Corgi Model Club - the other Cadillac Superior Ambulance

 

You will remember that the Model Club issued their version of #437 quite a while ago in August 2022. That was the later version with cast wheels and the second system for operation of the lights.

I think they had probably decided to make that version because the early system may well have been pretty fiddly to reproduce and still not functioned very well. So that was a sensible decision and meant that they could continue to claim to be reproducing the original models as closely as they could. 

The red and cream issue that is now available retains the later system that was fitted to the blue and white model. So, for the organisation, this entails just a few fairly simple changes and will be somewhat more profitable as a result. It's really just a change of finish and new decals and wheels, plus what look to be different coloured tubes for the small lights.

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. 

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.

Corgi Model Club shine a light on the Cadillac Superior

 

The latest model which has been arriving in subscribers' letterboxes recently is the 437 'Superior Ambulance on Cadillac Chassis'. It's the second edition, rather than the first which is what the box shows. This is all quite accurate, if confusing, as Corgi didn't change the box when they revised the original.

In the package you'll get the model in a box with a certificate. The box is well-made and a good illustrative reproduction insofar as that is possible, bearing in mind the necessary changes and the panel which incorporates all that is necessary to be incorporated in a panel nowadays to satisfy committees across the planet.

I do find the fonts used are still not as accurate as they could be. So much else is well done but whoever is in charge of the text side of things needs some advice. the big catalogue number is also quite different to the original. I also found the panel which shows the special features had a strange pink tinge instead of the original simple red.

However, it is really the model itself that should be under the closest scrutiny and this one passes with quite a few flying colours.

It is well-packed with a piece of foam plastic protecting the roof lamp and I had another piece the same size in the box which I think was protecting the rear end with the sharp fins.

The difficult bit comes when you want to insert a battery. The Club was obliged to include a screw to prevent babies extracting the holder and eating the battery. To be honest, even with the screw removed, I challenge any baby to remove the battery holder! Or a good number of adults, for that matter. The instruction sheet tells us to squeeze the thing and pull but if you have no finger nails then you'll have no chance of squeezing anything as there is simply nothing easy to grip and pull. I finished up prising the battery holder up with a screwdriver until I could grasp it.

One way or another, you'll get it out, insert an AA battery and pop it back together again. Then turn the tiny switch and, yay! The lights come on! Nice. The top is quite pleasantly bright but the others front and rear seem a bit more dim than my original had been. Maybe in a dark room they'll look better.

The light does stay lit rather than flashing. The original, first edition 437 had a device on the rear axle which interacted with a plate as it rotated to connect, disconnect and connect again as it was pushed along. This proved a bit unreliable over time and a second edition was produced with a flashing bulb. The filament had some clever function which made it flash on its own once it had warmed up. You can still buy bulbs like that and I do think the Club should have sourced these for this model as they cannot have been that much more expensive in comparison to the model as a whole.

This model had cast wheels and they have been very nicely reproduced. This is the first time we've seen these wheels on the Club models. The text is accurately reproduced too. They were, I understand, tempted to make it rather more realistic but that was how the original appeared and so too should the reproduction. Well done, Corgi model Club again in this respect.

Otherwise, as you can see, this is a virtually faultless copy. OK, so the suspension is very hard and we might have liked a coloured lamp and that silver surround but a little blue paint will partially fix that, I suppose.

I wonder whether we'll see the red and cream one in years to come? Obviously with the later style battery compartment and mechanism but I can see this being popular and the casting is already available.

The Curious 700 range.

The 1974 Corgi Catalogue had a couple of odd additions, a 'Motorway Service Ambulance' and an 'Inter-City Mini-Bus', with catalogue numbers 700 and 701 respectively. Issued in February 1974, these are a curious thing to arrive just as Corgi are going 1:36. (The Breakdown Truck, 702, shown above appears in April 1975.)

These have no make and resemble nothing on our roads at the time or, for that matter, at any time. They're a big ugly with design features I cannot even imagine even the worst of vehicle designers in the 1970s coming up with and the scale is strange. The steering wheel on the Mini-Bus is tiny, half the size of the one in a normal 1:43 Corgi but they're not Junior size either. They have no suspension. The wheels are the ubiquitous 'four crowns' style Whizzwheel of the day but they are not branded as 'Whizzwheels'. Quite where they were intended to fit in the range I have no idea.

The Mini-Bus had two variations - a white or brown interior.

