An easy repair

 

At first glance this looks like quite a nice example of the #343 Pontiac Firebird. Things look a little dark in the back, though . . .

Yes, somehow the rear seat and part of the floor, as well as the tiny little gearstick had disappeared from this model.

At first I was just going to put it in the box of models that may be useful for spares one day. Then I remembered that Corgi had saved themselves a few shillings by using almost the same casting and what might be very similar interiors for both the Chevrolet Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird. This had always struck me as a little odd as presumably there would not have been any matching of the real cars but now this could be to my advantage.

I found someone selling a wreck of a Camaro for £10 and he or she accepted my offer of £8.50 which was all the more surprising as they included *postage! This arrived in the usual thinly-protected jiffy bag and the package even fitted through my letterbox but I was not too worried on this occasion. I had assumed that I would have to extract the rear section and a seat back and try to cut the new piece so that the join was not too obvious. The driver's seat backrest I was a bit unsure about as the passenger one seemed unwilling to angle back from its rather upright stance but I would look at that later.

I was pleased to discover that the Camaro and Firebird interiors were, indeed, the same colour too. So I set about drilling out the two rivets retaining the Camaro base. I may not have needed to bother as I discovered then that the interior did not seem to be attached to anything. I was able to lift the back and, with a bit of a tug, the whole unit came out in one piece!

Logic then informed me, a little belatedly but nonetheless pleasingly, that what comes out might go back in in this particular case and I fiddled around with the remnants of the Firebird interior and got them out pretty smartly. The Camaro interior just slipped in and made a reassuring connection of sorts with the chassis such that it did not seem likely to come adrift or fall out should the model overturn at some point in the future. All, indeed, seemed very well. And I didn't have to worry about the seat backs or wondering how the gearstick could be fitted so that it still moved.

So there we are. The Pontiac is close enough to being all original and a lot more likely to find an interested collector one day.

The seat backrests appear slightly differently angled and move easily. That may or may not be a difference, merely the old ones having become stuck perhaps.

So, if you have either of these models and the interior is not all it should be, you should be able to fix it without using anything other than a similar vintage part from a wreck.

*I mentioned postage above and, in this case, the seller used Royal Mail's Tracked 48 service with a price of £3.75. This has recently increased from £3.65 but is still, in my opinion, good value and reliable. This price applies for those of us who can purchase the postage online and print the label so I guess it will not suit everyone. It is quite a saving on the price you'd pay by queueing at a Post Office counter. Incidentally, that is another benefit - You spend a mere few seconds at the counter and may often be able to persuade the lady with a dozen identical packages for which she needs stamps or labels, or the earnest-sounding gentleman who needs to be provided with every option prior to deciding which of half a dozen services to use, or even the youngster sending a parcel to France who needs to fill out a Customs Form and tell us all what is inside, any of whom can take ten minutes or more, to allow you to pop in front and be out of the door before they can say Customs Declaration.

There are, of course, other services that advertise cheaper prices but my experience of deliveries from the cheapest has not been that great. I am also quite happy with just the tracking and it is only on the more valuable items that I need a signature. Even that service, though, is significantly less expensive if you are able to purchase online rather than at the counter. Royal Mail comes in for a lot of criticism but I have had a good experience over the years. Yes, some parcels have gone astray but, from recollection, these have only been in Brazil and Belgium and that can hardly be the fault of Royal Mail. In each case I have received a prompt payment of the insured value and refund of postage paid.

Using the 'Signed For' service, which adds a fair bit to the price, does not, I found when that seemed to be the default service for many of us, necessarily mean that your customer got the package. In one memorable incident, someone in France wanted a refund for his purchase despite my showing him evidence that the package had been signed for. He claimed that a baby-sitter had signed for it. I was unable to determine whether the baby-sitter was a fan of the 7 litre Iso Grifo or not but I suggested the buyer seek recompense in her direction , not mine.

