Corgi Toys @ 60: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and a Lotus Racing Set

 

August 1966 brought two new items on to your local Corgi store shelves. The Lotus Racing Team Gift Set was quite expensive at 36/- (that's 36 shillings, or the equivalent of £1.80) but there was a lot you could do with what it contained.

In the box there are two Lotus Elans, each quite different from the #318 model issued a year earlier in July 1965. The green open top model with a yellow stripe has a red interior and a removable chassis. The hard-top version is in yellow with a green stripe and a white interior, also having a removable chassis. This model would appear in June 1967 as a separate model #319 in a box, although most will be red or blue with a white top.

A separate chassis is also included, mounted on a slightly larger trailer to that used for the Ferrari Gift Set 17 and now in red rather than yellow. That, in turn, is towed by another new model, the VW Breakdown Truck. This is finished in white and has 'Racing Club' stickers on the doors, a winch operated by a wheel at the back and you can open the red plastic lid in the rear section to find a nice array of chrome tools. There should also be be a couple of spare tyres in the space provided, one small and one normal. I'm not sure how they would cope should one of the Lotus F1 Racing Car tyres burst as there's not space for the three sizes they would really need for the cars included. The Lotus Racing Car is the same #155 model as appeared first in December 1964, with the same driver and same RN1 decals.

The VW Breakdown Truck will also be issued as #490 in December 1966 but only in beige initially and with different stickers.

A pack of bollards was included too and I believe this was the first time you could get these. They will appear in later sets and many, many years later with the VW Driving School Car.

Early sets had chassis elements with small size shaped wheels. Later these were replaced by the normal size cast wheels, which quite significantly changed the appearance and stance of the Lotus Elans. As a result of the later change, you may now find 1967 #319 models with shaped wheels, where someone has swapped the chassis with one from an old Gift Set 37.

One oddity for me was the lack of suspension on the chassis pieces. Disregarding some utility items, these Lotus Elans would be the first issues without suspension since late 1960 when the Triumph TR3 was first issued and that appears to have been the last non-suspension car. (I am not counting the Bluebird or revised Lotus XI models).

August was not to be the only month when Corgi abandoned suspension in a new issue, however, as the other new arrival also suffered the same shortcoming!

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - United Network Command for Law Enforcement - was a popular TV series but you very seldom actually saw much of the car the stars drove. It was, in fact, a modified Piranha Coupé, based on a Chevrolet Corvair. Now Corgi did have a Chevrolet Corvair but, for some reason best know to them, they decided to use an Oldsmobile Super 88 instead! Even that would have originally have had suspension, though.

Early editions had shaped wheels but these were fairly quickly changed to cast wheels. There are two colours - a cream edition, which is quite hard to find these days, significantly scarcer than the metallic deep blue edition. The cream model is also a quite different casting, the most obvious difference being on the bonnet, with lines defining the area for the U.N.C.L.E. motif. You will find many people respraying blue models and trying sell them as scarce cream (or even white!) variations but, naturally, they always use the wrong casting.

In the box there is a ring which has an image of both Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin - it changes depending on the angle at which it is viewed. The original rings often get lost or filed away by mothers in a box of assorted animals, characters and bits and pieces when tidying up so are quite valuable now. Reproductions are, however, readily available and actually very good, although different sizes in most cases. So, without an original to compare, buyers need to be wary.

From what I read, early editions had cast metal search lights mounted on the wings, replaced at some point by chrome plated plastic. However, on the early editions that I have had with shaped wheels these lights have been plastic not cast metal. So I am uncertain about some of what is published in this respect and I wonder whether, in fact, the plastic ones came first, later replaced by the metal, possibly due to the delicate plastic breaking when being fitted.

The roof element that needs to be pushed down to move the pair in and out of the windows and make a gunshot noise is plastic.

Even without suspension, this model sold very well and stays on the order sheets through to 1969.

I appreciate that some room might have been needed for the mechanism but Corgi managed to get suspension on the James Bond Aston Martin and other models with steering occupying much of the interior below the seat like the Austin A60, VW 1200 for example. The Oldsmobile would have had the reliable old wires and I am surprised they were not retained. Indeed, I may well have to get a cheap 497 - and there are lots around for a few pounds - and see if I can install some suspension and make the model much more pleasant. I have always liked the Oldsmobile and, whilst a bit dated by then, it deserved better treatment.

Corgi Model Club: MGC GT (cheaper than the sum of its parts)

 The Model Club's latest issue has finally arrived, delayed through no fault of the Club, and, having read many stories about it, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to see it up close for myself.

