Sellotape, twisted wires and Chitty Chitty nearly bang bang

 I suppose  it is only fair to warn you that I am not a fan of the Corgi Chitty Chitty Bang Bang model so any review of the Model Club's latest offering probably wouldn't have been glowing. Indeed, I hadn't planned to do one at all as I knew it would be difficult to avoid bad language or just sounding a little bored with it all, at best. However, here I am and, although, this advice may be a little late as many people will have had theirs already, let me start by saying that unless you really do wish to pretend to fly it around the room or display it sans boîte on a shelf, leave it in its box. Don't attempt to remove it.

Firstly you have to open the flap which I am sure every collector now knows is likely to tear something unless you follow the instructions that several people have now posted in various forums and have various tools handy to release it. I was very lucky; the club had sent me one which was already open at one end. Once you have done so you will find that tugging at neither the card nor plastic protective cover achieves much. I proceeded to try to open the flap at the other end with a view to pushing rather than pulling the contents but, not having the appropriate tools or instructions to hand, I decided not to and returned to make a second attempt.

Although this image doesn't really show the problem very well, the Chinese people doing the packing were clearly in a hurry to head home when doing this one as the sellotape was very haphazardly applied and some elements had attached themselves to the inside of the box, so preventing any movement. I have no idea how this was presented in the original but one would hope it was rather better and I don't recall much use of tape by Corgi in the 60s.

So, with a little jiggling around I did finally get the unit containing the model out on a white plastic cloud. Now comes the really difficult part. The model is attached by two pieces of plastic-coated wire, one piece around each axle and threaded through some holes in the cloud. On this example they were incredibly tightly twisted to the extent that it was not easy to figure out which way to unwind them. After I while I did get them loose but then you have to be oh so careful in unthreading the wire back through fairly delicate cloud plastic and then over the wheels and avoiding the many bits and pieces which stick out on this model and look only too vulnerable to being accidentally knocked.

So finally, it's out and I can run it around the desk and try whatever operating features it has. I look at the box to discover how to operate these and discover that there is actually only one and there are no instructions on the panel headed OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS. I guess that's how it must have been in 1968, though, so I cannot really moan about that. 

It arrives in the box with the side wings out and the front and rear 'stabilisers' fitted. It took me a while but I eventually discovered that you need to pull the lever by the driver to have the wings fly out once they been pushed back. (Later I read how to do this on the back of the Certificate!)

It released them quite satisfactorily the first time I tried but it was decidedly vague on the following attempts and I needed to tug a little more firmly on the lever than I really felt comfortable doing as this model would be heading across the Pond to a customer in the States in a while. But it did work. Several customers have reported this to be a problem. I was surprised to find the lever made of plastic. I am pretty sure the original would have been metal.

The same thought comes to mind for most of the other elements which appear all over this model. The front lamps, for example, whilst appearing to have slightly better 'jewel' material for the lamps than past Club models are mounted in plastic holders and arms, the same material also being used for the radiator surround. This brown plastic will, I am sure, have been gold coloured metal on the original so this will be a disappointment for many. It also suffers from being rather more bendy than metal. OK, so it may not fracture if you happen to brush against it a couple of times but it does result in the headlamps not necessarily pointing in the same direction. I suspect that very careful heating of the arm and resetting them would be possible but I'll leave that to someone else to try. As it is they look reasonable and I doubt another model will be any better so it's not something worth returning it for.

There's a strap on the bonnet, as the Certificate also reminds us, which I gather was left off in the 90s re-issue and we're also told that the wheels are now as per the original. And so they should be.

I do wonder about the dashboard - surely that would not have been silver plastic? You do feel that these elements would have been worth doing properly in some metal. The windscreen too is in brown plastic. again, I am sure many of the originals will have snapped and this will put up with a little more bruising than metal but it still strikes me as rather unsatisfactory.

I did not attempt to remove the front or rear 'stabilisers'. There are simply too many little things here and there which could be damaged so I decided not to take any risks.

I expect the characters and the main body of the model are not too different. Here are some closer images for your perusal.

Underneath there is no 'Made in China' text which is surprising. However no-one is likely to be fooled into believing this is anything other than a re-issue. What they may wonder, though, is which re-issue this might be if they're not well-versed in straps or wheels. That is because it has a base attached by screws not rivets, rather like the Yellow Submarine which we saw a short while ago.

Perhaps this is to enable more rapid repairs back at the Club should they find a lot getting returned. It is, nevertheless, not likely to go down too well with many collectors. For my part, I would quite like the re-issues to have screws in place of rivets as I could then have fun changing parts and repairing windows or whatever.

All in all, though, the box is well reproduced and the model looks good from a distance, in the box, where I recommend it stays.