On the subject of postage, however, I am concerned that some new and pretty incomprehensible regulations may impact on my deliveries to anywhere outside the UK. It is already a pain for most European customers to have to add not only 20% but also a fat handling charge and then a tax on that to an already quite expensive purchase. A £100 Corgi Toy may well cost them about £150 now. Whereas once most of my customers were collectors in Italy and Germany, now these people are very few and far between and it is usually someone who is buying a model that is very hard to find and for whom the additional duty is manageable within what might be a more flexible budget. Now, though, I am told that I have to specify a whole load of stuff about the product, whether it is suitable for children of a certain age, provide some link to where it was sold so the price or value can be checked and some data which has initials that I honestly don't understand. The system for the USA has been quite reasonable with recent requirements that I pay the duty when purchasing the postage. I can declare the value and advise the customer if I need some extra funds. It is quite a modest 10% rate and one can take a view on 'value' too. Now I believe fresh changes and requirements to declare a lot more information may jeopardise that trade too, which has held up well over the years since Brexit.

At least there's still Canada, Australia and New Zealand . . . I think. Maybe there will be forms for them too as government interferes more and more in small businesses.

I will, of course, find my way through this quagmire of regulation and continue to supply anyone, almost anywhere. I may complain and get a bit annoyed but I will live to fight another day and, hopefully, get a more helpful government.

Two early box inserts

 

With no new releases in November, I thought I would have a closer look at a couple of leaflets that you may not see very often. These two were included in the box with models in the first two or three years.

The first one doesn't have any date or print reference but I think it may well have been the first leaflet, included from the launch as it features just those July 1956 models. It also refers to a pink slip, with which you could apply for membership of what was termed the Corgi Car Club and get the C.C.C. Certificate.

The Mechanical editions are all listed with the price 1/3d higher than the normal issue in every case. For those no familiar with British currency prior to 1971, we had pounds, shillings and pence. The pounds are as they always have been but were split into 20 shillings and a shilling was split into 12 pennies. The accepted form of display of a price was like 2/9, representing 2 shillings and 9 pence. An exact number of 2 shillings would be shown as 2/-, hence the 4/- shown for several models.

On your old boxes you may also see the price shown as 2/9d. Here the 'd' standards for the Latin denarius. Our old currency is often referred to as £sd which originally would have been librae, solidi and denarii although we only talked of pounds, shillings and pence.

One thing I noticed was the excellent quality of the artwork on these leaflets, especially this first.

The next is a leaflet printed in late 1957 and presumably included in boxes from early 1958.

This is interesting in that it includes the Pony Trailer which the Great Book of Corgi says this was issued in January 1958, but not the Platform Trailer, supposedly issued at the same time.

The Mechanical models are now just mentioned in a panel with rather less prominence than before and we are now encouraged to join the Corgi Model Club!

This leaflet has slightly less-detailed artwork but still very attractive illustrations and this lovely shade of blue for the Citröen caught my eye.

Corgi Model Club: another MGA

Chasing hard on the heels of the Rover 2000TC in white, the MGA in metallic teal has now arrived.

This is a lovely-looking model with an excellent, high gloss finish, which makes you wonder why they couldn't have achieved that with the Chevrolet Impala a little while ago. The colour is really nothing much like the Corgi original but pleasant for all that, there being no chance of this being mistaken for the 1957 issue.

Like the early 2024 re-issue, this has smooth wheels, which are nicely made and very shiny but I have always thought this model looked so much better with the shaped wheels fitted from around 1961. Indeed, this particular model will be for sale soon as my colleague in the USA who usually has these re-issues once I have finished with them, has specifically told me not to bother sending any with these smooth wheels.

This one is another model made for the Club in Bangladesh. It's not easy to read on the extremely shiny base but rather better typesetting, or whatever the process is called is needed.. It still looks poorly aligned, though. Having said that, the design and general presentation skills exhibited by many traders from that part of the world in their store signage and shop window displays are not great. The Rover's base looked very amateur.

