and had stayed in pretty good condition.

The blue and white version is really quite difficult to get hold of. I don't have any production figures but reckon they must be very low as it is rare to appear in places like Ebay even in poor condition. This colour variation has a beige and pea green interior, much more drab but also probably much more realistic. It reminds me of the Citroen Safari interiors. The model arrived in a very dirty condition and I am still trying to being the interior back to a brighter shade but it is all complete.

In the boot, interestingly, you can see the beige colour of the interior deeper inside whereas with the maroon one there seems to be a darker colour obscuring the yellow.

The suspension has survived rather better on the two-tone model too. One rear wheel is a bit floaty but it sits evenly on a surface so that's OK. It has a large chip in the roof but that is all so it's a great example for someone of this scarce version.