Corgi Toys @ 60: A Jeep on the farm and two Chevrolets

 

June 1965 brought us an American trio. I suspect the left-hand drive Jeep would not have been something you'd have seen on many farms at the time but it was another marvel of Corgi engineering. In the box was an attractively illustrated inner tray carrying the Jeep with a farm hand slotted in a corner and four brown sacks. 

This was another re-working of the FC-150 model, now with suspension and an interior. Always in red with a bright yellow conveyor frame, I am not aware of any variations. The wheels appear to be shaped free-spinning and, whilst it stayed in the catalogues until 1969 when other Jeeps got cast wheels, I have not see any of these with that type.

The conveyor mechanism also gets mounted on a trailer and towed by a Ford Tractor next year!

The other two models were the first of the revised Chevrolet Impala castings. It was in December 1959 that the first Impala appeared, only the second Corgi with suspension, and it proved very popular. The classic style with the sweeping rear fins was about the change on the real car but Corgi extended its life in their catalogues by slicing the casting in two and inserting a chromed plastic element which ran the whole length of the model, creating splendid shiny chrome grille, bumpers and a rather fat side lining. Otherwise it had the same interior and suspension and no more features, just fresh colours for the new Police Patrol Car as #481 and the Taxi as #480.

Both models will be found with shaped wheels and cast wheels, although cast wheels on the Taxi are quite scarce. This model was really not around for long, being deleted from dealers' lists almost as soon as it was listed, available for less than a year. So not many had a chance to be fitted with the cast wheels.

The Patrol Car, however, stayed in the lists until 1969 and the majority have cast wheels, with shaped wheels being the slightly less frequently seen. Aerials tend to get broken on these models and I have just noticed that both used in these illustrations have suffered in that respect!

  

You will note that, despite a 6 year period elapsing, the fares didn't change! The same transfer has been used on the new model. The Police Car has stickers on the doors, as did the preceding issue but this time they're quite different. Neither the old nor new Police stickers strike me as being very well done.

I am not aware of any other variations for these two.

All's quiet on the Corgi front

 My initial purpose in writing this time was to let you know that there had been no new issues from Corgi in May 1965 and hence no 'Corgi Toys @ 60' article this month. It has, though, been pretty quiet generally, with few sales recently. I have just set up a 15% discount across most of my models and that seems to have encouraged some customers to buy something they'd been watching for a while, probably hoping I'd do something like that! 

I have noticed some very high prices being asked for quite normal issue models from one or two sellers that I don't know. Maybe someone has acquired a collection and is just putting them all up at pretty crazy prices in the hope that someone really needs a particular item and none others are around at the time. Generally, however, I would say that prices for all but those in pristine condition with bright and perfect boxes, membership leaflets et al have fallen this year. My feeling is that the advent of the Model Club issues has had quite an impact on prices for day-to-day issues in average condition. Collectors can now choose between a play-worn original without a box and a shiny new model with a shiny new box for a similar outlay. The Club models are mostly very accurate reproductions. Yes, they have a few things which may not be quite right but for many people I can understand they are a nice reminder of younger days and will look good on the shelf. As I have written before, my own choice has been to spend the £30 or so on old models but I am sure they have had some effect and reduced the number of people looking to buy the more worn originals.

So let's have a look at what I have been getting this month. 

Firstly I have managed to find a really nice example of the scarce second issue of the Milk Tanker. According to the records, there really were not many of these sold and it ought to rank highly in the list of scarce 'normal issue' Corgis but often gets over-looked. This may be because the tanker section is exactly the same as the later first issue models (with its shaped fixed wheels and no suspension). I have seen what appear to be variations in the coverage of blue paint on the tanker, some having the blue across the whole of the lower side.

This variation, however, I have only seen on the first issue. It is, I suppose, entirely possible that there could be both designs for each of the first and second issues - and because it is simple to swap them around, no-one can ever be completely sure.

Fortunately, the shade of blue used for the TK cab is different to that used for the same cab pulling the Machinery Carrier so, whilst some sellers may try to switch them around, you should be able to spot the difference. I didn't, unfortunately, and before the one above came along, I bought a 1131 cab with a tanker section and realised they didn't match! I have since split them and hope to find a spare 'milk' blue Big Bedford cab and a 1131 trailer to attach the respective parts to one day.

 

Next is the cute little Sunbeam Imp Panda Car. I couldn't resist this as they seldom have good suspension these days and this one is fine. It is one of the later editions with cast wheels and with no indication the other four holes where jewels were inserted for the Monte Carlo edition. The first Panda was pale blue and white and there are two versions of the later black and white, one having only the roof painted black.