Firstly, it arrives in what must be the most deprived packaging so far in the series. This time it has the merest slip of bubble-wrap floating around and the box free to cavort around the interior of the usual brown corrugated card affair. Luckily the car is unlikely to move much inside its box, being wrapped in some tissue. No chunks of foam with this issue (which I hear may lead to damaged suspension where the foam is inserted such that it wedges too firmly the car beneath in other instances).

One's immediate impression has to be good, an instantly recognisable colour and great chrome. I like wire wheels on Corgis a lot but I don't remember any of my originals ever having such shiny axle ends. These spoil the appearance a bit but perhaps mine became dull quickly and I never noticed at the time.

You will then have the now familiar disappointment with the 'jewelled' headlamps which aren't. How much extra would it really cost to fit little glass items? I am sure Steve Flowers would give the Club as super discount for quantity should they have trouble sourcing them in China.

As I am sure you will have read elsewhere by now, the funs starts at the back end. The transfer reads MGB GT! I guess that in China the team producing this are unfamiliar with British cars and reckoned that the model which looks pretty much the same as the MGB GT they had produced a while ago might well have the same few letters on the tailgate.  A bit like nearly all Fords have the same Ford badge. Quite how that escaped the attention of some sort of quality control over in the East I don't know, then a later sample gets through the Club's approval process and the old MGB transfer gets applied to every model and shipped here when, finally, someone at the Club realises.

Personally, I find these mistakes quite fun. Yes, I know they make whoever missed this at the Club look a bit stupid but I can imagine that they may have been working with a poor original which had either no transfer or a damaged one. We have read before how they don't always seem to get hold of good examples of whatever they're planning to recreate and I'm not convinced that whoever does check most models is as well-versed in Corgis from this era as one might have expected.

Anyway, once this batch has been sold the transfer will be corrected and some of us will just have to buy the second issue. I think they have about 10-15,000 in each batch so it may be a while before the second comes and I suspect they will eventually be equally distributed and so, whilst this first one will have some value in future, it is unlikely to be significant with so many around.

The black case is a delightful copy and opens and closes just like the original. That little item itself is almost enough to warrant buying the model, with originals regularly selling for £10-£15 + post on Ebay.

The Club need to have a word with whoever packs the cars in the boxes as they are just stuffing the bag with the numbers into the box and that is resulting in many people reporting creased stickers which may not look great either loose or applied. Just adding a small piece of card in a slightly smaller bag would solve the problem.

As I said at the start, this is generally an excellent reproduction in many respects and the colour very close. I detect just a touch more lime in my original but that's all.

The tyres on an original would have been the 'branded' type with clear tread running around the tyre. This would surely be something quite easy for the Chinese to create but they have just left us with slicks!

The box has the usual annoying font error in the small text and numerals and has that shine which I wish they would try and avoid as the card itself is pretty much exact. I would also stop adding those little slits in the tabs which must account for no end of slightly damaged boxes and frustrated collectors, who knew they should have been more careful but took a chance and just tugged.

Looking back at my comment regarding the cost of cases, I have now looked up the cost of all the parts if you were to purchase reproduction items from Model-Supplies:

2 doors                     £2.00

2 seat backs                £2.90

tailgate                    £1.00

tailgate window             £1.75

window unit                 £3.00

chrome chassis / bumpers    £7.00

chrome grille               £1.75

2 jewels                    £0.80

tailgate transfer           £1.55

suitcase                    £1.20

4 Racing numbers            £1.55

postage UK                  £5.50

Total                      £30.00

Remember that the body items would be bare metal too, requiring paint. So the £28.98 that I think I paid wasn't such bad value! Now, does anyone need any spares!!

Corgi Catalogues 1957 - 80

 

I am pleased to say that I have now added many more Corgi catalogues to the Corgi.Toys website. You can get to these from this link or just click on the image above.

I must redesign the table of links sometime because I call my own lists and descriptions of models a 'catalogue' as well as including that link to Corgi Catalogues in my catalogue. It can get confusing but, for now, please have a look anyway as there are so many interesting pages in those old booklets and leaflets.

I reviewed the 1960 booklet a few days ago and will be publishing what I find of interest from the 1961 Catalogue soon.

In my own listings I have also now added a number of items to the TV & Film-related section, including all The Magic Roundabout items and some odd cartoon characters that I had tried to avoid including but have finally felt obliged to add for the purpose of completeness and there may well be collectors out there who are still fans of Basil Brush and Dick Darstardly. For me, far more amusing than those particular characters ever were is the fact that these pretty dreadful items are actually worth quite a bit now. The Basil Brush car, a sad final outing for the Classics Renault, came with a Soundbox which, if you were lucky and could figure out the instructions, produced something approaching the once famous Basil Brush 'Boom Boom'.

