The Corgi Model Club: 417 Land Rover Breakdown Truck

Here is the new 'old' 417 Land Rover Breakdown Truck, just over 60 years later in its Corgi Model Club re-issue form. The Club have chosen to make the very earliest edition with smooth wheels and this is another great effort. Only the slightly large end to the winding bar and slight lack of definition of the protrusions running along the sides of the rear section distinguish this from the original to my initial view today. 

My later edition with fixed shaped wheels, above, shows how well they've done. I am impressed with the transfer background, accuracy of the font and the rear tin canopy. Remarkably, in my opinion, they have also produced the more complicated window unit that fits flush with the rear of the cab, producing a sort of 'frame' when viewed in some ways.

The box is disappointing for me, feeling a little flimsy (but that may have been how the original felt - same weight card now covering a greater volume than the smaller models). It is definitely too bright and shiny but, as my recent dealings with a professional box producer in the States has taught me, the modern print process invariably does create this sheen which older types did not.

The packing piece this time is a black chunk of squishy foam plastic of some description with a hole for the roof lamp. The centre of the side 'winding' wheel, however, is slightly raised and that has made a dent appear in my box. This needs more protection. I will add a sheet of card but this model deserved more from the manufacturer.

I also do wish the small slits in the end flap were not cut. They surely are not necessary and will result in several boxes getting damaged.

As always, the paintwork can be a little too precise on these models, produced presumably by machine and not a hand with a small paintbrush. I did have to check my own models, though, to see whether the sidelamps really had been painted in the originals! (They had).

Another nice addition to this rapidly growing collection. a bargain at £24. It will be very interesting to have the 417S that Corgi themselves are reissuing any time now.

Corgi Toys @ 60 : Land Rover Breakdown Truck, Bricks and Milk Churns

July 1960 saw two more loads added to what you could put on a trailer or the back of some lorries. These were a neat load of red bricks and 36 milk churns all stuck together.

The real event this month, though, was the issue of the first Land Rover Breakdown Truck. This splendid model could be used to lift up and tow the front or back of all your other models and drag them around the carpet.

This first issue has a jib that comprises two quite thin poles with a small gap at the top for the cord to pass through. The large hook, which I always though was a bit over-sized, could be lowered and raised by turning a fifth wheel fitted to the side. the wheel would always match the other four and changes to the shaped but still fixed type later in production.

The rear section has a cut-away metal section with transfers on each side and a metal lamp that can be turned on top.

There are no variations, other than the wheels, for the 417 model that I am aware of, although it is possible that there are minor changes in the casting - usually most noticeable in how the window opening levers at the front are depicted. (I must look at these and report back!)

You will know that a Land Rover Breakdown Truck is one of Corgi's longest running models. The 417 will become a 417S in a couple of years and get the Series II body with an interior plus suspension. Then the 417S will get a new, stronger, type of jib but keeps the metal rear section. A 477 model appears in December 1965 and appears to be identical to the 417S except for the rear section which gets a bigger plastic canopy.

The 477 carries on through cast wheels and ends up looking slightly ridiculous with Whizzwheels sometime in the early 1970s. You'll have to wait until my articles in 2031 or 2032 for that one!

The curious case of the Land Rover Breakdown truck jib

Just as I thought I was beginning to understand the progress from one variant to another for the Land Rover Breakdown Trucks, this one comes along!

With its suspension and interior it is clearly a 417S but on the back is a Type 1 jib. I had mistakenly thought that the jib had been replaced by the more solid affair on the 417 models so, when suspension came along, it would have been just the Type 2 jibs on the 417S models. 

So my earlier article needs some amendment, I'm afraid. I suppose it is feasible now to find a 417 with a Type 2 jib. I find that hard to believe but it did actually seem to me the more likely, as I had thought that the Type 2 jib came in before the 417S update. This model would imply that the 417S update came before the change to Type 2 jibs.

It's all very confusing, especially as all the 417S examples I have encountered so far have had the Type 2 jib! As many examples are from very reliable sources like QDT and come from recognised experts' collections too, you just have to believe that they are, indeed, 417S and not 477 with a tin roof. In fact, I sem to recall that all the illustrations of 417S on QDT's site had closed jibs. 

So the only conclusion I can come to is that 417S models exist with both types of jib and I guess that was because the dates of both changes must have been quite close.

So there would have been a pile of red models and a box of assorted jibs for a while and there still remained a sort of random selection when the production process brought in suspension and seats. By my reckoning, there really won't have been very many of either the 417 with the closed type 2 jib or the 417S with the open type 1 jib and I shall now set about trying to find some good examples of each.

Of course, someone out there may know different.

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Just to make you smile, or grimace, here is what you get for 417S from a Vectis archive! A plastic canopy? As I have said before, we all make mistakes. 

Or there is yet another variation of the 417S which would then make late versions totally indistinguishable from a 477?

A better place for the blue tin tilt

Another Land Rover came in today that is more suitable for the blue tin canopy. The previous one that it was supposedly fitted to had cast wheels and I just don't think tin canopies of any colour could accompany cast wheels. So this, until I find out anything that says it has to be a #417, is how I shall be keeping it.

I might put it on Ebay at a high price just to see if anyone responds there too. Provided there's a free posting offer going still.

The mystery of the blue rear cover

You'll know that I  have already written quite a bit about Land Rovers but the latest addition to my collection deserves a mention. It is odd in a couple of ways. The obvious one is the blue tin rear section. This looks quite 'normal' at first glance and is in a true 'Corgi' shade, very much the same as might have appeared on a Chipperfields Circus model. The thing is - all the other rear sections I have encountered have been yellow! It took me a minute or two to realise that this was more than a bit unusual. I checked hundreds of others for sale and they were all yellow. I looked on all the sites run by people who seem pretty knowledgeable and no-one mentions a blue section anywhere. Even a Google Image search didn't come up with anything.

So this is a bit of a mystery. I am hoping that someone will know something and help - ideally, telling me that it is a colour used for a short period or something like that. I did have to bid quite a bit to get this so there were one or two others who were also intrigued. It wasn't well promoted, though, so could easily have been missed.

The search light is missing. I'll order a replacement for that which looks easy to fix and I shall also need to find a reasonable 417 or 417S model to transfer the cover to as I can't really advertise it like it is. I have to make some effort to get it right, even if I don't know a great deal about it! 

Although advertised as #417S the Land Rover has cast wheels and they didn't appear until well after #477 had taken over so it would seem that the blue section comes from something older and just happened to have found its way onto this one at some stage in the last 50 years.