Like many people making reproductions or restorations, whoever was in charge of the paint pots in Dhaka, Chattagram or wherever could not resist the addition of a little red to the rear lights. I am pretty sure that these were not painted on the original models or, if they were, it would be with the same silver as for the bumper.

The emblem on the boot lid is also a bit too circular. Even on the originals it was not as clearly an octagon as it should be but the angles have really been smoothed out on this. With real new MG cars' manufacture now in Chinese hands, I am sure they would have got that right but I guess the workers in Bangladesh would be unaware of things like that.

That's not very significant overall, however, and the model itself is an attractive product that will please most collectors and seems quite good value at £29 for members, including some tissue and two unevenly cut pieces of plastic foam.

What is not so good to report is the quality of the card used for the box. It is noticeably thinner than the Chinese variety and I have already seen pictures from unhappy people sending back boxes with considerable wear on the corners, presumably where it has been free to move around in the quite inadequate outer packaging used for delivery.

And once again, the Club will need to fire their latest editor of the Certificates of Authenticity. (You'll gather that I didn't get the job.) We are told that 'the MGA was available in red, cream or metallic teal'. This is an error I suppose they've picked up by copying the Great Book of Corgi, in which many of the colours said to have been issued were figments of Marcel's imagination. He even writes about red seats in the green one. No doubt he will have seen many factory samples and I am sure more will have been approved but, to the best of my knowledge, there was no cream edition issued to buy in the shops. I think I would have seen one by now if there had been. Factory samples, yes, Issued models available to dealers, no.

I am also a bit confused by the text which goes on to tell me that ' it was available in . . . a blue illustrated box (as presented with this special Corgi Model Club member's edition) . . .' I don't know about anyone else but my box is the later yellow and blue type. It even has 'Teal Member's Edition' printed on the box too. So something's not quite right there.

There is a cream MGA either in the shop already or coming soon and I think that is the one that will come in a blue box. 

Whizzwheels revisited: red spots spotted in a catalogue

 

A reader has brought to my attention this page of a leaflet printed in August 1969.

It shows the Lamborghini Muira with 'red spot' wheels. This gives us a little more of a clue as to when the decision was made to switch from Golden Jacks to Whizzwheels, initially of this 'red spot' type. 

Here in a 1969 Catalogue, printed in September 1968, we have the Lamborghini with its 'take-off' wheels illustrated. So, assuming that the decision to fit Whizzheels instead of Golden Jacks was taken at a similar time to Whizzwheels being the way to go for models generally, it will have been around Spring 1969 that 'red spot' Whizzwheels would have been produced and the Ferrari gets to lead the field with them in September 1969.

Clearly, there must have been some reason for withholding the Lamborghini issue until February 1970, by which time 'red spots' were coming to an end. Looking at the illustration, the wheels on the Lamborghini do look slightly different. Illustrators for these catalogues and leaflets did not work from imagination but would have had actual models on the desk. In 1968 they had a fairly familiar red car and a black bull but by 1969 they were provided with what looks like a much richer shade of red and a brown bull! The Chevrolet Astro is shown on the same page in a very shiny gold and we know that Corgi were experimenting with liquid, very reflective finishes which made their way onto the issued Chevrolet Corvette models (and later the Toyota 2000GT). Perhaps an early sample was in a similar finish. The wheels, though, are unlikely to have been made deliberately larger by the artist. Perhaps it is just the tyres. Whatever the case it is odd. I wonder whether the 'red spot' wheels that were fitted for the sample did not rotate smoothly on this model, maybe rubbing on some part of the body? This delayed its actual issue to dealers and, with the new plastic variety then becoming the norm, which did fit and rotate without any problem, that's simply what the Lamborghini got.

Like so many questions we have about Corgis from this era, we may never know the answer unless a reader just happens to have been on an appropriate production team in the late 1960s.

Update: a few minute after publishing this, I see this photo on a Corgi Collectors Facebook page!