Dick Dastradly's car is another item that you would probably not even bother to pick up in a grubby boot sale for 10p but it was only available for a few months in late 1973 / early 1974 so a decent, boxed example might be worth hanging on to after all. Not so sure about the grubby model on its own, though. It looks like it has re-used the Bond Moon Buggy's chassis, although I may be mistaken.

Remember also to look at what I have in stock and available to purchase in my own store. Prices there are better than on Ebay where I also have to pay pretty heavy fees on every sale so it is so much better for me if you buy from my own store. If you want to make an offer for anything or need to combine postage for a few items, or just would like me to search for a particular model for you, just get in touch. You can either use the Contact form on my website or just write to me: andrew@corgi.toys.

Corgi Catalogue 1960

 

Having recently acquired a whole lot of Corgi catalogues from the 60s through to the 80s I thought it would be a good idea to take readers through some of them. Each has fascinating content when you look more closely and it is a nice way to look at review models once more that often get overlooked in articles. Whilst I do have the very early catalogues and leaflets, I will start with the 1960 catalogue and let's see if you can identify all the models that the artist has included on the front cover! (Answers at the end of the article).

This catalogue is one of very few in portrait form, most being landscape. The images are all drawn but quite accurately showing models and one assumes that the artist was working with actual models provided. So it's interesting to see that the first page shows an Austin Seven in what may well have been 'primrose yellow', quite scarce to find now. 

The British cars are mostly the second issues in two-tone finish or a new colour and are a combination of the old and new, with the Minis, Jaguar and Aston Martin having suspension and interiors, the old just windows. The Aston Martin appears to have a slightly different style of wheel - likely to be the cast 'spoke effect' type which I believe was actually the style of the very first issues.

The inclusion of the Austin is surprising as the model was not available until early 1961.

Note the Austin A40 is in red and black, normally used for the Mechanical edition. None of the Mechanical editions would now be available, having been discontinued in 1959.

In the 'Continental' section we see the Fiat 1800 with a dark blue roof.

The 'American' section has the old Thunderbirds and Plymouth but a 211S Studebaker as well as the three Impalas.

The Sports Car section shows the scarcer all-yellow 304 Mercedes-Benz and silver 151 Lotus. None of the sports car have suspension yet.

On the Utility vehicles page note the later screen Bedford CA vans are now featured. The 412 Ambulance shown, however, is another scarce model that can be hard to find now.

The next page, however, shows the 405 Bedford in green with a single screen which was not issued. Instead we had the 423 in red as shown on the previous page. The 416 RAC Land Rover has the headboard and canopy with logo only, helping us to date the change to the version without a headboard and with text on the canopy to sometime later than 1960.

Once again we see a scarce issue on the next page - the 422 Bedford CA Van in 50-50 finish. 

Corgi Cargoes appear for the first time, all four being launched in 1960.

And there's another nice 50-50 finish Bedford! Try finding these now!

 

The next few pages don't tell us a great deal that we don't know already. The little Skip and Churns that fits on the back of a Massey Ferguson Tractor is not something you see often now and I always thought it a bit odd that the churns were so much larger than those in the Cargo for a truck. Now I think about it, though, the lorries were still produced to a much smaller scale, around 1:55 at this time and so it may make sense after all for the churns to have been smaller.

Chipperfields Circus collectors would have to wait a while for the items shown. Military item were taking priority in 1960, as the next three pages show.

 

These were all remarkable models and these can be good reference pages to all the model numbers and what was contained in the various Gift Sets too. Despite all Corgi's efforts, though, military equipment did not sell well, some of these items having the lowest of all Corgi models sales in the 1956-70s era. That makes them very worthwhile keeping now, of course, and much more sought after than they may have been initially!

The penultimate page has some useful summaries of what were contained in the Corgi Accessory Packs and also which spare tyres were available then. This particular catalogue comes from USA but its content appears identical, other than prices and distributor references, to that issued in the UK.

At the end you get the good old Service Ramp, something Corgi had in its original Mettoy days, with the outlined Studebaker looking a little too small. Or perhaps the main section is too long. It gets withdrawn almost as soon as the catalogue reaches collectors, however. 

On the other hand there is the brand new Jeep FC-150 with lamp standard and a nice hydraulic device with an electrician too in the box. 

New arrivals this month, including Noddy's Car

 Some very nice models have arrived recently, some for my own collection and others that I hope a collector will consider purchasing.