It is clear that these models do not in any way sit comfortably with anything else in the Corgi range, as is amusingly illustrated by this illustration from their 1978 catalogue!

702, a breakdown truck with the same front end as teh Ambulance and 703, a Hi-Speed Fire Engine with a similar front end to the Mini-Bus, would appear in 1975 and, in December 1976 a Security Van comes along with the same front end as the Ambulance but with a number 424. From what I can see these six models are a group of their own. But I have not a clue as to the point of making them.

They are most certainly not Corgi at their best and really would be best forgotten. I have only acquired them because I thought they were 1:43 or thereabouts and had only put off adding them to my catalogue because they looked so awful in the pictures. Now I see that I probably don't need to add them in at all (but I probably will).

The entire range of these oddities can still be purchased for a song today as they are not very popular.

Corgi Toys @ 60: Bedford Ambulance

This month in 1957 saw the little Bedford CA van in St John's Ambulance guise. A common sight at the Hertfordshire Show that I used to go to with my dad (and, no doubt at all sorts of other public events across the country).

In cream with the St John's Ambulance motif, this stayed around until some time in 1960 when it was updated to the single screen casting but retained the same catalogue number. The single screen versions are hard to find, not least because many seller advertise the model just from one side!

412 has an opaque section for windows at the sides and rear. I believe it can be found with both types of grille - the rounded top shown in the image above, as well as a distinctly straighter top edge (although that edition I have yet to obtain).

I am not sure that there will be twin screen editions with fixed shaped wheels and they are likely to be pretty scarce on the single screen edition too.

Commer Military Ambulance in Gosport

My #354 Commer Military Ambulance was in very nice condition. The only flaw was the rear section was slightly loose which struck me as a bit odd as it wasn't the 'take-off' variety like the Construction Set (and some other) Commer vehicles.

End of the Bedford CA chapter as a Type II 412 comes along at last.

Another very hard to find model has finally been acquired! It is hard to believe that such an ordinary looking old Bedford CA van should have taken nigh on two years to find. And I mean find in any condition as I was determined to buy whatever came along just to fill the gap. Well, I may have baulked at the QDT model in a box at £285 which I've just seen on their site. That was actually sold anyway and the only other one I had spotted was in some huge collection and partially obscured under a pile of other models in a box. It was an auction lot abroad and, having been caught out heavily on fees, postage costs and taxes in the past when buying things from overseas, I was not very keen on taking the risk as the rest of the contents were really not terribly interesting either and I really couldn't be sure it even had windows that were intact or tyres. And you try replacing tyres on the rear wheels!

As reported earlier, I finished up getting a restored model in the meantime!

This is in excellent condition with just three or four small marks on the roof but the windows are nice and clear, the wheel shiny and tyres good and the base isn't rusty. It has definitely been well looked after. I am now looking for a box because boxes did not change and all show the Type 1 model but the value seems to go through the roof with one.

That really does mean now that there are just the 'PopArt' Mini and yellow Fiat Ghia Jolly left now. Interestingly, they seem considerably more common but just as considerably more expensive which kinda defies logic but there you go. I really will not pay much for either so imagine that there will be blank spaces for each for some time yet.

It is more enjoyable to seek out now the different colours for exteriors and interiors and wheel variations of other models. Often they are not recognised as scarce by sellers and I can get quite a few of them fairly cheaply as and when I have some surplus funds. So I reckon that next year will see plenty of further additions to this story which has plenty of time still to run.

The Bedford CA chapter, though, is closed now.

Bedford CA Vans Type II. More work required, perhaps.

As you may have gathered from previous posts, one model that is proving very difficult to track down is the Type II version of the Bedford CA Ambulance. The funny thing is that it will probably only cost a few pounds when I do find it as there are no listings that I've found showing it separately to the comparatively common Type I.

I show below, however, my recent purchase of the nearest I can get so far - a rather excellent restoration. It is strange, indeed, that the one model I need gets taken to bits by someone and repainted! They have done a super job, though, and even the rivet looks genuine, if a bit new.

I am not sure, though, and can't see a way to distinguish them, whether this did start life as the reclusive Type II or, in fact, was a 414 army version, of which there are plenty.

Had I not seen the real thing (well, I assume it was real!) on the Little Wheels site then I would have assumed that the 414 was the natural successor and never even thought of looking for a Type II 412. With that in mind, I am now wondering whether there might be some other Type IIs that I should be looking for.

Oh dear, that has only just occurred to me. More work required, clearly!