Corgi Toys @ 60: Chevrolet Corvair

June 1961 saw the Chevrolet Corvair appear on the toy shop shelves. This was quite a strange-looking model and the smaller scale used seemed to make it look very modest in amongst both the other American cars that had preceded it and even some of the British models. As you'll see at the end, though, despite the smaller scale of 1:47, this was, indeed, a less grandly-sized car in reality.

The model is #229 and lasted several years, starting with fixed small-size smooth wheels and then getting fixed shaped wheels until late models can be found with free-spinning wheels. This is the first model, after the Minis to get the smaller size of wheel and I think this adds to its rather diminutive stature. Illustrated above is a version with red interior, comparatively scarce, most have the lemon variety.

There is a range of shades of blue for this model, from a pale blue through to quite a deep, bright blue so several to look out for, especially with the different interior and wheel types.

Although not listed in the features on the box, there is a Venetian blind in the rear window. This was the first time this feature appears and it will get used again in a month or two for the Fiat 2100.

Later in 1961 a Golden Guinea Gift Set 20 is issued in small numbers through Marks & Spencer. Three cars are included with a gold-plated finish and the Corvair is one of them. The sets sold poorly, only 30000 or so according to the Great book of Corgi which makes this quite a scarce edition. However, they don't seem yet to have acquired much by way of scarcity value, all editions of this model seeming to be quite modestly priced, apart from the free wheel edition which is particularly hard to find.

Below is an illustration of a real one, courtesy of classiccars.com. It looks quite small here too!

Interior choices

I had never really paid much attention to the Chevrolet Corvair. I've always regarded it as a slightly odd model that looks too small to be a Chevrolet. Maybe the unassuming blue finish doesn't help, or the Hillman Imp-like front end with the slightly lopsided driver's side headlamps. I have to say that I was missing something, though, and only yesterday did I realise that it had two different interior colours! Yes, I knew about the red interior fitted to the gold-plated edition for Gift Set 20 but I had always thought the normal boxed 229 model has a lemon interior.

The model with a red interior has just arrived and, whilst not difficult to find, it did seem a lot less common than the lemon. The 229 is also interesting in that it is one of the few models that can be found with all three wheel types; fixed smooth, fixed shaped and free-spinning shaped. (I have a feeling I may have encountered a free-spinning smooth wheel too which would make it unique with four but that maybe just my imagination.) It also comes in several very different shades of blue, early ones being mostly the pale-to-mid blue and later ones a darker, brighter shade.

My lack of appreciation of the different interiors made me do a little research to see whether there might be others I was not aware of. The table below may be useful to collectors and is a simple list of all the models that I can think of which, for the same external finish, have two different interiors or, in one case, three.

Date	Cat. No.	Model	Body colour	Interior colours
Oct 59	222	Renault Floride	metallic blue	lemon	red
Jan 60	220	Chevrolet Impala	blue	lemon	red
Feb 60	226	Morris Mini-Minor	blue	lemon	red
Feb 61	424	Ford Zephyr Estate	blue/ dark blue	lemon	red
Jun 61	229	Chevrolet Corvair	blue (shades)	lemon	red
May 62	227	Morris Mini-Cooper	blue / white	lemon	red
Jul 62	228	Volvo P1800	beige	lemon	red
Sep 62	238	Jaguar Mk X	dark metallic blue	lemon	red
Sep 62	238	Jaguar Mk X	turquoise	lemon	red
Dec 62	438	Land Rover	deep green	lemon	red
Feb 63	239	Volkswagen Karman Ghia	gold	lemon	red
Nov 63	241	Ghia L6.4	metallic blue	cream	red
Nov 63	241	Ghia L6.4	gold	cream	red
Mar 64	431	Volkswagen Pick-up	yellow	lemon	red
Sep 64	472	Land Rover Public Address Vehicle	green	lemon	red
Jan 65	357	Land Rover Army Weapons Carrier	khaki	lemon	red
Jan 65	1135	Bedford Army Machinery Carrier	khaki	lemon	red
Mar 65	470	Jeep FC-150	blue	lemon	red
Aug 65	246	Chrysler Imperial	red	pale blue	pale green
Sep 65	487	Land Rover Parade Vehicle	red	lemon	red
Dec 65	GS2	Land Rover	brown	lemon	red
Dec 65	478	Jeep Tower Wagon	metallic green	lemon	red
Dec 65	325	Ford Mustang Competition	white	pale blue	pale green
Apr 68	275	Rover 2000TC	metallic green	brown	red	white
Nov 68	GS15	Land Rover (normal and Whizzwheels)	blue	lemon	red
Jul 70	301	Iso Grifo (Whizzwheels)	metallic blue	white	pale blue
Sep 70	383	Volkswagen 1200 (Whizzwheels)	orange	white	red
Jun 71	418	Austin Taxi (Whizzwheels)	black	lemon	red

I am prepared to admit that I may have missed some so do, please, let me know if you have other entries that need to be made. I did not give a great deal of thought to the Majors or many commercial or utility vehicles which I tend not to have more than one at a time and that can be from time to time too. I know the Bedford Carrimore cab, for example, may have lemon or red interiors but whether they are both issued for the same model I am not sure, other than the Military Machinery Carrier listed here.

I have given the dates when a model was first issued but in all cases the alternative interior will have been fitted later. The Jaguar Mk X, for instance, was only issued in pale blue or pale green at first and the two colours referred to here came significantly later. The list is not an indication of which came first and I do not know yet very much about how rare one or other might be. The alternative Land Rover interiors are definitely very scarce, as is the beige Volvo with red but that's all I am aware of at this time. A study of what is for sale will give a pretty good indication as to which others are going to be hard to find.

I shall update my Catalogue accordingly and welcome any further additions if you have them.

Two Chevrolets

Two Chevrolets arrived this week. They couldn't have been more different! The Impala is a huge, wide car with totally pointless but very impressive fins at the rear. With chrome everywhere at front, back and even running along the sides this is the classic American saloon car. The other, though, is really quite sad in comparison. You almost feel sorry for the Corvair with its faint resemblance even to a Hillman Imp at the front. It even has an engine at the back which is simply the wrong place for an American car to have an engine.

The Impala comes in a sickly shade of brown, topped in cream and could pass for a caramel wafer at a distance. This is somewhat better than the salmon pink used for the earlier version! All these 'second' versions are in this colour scheme and were only produced for a little under a year so are actually surprisingly rare in good condition and prices reflect that. I had always thought they were common and cheap but that may be because the first model sold well, despite being pink or pale blue, and there were also lots of public service variants too which made the Impala a feature of everyone's collection.

Corgi made this second variant by slicing through the old model horizontally and inserting the chrome piece from front to back. It works well and they used a similar system on several other models like the Mustang and Sting Ray.

The Corvair is an earlier Corgi so we shall forgive them a little. It came in several shades of that blue colour including a distinctly odd dark bright blue which I shall try to get hold of. Like the Fiat 2100, they put a Ventian blind in the back window just to remind us that the weather in other countries was much sunnier than ours! That certainly wasn't something you saw here in those days.

The Corvair is in good condition, with fixed wheels and an opening engine bay. There is one annoying mark on the bonnet which spoils it a bit. It is not very expensive anyway. The Impala is good and just has a few marks on the chrome and paintwork but the window has dropped and the roof seems slightly out of shape. I think that it will have to go on the Black List and I need to find another one. So the dull and boring Corvair will be the survivor after all.