I am due to meet the owner before long so will enquire as to how genuine he reckons this is.

I have made a table of the Whizzwheels models and am slowly adding the different types of wheel that I have seen fitted to original models. For the early models, there would just be three types as illustrated below (in order of appearance).

red spot

pepperpot

four crowns

Below is just a section of the table for the first few months. The full tabel can be viewed at this link.

Issued		Cat. No.	Model name	Red spot	Pepperpot	Four crowns
1969	September	344	Ferrari 206 Dino Sport	1	1
1969	October	347	Chevrolet Astro 1 Experimental Car	1	1
1970	January	343	Pontiac Firebird	1	1
1970	February	303	Roger Clark’s Ford Capri	1	1
1970	February	311	Ford Capri - 3 litre V6	1	1
1970	February	342	Lamborghini P400 Miura		1
1970	May	380	Alfa-Romeo Pininfarina P33		1	1
1970	May	371	Porsche Carrera 6		1	1
1970	May	202	Renault 16 Whizzwheeel		1	1
1970	May	375	Toyota 2000 GT		1	1
1970	May	201	The Saint’s Volvo P 1800		1	1
1970	June	374	Jaguar E Type 2+2		1	1
1970	June	377	Marcos 3 litre Volvo		1
1970	June	509	Porsche Targa 911 S Police Car		1	1

I hope this is helpful to anyone looking to collect these models and, if you do have any genuine examples of different wheel types then do let me know. I am, however, very suspicious of 'red spot' wheels on any models later than February 1970. They are so simple to change. The Lamborghini remains a bit of a mystery, though.

Lastly you may not have heard that Corgi, through the Corgi Model Club, are launching a Corgi Whizzwheels Club, to be run along similar lines to the existing subscription arrangement. Initial promotions have been limited to see what reaction they receive. This will be the second, or maybe third, attempt to see whether there really is sufficient demand to make the project worthwhile. I have seen illustrations of a range of models and members who have signed up are now receiving a Porsche Carrera Six. That's a cheap option for Corgi as they've already issued two of that casting.

I do not propose to join this one but will keep an eye out for anything interesting. So far, though, no sign of any 'red spots'!

Whizzwheels and their predecessors: a list

Many of the Whizzwheels models from 1970 to 1972 were essentially existing models that had been around earlier and just got a different paint finish, base and wheels.

Here is a list of all the Whizzwheels models that had 'normal' predecessors, with many retaining the same features. With a few exceptions, these models were not produced for very long, nor sold well and now can be expensive as they're hard to find. Although we do not have sales figures for all of them, it is my view that the pink Chevrolet Corvette, blue Chevrolet Camaro, green Ghia Mangusta de Tomaso, orange Lancia Fulvia and purple Toyota 2000GT would rank high with the Rover 2000TC and blue Mini-Marcos in a list of Corgi's scarcest issues from this period.

1970	May	371	Porsche Carrera 6
1970	May	202	Renault 16 Whizzwheeel
1970	May	375	Toyota 2000 GT
1970	May	201	The Saint’s Volvo P 1800
1970	June	374	Jaguar E Type 2+2
1970	June	377	Marcos 3 litre Volvo
1970	September	376	Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray Stock Car
1970	September	372	Lancia Fulvia Sport Zagato
1970	September	378	MGC GT
1970	September	383	Volkswagen 1200 Beetle
1970	October	203	Ghia ‘Mangusta’ de Tomaso
1970	October	280	Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow
1971	March	282	Mini-Cooper Rally Car
1971	June	418	AustinTaxi
1971	August	281	Rover 2000TC
1972	January	308	Monte Carlo Mini 339
1972	February	204	Morris Mini-Minor
1972	February	304	Chevrolet SS 350
1972	February	305	Mini Marcos GT 850
1972	June	387	Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray Coupe

I have found illustrations of each of the above, with one of their predecessors for comparison. In many cases there will have been variations of one or other, or both models.