Red Land Rovers

"Are the Chipperfields Land Rovers a different colour to the Ferrari Set ones?"

My good friend and collector in Germany asked me the question. I knew that I had seen two distinct shades but whether they could be specifically allocated to one or other I couldn't say. So I've been thinking about it and would welcome any actual knowledge about this either to support or counter my conclusions.

He sent me the photos above which do show quite clear differences. Whilst there are shades in between, there remain two that stand out for us - the dark shade and the brighter red shade. My inclination was first to see the the darker shade as Chipperfields and the brighter one as Ferrari. I am not entirely sure why, especially as I am not a big fan of the Circus models and tend to have avoided them over the last few years, but some impressions of colour seem to have remained in such brain as I have left and the darker one really did say 'Chipperfields'.

Then I looked at a pile of other models, mostly pretty new and in boxes for GS19 or GS17. Now I know that just because a model is in a box now does not mean that it was in the same box at the start of its life at the factory but bear with me on this for now.

These are two 'Chipperfields' models. 

Here are two Ferrari Gift set models.

Another two Chipperfields models.

Two unallocated models I had lying around.

Yes, there were both bright and dark in each case! So that didn't help at all.

Thinking about it some more it occurred to me that it is unlikely that Corgi would have been spraying the same Land Rover casts in slightly different shades at the same time for the various Gift Sets. While they were packing both the Chipperfields and Ferrari Gift set boxes I would have expected the production people to be providing just the one batch of painted Land Rovers.

The first appearance of a red Land Rover was in April 1962 for the Gift Set 19 with a trailer and Elephant Cage. So I can imagine that a colour was decided and all Land Rovers for this set and the following Gift Set 23 in September 1962 would have been in that colour. Generally, Corgi were good at being consistent with colours over a short period and let's say that the dark shade was thus utilised for all the Chipperfields items through to early 1963.

Then the Ferrari Gift Set is devised and, again, the same darker shade is included in this Gift Set 17 too for a while. Then, some time later, and I have no idea when, there is a change of supplier of paint or even a deliberate decision to have something brighter and along come batches of new, brighter red Land Rovers and these are available for use in whichever Gift Set, Chipperfields or Ferrari, as the ladies in the factory need them for.

That then is how, in my view, the different colours have been distributed at the start. Early Chipperfields models have the first shade (to which I have allocated the darker one) and all later models are brighter red, whether Ferrari or not.

We did, of course, wonder whether Ferrari had had a hand in determining the shade but decided this was unlikely or, even if they had, it was not exactly followed!

It would be a fair criticism of this brief research to say that the images provided here could all be of the same red shade but varying light and processing have resulted in their now appearing quite different. I don't think that will be the case but I'm happy to read any alternative suggestions, or knowledge even, that someone may be able to contribute.