A quite worn example of the first model in the Catalogue - #200 Ford Consul - here in a not particularly inspiring shade of mushroom-brown - comes next. This was sold with the green Morris below and a couple of other models on a Car Transporter at a very low price, just a few pounds. I can only imagine few people bothered to look closely at the very grubby pictures as the two old models were quite nice. The windows are intact and the base has only a small amount of rust and it is not at all bad for nearly a model nearly 70 years old!

Nice to have a Morris Cowley with a smooth working motor. I still have to work on the inside of the windows but they seem undamaged, just dirty. Like the Ford, it's been tossed in and out of storage boxes over the years and played with but is all original with no annoying attempts by children (or more recent adults, for that matter!) to touch in anything.

More expensive was this other #202M Morris, in a pleasant and more unusual shade of very pale green. This one even has an original 202M box and a motor that works.

My own very first Jaguar Mk X was pale green, not a very nice colour for the car in my view, but I had no idea at the time that there was any other colour issued. This pale blue would have been the other option had the man in the toy shop gone to the trouble of opening a few of the other boxes but I never thought of asking in those days. I do remember changing mine for the cerise model when I spotted that a year or two later on his shelf but I was still none the wiser as to all the many other delightful shades which might have been available.

A schoolfriend once appeared at my house in one of these and took me for what was probably the most frightening drive of my life. At the ripe old age of 16, I think too, as I believe these could be driven on a motorcycle licence. (Not sure about that - indeed, in those days, we didn't really think too much about it.) Corgi produced this little Heinkel Trojan 'Bubble' Car for many years and in a host of colours too, including shades of lilac or pink. Later models were orange with cast wheels. I have often wondered how it stayed in the dealers' order list for so many years when other models came and went after just a few years. The Model Club will be providing one of these too in a while.

This is one of the models that you really do need to check that it has reasonably good tyres fitted at the back! They appear impossible to replace!

Another oldie from the days before suspension is this Austin A40. This is a slightly scarcer edition, though, being the #216 model without a friction motor but finished in the 216M colours. I bought this one for my friend Andi in Germany who actually spotted it before me but with a seller who didn't like posting anything abroad..

The last of my 'real Corgi' arrivals this month is this lovely Mercedes 220SE. When I first started building my old collection again and doing the catalogue I remember that the first model I wanted to acquire was a 'blue Mercedes 220SE'. I had seen one in the intervening years and, as I had only had the black and cerise models myself, this looked like something special that I thought I had missed, rather like all the colours of the Jaguar Mk Xs. I was aware of a cream edition but the blue was what I wanted first. It was only a little later that I realised that Corgi had created a new model #253 with no steering and a revised design for the boot lid as well as an extra pillar at the sides.

So then, of course, I had to find the metallic cerise version too. The blue, however, has always been a model I find hard to resist when I see one at a reasonable price. It really ought to have steering but it's not, unfortunately, just a simple matter of swapping bases. Whilst the other Mercedes 220SE all have the usual shades of lemon or red interior, the blue one can be found with cream or yellow. The yellow appears to be a lot scarcer but I have only my own experience in trying to find one to support that.

It would seem entirely feasible for there to be the same two variations of interior for the metallic cerise model too although I have only encountered lemon myself. I have seen what appear to be distinctly lighter or darker shades of the metallic finish in both cerise and blue but I cannot determine whether that is just how images have been reproduced. Until I can place two real models side by side I cannot say any more about that.

For these models you need to make sure the icon on top of the grille is in place. It can often break off. 

Finally the Corgi Model Club have supplied the #436 Citroën Safari. It looks good in a quite bright yellow which I thought was unlike the original but my old example looks pretty much the same shade. This is the second appearance of the Citroën in this form and is another of the many 're-working' of existing castings that members have been receiving. Prior to the Yellow Submarine (which itself may re-appear with white and yellow hatches and the alternative exterior decoration) we had the Bentley Continental and another Oldsmobile and another Impala. Whilst one appreciates the need to make the most use of costly initial production and design costs, the recent and expected re-issues could benefit from a few more fresh models.

One of my customers in the States was most concerned about the proposed 145% tariff on goods imported from China which I believe might have had quite an impact on the Club's business there. I hear that there may be some relief, however, and , indeed, at the time of writing there may be some reconsideration of the higher figure. I did offer to supply customers there from Britain and just declare them as previously owned items being transferred from my collection to someone else's with a rather lower liability for duty. That might have been an interesting business development to counter the relative quiet!

The odd Chipperfields Parade Vehicle

 

You may remember that a collector wrote to me some time ago about this Chipperfields Circus Parade Vehicle with its odd olive green rear section. I hadn't seen one before and, as this appeared to be an all original model, I wondered whether it might have been an early sample.

Then the one shown below appeared for sale on Ebay last week.