I'll start with the Corgi Major 1133 Troop Carrier. I have tried many times to figure out not only the differences between 1118 US Export edition and 1133 but also which 1118s and 1133s had the solid or 'see through' chassis. I have sort of given up and this one disproves another idea I had - that 1133s had a canopy with an indent where the star was placed. This example I am satisfied is an original, bought by its last owner new in America. It has a canopy with no indent and a star but comes in a 1133 box and, hopefully consistent with all 1133s, has the text along the side of the bonnet.

So I shall have to update my Catalogue entries - again! I think it is correct that the 1133 has no insignia on the front or rear and the star is applied to the two doors as well, rather than the bonnet. This has a nice, complete original box - the 1133 issue being the thin card type with flaps as opposed to the thick type with a lid.

Next is this lovely old Bedford CA van, here in Fire Department guise as #405. Note this is not #405M, having no friction motor and a tin base. This is quite rare as the #405 models were usually green with AFT transfers (as the box text declares). 

It has an original metal ladder in black and the later, slightly updated grill casting. The box is not something that is easy to find these days and has survived nearly 70 years pretty well!

At the opposite end of the Corgi spectrum we have the penultimate use of the Citroen casting, now quite disfigured with Whizzwheels and some chap with a megaphone standing in the back together with a row of spare bicycle wheels.

This one did have an aerial that was intact but movement in the box due to the missing inner tray led to it breaking on the way to me. I still have the broken part and it could be reattached by someone with a steady hand and strong glue. I did manage to get the thin pole for the parasol on the Corgi Kit Motel Chalet repaired so will have a go at this and report at some point in the future should no-one buy it in the meantime. I don't think there is anything special about the inner tray by way of design or printing so I may reproduce something as the outer box is perfectly sound.

In its glorious liquid metallic blue finish, the Toyota 2000GT is a lovely looking model, although the Whizzwheels do let it down. I fitted some wire wheels to one a while ago and that made a huge difference. However, I shall try and leave this all original as it has a nice, complete, original box.

The aerial is also in place, as are the jewels front and back. The white ones at the front can often go missing. The box is lovely and has the correct inner section with a cut-out for the screen.

In a less impressive and solid blue comes the very scarce Whizzwheels edition of the Chevrolet Camaro, issued as #304 for a very short period on dealers' order lists in 1972.

This also has a nice original box.

Lastly, and now for something completely different - Noddy's car! I remember buying one of these when I was at St. Andrews University in 1970. Not because I was still collecting Corgis then but Noddy was very cool at that time in that environment, in similar way to the Magic Roundabout, for which Corgi also produced lots of models and characters a little later. These, incidentally, included the final throes of the Citroen casting as Dougal's Car in November 1971.

Whereas mine had a nice original Golly in the back, this one has the politically correct Mr Tubby Bear. Of course, now even the suggestion that Mr Bear might be a little larger than his BMI figure would be regarded as 'inappropriate' or some similar word by the woke community. As for Noddy's friend, Golly, he has now been virtually 'disappeared' like some resistance campaigner in some countries run by the Communist Party. I was ordered by Ebay officials to remove photos of a model, with an original friend, from listings and I am not too sure they were happy with the name Golly either. 

This was, as I recall, the very first signs of wokeness or political correctness, not that either expression was used in conversation or articles at the time. I remember having this feeling that something wasn't quite right about effectively 'banning' a Noddy Car with the first Golly in the back. He had a jet black face, just like Noddy's friend in the stories had. Corgi changed that by painting it grey, which struck me at the time as an even more insulting way to deal with the character! The grey-faced Golly did last a few years, though, for some strange reason being more 'acceptable' to whoever decided these things. Finally, however, he gets dismissed entirely and the fat bear takes his place.

An original with the black-faced Golly is now one of the more valuable Corgis from this era and very hard to find. Amusingly, Steve Flowers at Model Supplies does a reproduction Golly for £6 and I am not sure it is easy to distinguish from an original lump of plastic or rubber. He used to advertise both the black and grey-face options but now I don't know which is supplied. I may enquire. it is easy to remove Mr Tubby and this might make the item more interesting.

As it stands, it is still a nice addition to the Comics collection, for those who like that sort of thing. The box has a tear at the top and bottom on the right but is otherwise remarkably complete and clean. The cellophane invariably gets torn as one or other of the hats scrape by on their way in or out.

It's nice to see both chrome lamps in place. I recall that my own Noddy's Car lost one lamp in a matter of weeks.

So there are some new items in my cabinet here, For prices or any more information click on an image or drop me a line.

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!