Changing wheels - a few projects to make some models a little better

 

The Ford Cortina MkIII GXL was issued in 1971 with a Graham Hill character holding a football. It came in metallic blue, metallic bronze and a solid mustard colour, the latter being available, remarkably, with both right and left hand drive interiors. The mustard ones are really quite rare and seem to have been exported and not sold in the local toy shop.

One of the blue ones came effectively free with some other models a while ago and was in a very sorry state so I decided to see what it would look like with normal wheels. For me, this is a great improvement!

I need to redo this one day as it needs another coat of paint and even the original didn't have door inserts so they look a bit bare. It did have twin jewelled headlamps and opening doors with tilting seats and is an accurate model of a popular car in those times. The released issue had a black 'vinyl' roof which I may need to add too. More in a while on this project.

Another Whizzwheels model - one that did not need much outward attention - was this lovely Toyota 2000GT, a car that, strangely was not something you could buy from the Toyota store. This was Corgi making good use of the casting for the 336 James Bond model with Aki at the wheel. This car is crying out for the wire wheels to be refitted! So I'll see what I can do as this is a spare with virtually non-existent suspension.

Also available in bright metallic purple!

And, on the subject of making Whizzwheel models look better, here's another look at the much-improved Bentley I created last year.