The seller did mention that it was different to the usual models but he was referring to it being a blue Land Rover and not red! The blue was some really bad painting that someone had done. As the base was still intact I decided to try and see if I could get the blue paint off and, with some scraping, I've managed to get most of it off, although some splodges remain on the rear section. I shall attempt to mask everything like the windows, wheels and that rear piece and restore what should be red and add a sticker to the bonnet. I can't do much about the missing speakers, of course, and it's never going to look that great but it's worth keeping. I may even install a clown if I find one that's complete and inexpensive in a wrecked normal model somewhere.

So it may be the case that a batch of these were made with that olive plastic rear section. I can only imagine that this would have been an initial issue (assuming it isn't a factory sample) and that there will be a few around, although, from my experience over the last 10 years or more, they're by no means common!

I've never been a fan of the Circus models and I had to go back to 2014 for a photo of the normal #487 issue from my own collection. I did wonder whether the Chipperfields blue plastic might fade in the sun to that olive colour but this seems not to be the case. Where a piece has broken I can see the same shade of green inside and even areas which would get no light are the same colour. So I am now hoping to find a little more information about this one. Whether a factory sample or an early issue to dealers, this would seem to be quite a valuable model if you have one in reasonable condition. Mine will probably remain in a collection of oddments without any significant value but too mysterious and, maybe, rare to discard.

Corgi Toys @ 60: Two Old Renaults and a Mustang

 I know what I preferred when I saw the new arrivals in April 1965 at the local toy shop. Like many other children at the time, I didn't give the Corgi Classic Renaults a second glance. They may have been well-made but they had no play value and parts which could easily fall off and screens which would not survive mothers dropping the model into wooden toy boxes every evening.

This came in a sturdy box and illustrated lid, with the model protected by a piece of foam rubber which no-one now is quite sure how it should be placed. I think it goes on top of the model but then the box lid doesn't fit as well as it does when the wheels are pressing down into the foam when it's placed underneath.

There were two colours issued at the same time: a pale primrose and something approaching lavender, each with matching wheels. I have seen some variations in the colour of the primrose one and there are different finishes to the lamps but you can still pick up near-perfect models in boxes for just a few pounds, 60 years later.

This will be the penultimate Classics issue in this era, with the final one coming next year in the ghastly shape of the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. (I am not counting the Basil Brush or Hardy Boys editions!)

Now, moving on to what is one of my favourites and a 'proper Corgi' from this era, the Ford Mustang Fastback 2+2.

This delightful model comes in four colours and three wheel types. There is pea green, metallic blue, metallic silver and metallic lilac. The early issues will have plain shaped wheels. Most of the production has wire wheels with some later editions getting the cast 'louvre/spoke effect' wheels.

In my experience the most common wheel types are the wire wheels, with shaped wheels being quite scarce on the pea green and lilac models in particular and I haven't seen many in these colours with cast wheels either, now I think about it.

This is only the second issue by Corgi to have opening doors, the first being the Ghia L6.4 some 18 months earlier. They're quite chunky doors and many would not close nicely in line. They did have a half-open widow attached to the door, however, which was a new feature. With chrome-plated bumpers and jewels for headlamps this was just what we wanted at the time. The seats folded down inside too, although the pale cream interior would soon get discoloured. Interestingly, the silver edition had a deep red interior. All the models had a Corgi dog on the rear shelf. In the Ghias, the dog would come in two sizes and I have yet to research whether the small dog came first or the other way around. I am also not sure whether there are different sizes of dogs in this model but my guess is that they're all the same.

The suspension on these models is vulnerable and you'll now find many that have collapsed. It is provided by plastic elements in the chassis which have become brittle and crack very easily now. Do be careful with any models that you have where the suspension has survived.

This model will be around for a long time in one form or another, as you'll discover, although you'll need to wait until 2031 for the final one!

An attractive Toyota 2000GT

 

This Toyota 2000GT is the Whizzwheels edition of the model that had previously appeared as the 338 James Bond model (with missiles that fired from the boot). Corgi used some gorgeous paint on this one and you'll find it in a liquid metallic finish of either blue or purple. Apart from the wheels, this is a very attractive model. So when one arrived with some faults which I couldn't repair without removing the base, I decided to do something about those wheels!

The result is lovely as wire wheels really do suit the car.

And here's my purple original Toyota, missing an aerial, with Whizzwheels.

Be a little careful with these as the Whizzwheels are very easy to remove, so dealers can replace them with red spot wheels and claim that they're very scarce or something like that. They were not fitted with red spot wheels at the factory. You may also find some with a much later style of wheel which was not actually available until some time after production of this model ceased.

The blue model will invariably have the first type of Whizzwheels - the pepperpot style. There may be a few blue models with the later four crowns style, which also seems to be the normal wheel for the later purple issue as in my example above.