Thursday 7 March 2024

Corgi Model Club: Volkswagen Breakdown Truck

 


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


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


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



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


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

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

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





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


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


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

Friday 1 March 2024

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

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




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

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


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

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

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


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


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


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

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

Saturday 10 February 2024

The Fiat 1800 in production in 1960 - a short video

 


My thanks to Mike Sacco in New York for reminding me of this great video of a Fiat 1800 being produced at the Corgi factory near Swansea in Wales in 1960 from a cauldron of mazak through to dealer packs on their way, oddly enough, to Italy! I thought you might like to see this so have shared it here for your enjoyment.

The query that gave rise to this was whether the factory used spraying apparatus or paintbrushes for the silver paint on bumpers and radiator grilles and elsewhere. The answer, of course, is 'both' as can be seen here, with the little dabs of red, silver or whatever couldn't be easily catered for by a mask, being applied with a brush. Both changes in positioning of the masks and the varying skills of the workers with a paintbrush led to no two Corgis ever being exactly the same, something which cannot be said for the somewhat less charming (but still excellent in other ways) re-issues.

I am also not a great fan of restored models as I find that nine times out of ten people seem unable to resist the temptation to add something, be it a silver door handle or boot catch, orange indicator or, as is often the case, red tail lights when there were none on the original. It is nice, though, to see models not being discarded and given a new life. My own preference is to see them re-appear in a completely new colour or style as very few attempts to re-create the original are that successful, many colours being so hard to match now and that silver paint is seldom quite right! No-one can match the random Corgi factory ladies' skills!

I wonder whether the Corgi Model Club people could get hold of a video of how the latest re-issues get made in China!

Thursday 8 February 2024

The Corgi Model Club: MGA re-issue (in a very bright red.)

 


Blue DTC Brands have kept things simple this month with their Corgi Model Club release of the 302 MGA. The first thing that will strike you as you open the box is how red it is! Very red. Quite definitely red. The second thing may be that red again but the second or third will be how nice it is to have good protection for the vulnerable screen in the shape of two now familiar chunks of polystyrene or foamy plastic. You also get a piece of tissue paper this time, not the thin plastic stuff.



It is a lovely-looking model and they've chosen the early edition with shaped wheels, not seen on a Club re-issue since the Land Rover Breakdown Truck. There's not a lot that can go wrong with making this one, although I do wonder about the slope of the radiator grille at the front. It appears rather more upright than my copy shown below.


As usual, the detailing is precise and really just like the original except better determined.





Whilst I am aware that colours can change with age, I do feel that the choice of such a bright red was a mistake.


How many times do we get to see such a pristine and shiny, rust-free tin base? Lovely. If my memory serves me right the only other re-issue of a tin base model has been for the Mercedes-Benz 303S. However, with suspension required, the used a different style for that one.


The description card or certificate tells us that there were three colour schemes for the MGA. We all know about the red and the metallic green but I feat they have simply copied data from The Great Book for that cream one. As is the case with many of dear old Marcel's memories of colours used for models, he is confusing colour trials with what actually made it into a box you could buy. You would not have found then, and certainly will not find now, a cream MGA with red seats other than a factory sample.


Friday 2 February 2024

Corgi Toys @ 60: More Classics, a Commer and the first Monte Carlo Mini

 


It's February 1964 and two more models in the Classics series are added. Two Bentley 3 litres, one red with red wheels, the other in green with steel wheels.


Both have a full length hood which can be detached with a rather strange-looking driver, seemingly covered in white bandages from head to toe. It is the same chap in both the racing edition - the green one with RN3 decals on the front radiator and rear box - and the more sedate-looking red one. The green edition has the Union flag on the passenger door.

These were both initially catalogued as #900 and packed in a flimsy card box, mounted on a card base with a plastic mechanism securing the model to the base. Later, but I do not know when, they were numbered #9001 and #9002 and supplied in much more practical stiff card boxes with separate lids and foam protection.

We shall meet the Bentley again in a few years' time!


Next we have the delightful Mini-Cooper, now in Monte Carlo mode as Corgi celebrates the Mini's success at the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally. It gets a search light on the roof and is the Morris-badged casting as for the 227 model, with two headlamp jewels and a RN37 decal on each door.

There are no variations of this model that I am aware of but I guess there could be some different base types, just as there were with the #227 models.


The final addition to the shelves at your local shop would have been the Commer Ambulance as a complete model #463 and distinguished from that which could have been made with the earlier Gift Set 24 by the base, lacking the device to remove the rear section.

In due course the Milk Float will be issued but the plain Van never gets an issue on its own outside the Gift Set other than as a branded model, 'Hammonds' being the #462 catalogue issue. 


Tuesday 9 January 2024

Corgi Model Club: Chevrolet Impala Fire Chief Car

 


The latest issue from the Corgi Model Club is here and it is yet another superb reproduction. 

It arrives with two pieces of hard foam plastic to prevent movement in the box (one piece I only realised was there after taking the photos) and some thin paper protecting the chrome at each end and the transfer on the bonnet. Unfortunately, the chunk of plastic has pushed the aerial to stand at an unnatural angle and, unlike the original, you can't twiddle it around.



This is otherwise a stunning model and I cannot fault its paintwork, wonderful chrome and the accuracy of every casting detail. They will have had the #480 to work from, of course, so the Club will have made a little more profit from this one.




I look at these images and I'm taken back to that feeling when I first took original models out of the box. I can seldom afford to have such 'new' and shiny original models these days so the Club do us collectors a great service.















My own #482 is a cast wheel edition which is rather more common, this and the Police version being around for quite a while. I do have a shaped wheel edition somewhere but in my recent move it has taken a long time to find anything so I used the first one I came across! They're both identical in all other respects so it serves its purpose here just as well.

You will notice that there is a small difference in the font used for the bonnet text, the Club edition being just a little too fat. The only other differences that I see are the lack of a silver ring around the base of the beacon on the roof and the original Impala rear lights have a sort of sheen which the people in China have been unable to replicate on this, as also for the earlier #480.