Corgi Toys @ 60: An ambulance, lights, new cab and a long-lived horse transporter

October 1962 sees the arrival of two new models on the local toy shop shelves, a Chipperfields Horse Transporter and a dramatic-looking American ambulance.

The Horse Transporter is the Corgi Majors model 1130 featuring the new Bedford TK cab with its nice wing mirrors and suspension. This would be the first appearance of this cab, later to be linked with a whole range of old and new trailers. The cab is always red and the trailer is in Chipperfield colours. The upper section is rather cheaply produced in plastic, something else new for Corgi.

Inside the trailer are six white horses, each carefully separated by cardboard in the original packing. The whole model sits on a tray and there is a familiar piece of white corrugated card wrapped around the sides and roof in the outer thin card box.

The trailer has suspension and you'll see this again, many years later in 1973, in green and yellow in a Racing Horse Transporter 1004, still with a Bedford TK cab (but the economy version without mirrors), and again, attached to a Berliet cab in 1976 in brown and white. That's 14 years for the trailer casting with just a change of paint and plastic colour.

The ambulance was billed as a 'Superior Ambulance on Cadillac Chassis'. I am assuming that Superior was the brand name of the bodywork conversion people. This is another 'first' for Corgi with the inclusion of a battery in a compartment underneath which powered a 1½ volt bulb and some tubes also conveyed the light to two 'lights' front and another two at the rear. Maybe this gave developers the idea of the 'Trans-o-lite' system and similar use of light via some plastic on a few other vehicles to follow.

This was the first version of the Superior Ambulance. Like the Commer Police Van and Military Police Van to appear later, the rear axle had a cam which pushed a thin piece of copper to complete a circuit and light the bulb. The faster the ambulance ran, the faster the bulb flashed (in theory). In practice, this resulted in the merest flicker when the driving was enthusiastic along the carpet and the connection was often a bit scratchy too, resulting in a less than clear 'flash'.

The system would be updated across the range in a few years with a simple on-off switch and a 'flashing' bulb, operated by a filament which connected and disconnected with temperature changes inside the bulb itself.

The ambulance would be re-issued with the same 437 catalogue number but will appear in a totally different colour scheme of blue and white with different decals too.

Once again, the Corgi model Club have also almost matched a new release with a 60th birthday of an original, as their reproduction of the 437 model has recently reached our doorsteps. Theirs, though, is the later colour scheme.

The first 437 may have slightly different design and colour for the four plastic 'lights'

This edition has distinct yellow conical shape instead of the white sharper triangular shape.

All 437 models that I have seen had fixed shaped wheels. The rear wheels would have to be fixed to ensure the cam rotated. Later blue and white editions will have either shaped free spinning or cast wheels.