The Fiat 1800 in production in 1960 - a short video

 

My thanks to Mike Sacco in New York for reminding me of this great video of a Fiat 1800 being produced at the Corgi factory near Swansea in Wales in 1960 from a cauldron of mazak through to dealer packs on their way, oddly enough, to Italy! I thought you might like to see this so have shared it here for your enjoyment.

The query that gave rise to this was whether the factory used spraying apparatus or paintbrushes for the silver paint on bumpers and radiator grilles and elsewhere. The answer, of course, is 'both' as can be seen here, with the little dabs of red, silver or whatever couldn't be easily catered for by a mask, being applied with a brush. Both changes in positioning of the masks and the varying skills of the workers with a paintbrush led to no two Corgis ever being exactly the same, something which cannot be said for the somewhat less charming (but still excellent in other ways) re-issues.

I am also not a great fan of restored models as I find that nine times out of ten people seem unable to resist the temptation to add something, be it a silver door handle or boot catch, orange indicator or, as is often the case, red tail lights when there were none on the original. It is nice, though, to see models not being discarded and given a new life. My own preference is to see them re-appear in a completely new colour or style as very few attempts to re-create the original are that successful, many colours being so hard to match now and that silver paint is seldom quite right! No-one can match the random Corgi factory ladies' skills!

I wonder whether the Corgi Model Club people could get hold of a video of how the latest re-issues get made in China!

New arrivals for June 2021.

Some nice new arrivals on my desk and shortly to appear in the store. 

This lovely 276 Oldsmobile Toronado has an original box too. 

The scarcer edition of the Fiat 1800 in mustard with a bright yellow interior.

A pretty reasonable example of the black edition of the 230 Mercedes-Benz 220SE with its emblem on the bonnet still present!

I was surprised at how long it has taken me to find a really good example of the plum red 307 Jaguar E Type. This one is excellent and had an original hard top. After taking so long to find I shall not be letting this go for a song! the last one I had (and sold) was my own from my childhood. Since then I have had several dark metallic grey editions which I do prefer and which also seem very much in demand but more plentiful.

Two nice Jaguar 2.4 models in 208S form. One has the later shaped fixed wheels ad is in super condition with lovely bright paintwork showing only very tiny marks on one or two raised body lines.

The earlier edition is not quite as smart but still a nice example for someone one day.

I took the opportunity to sort out all my other Jaguars - the 208M models, all now listed, including the rare grey base edition.

I always love the less common varieties of models and here is an excellent example of the Oldsmobile Toronado with plain shaped wheels, not the usual cast type. Only a few early editions had these fitted. It comes with a good box too. Splendid.

Maybe not particularly rare but the lovely old Rolls Royce didn't last long before Whizzwheels were fitted. This is the more common colour scheme but in very nice condition and undamaged emblem and chrome.

I found a yellow trailer and so have been able to put together a nice Gift Set 17. This is the better of two sets I now have available, the Ferrari being very fine and the nose not missing paint as most do! I have always thought it silly that there should be a driver in this set but as that's how it was sold I have to follow suit!

The farming vehicles have always had a fascination for me - as I was brought up on a farm and learnd to drive on a Fergie 20. I am really pleased with the old Massey Ferguson Tractor and have paired it with one of my better trailers and put Farmer George in place for a Gift Set 29. If you take out Farmer George then it's also a Gift Set 7!

Corgi Toys @ 60: First Italian Model and the S range starts

May 1960 brought us the first Italian car in the shape of the Fiat 1800. You could have this in mustard, pale blue or pale blue with a dark blue roof. There also seem to be two shades of interior - lemon and a very bright yellow, the latter mainly found in the mustard cars.

These started with smooth fixed wheels and late examples may have shaped fixed wheels. The casting lived on after the 1800 with a 2100 model coming in 1961 with jewelled headlamps and a blind in the rear window.

The other 'first' this month was the introduction of the S models. Where an existing model got suspension and, in most cases, an interior, the S suffix was added to its catalogue number. The first to be upgraded was the Studebaker Golden Hawk in its gleaming silver or gold plated finish.

The 211S also gets a gold coat of paint as opposed to shiny style finish but I think this will have been later in its production as I have yet to see any of these with smooth fixed wheels which the May 1960 models would have been fitted with.

New arrivals last month

I am pleased to have available another all original Gift Set 40 for The Avengers. Apart from the brollies. The outer box is missing a small flap but is otherwise good and with little damage.

Acquired for a friend, this Fiat 1800 in mustard was thought by the seller to have been a repaint! It's actually one of the best examples of this harder to find colour that I've seen.

The Mustang with a red stripe on the sills is quite scarce. Someone with a red felt tip pen can make a pretty good effort at replicating it but this one is genuine.

  

Again something acquired for a friend, the little blue Mini Magnifique looks lovely when it has all its paint and chrome intact. This one is also the edition with a wider bands on the  sliding roof section. From my observations, the narrow bands are the far more common.

Another late edition Citroen with fog lamps in the casting but also another with poor paintwork. This also has the free-spinning shaped wheels, the model being one of only a few which can be found with all three of the earlier types of wheel - smooth fixed, shaped fixed and the free-spinning type.

The scarce Whizzwheels Rover does look glorious in its deep purple finish but the paint seems to chip off so easily that examples like this one are really few and far between. I have some others in stock but all have a chunk of paint missing at some place or another which does spoil the overall appearance considerably. This one, however, is the first I've seen outside auction web sites with no damage at all. 

A VW Military Personnel Carrier came along in really bad condition so it got the same treatment as an International Truck did earlier last month. This one isn't finished, though. The flowers around the headlights need more definition and I've just noticed that the interior has not been fitted correctly.

Another wreck got the white paint treatment but I decided against covering this one with flowers and just added transfers instead.

The difference between models I really really want and those I guess I ought to have

And so the 'Wanted List' gets smaller each week. Several recent additions have brought it down to just four, in terms of base model types.

202 Morris Cowley
242 Ghia Fiat 600 Jolly
349 Morris Mini Minor 'Pop Art'
430 Bermuda Taxi

I know I can get a Morris easily - I just don't want to pay a silly price for a reasonably decent one. I do have the M version but keep missing out on the normal ones.

I'm really not bothered about the little yellow Fiat Jolly, which nearly always seems to go for heavy prices as well. I will get one eventually, hopefully as a lucky find. The other car I'm not terribly fond of is the Ford Thunderbird Bermuda Taxi with its silly plastic roof affair and driver. I've just realised that both cars I have left till nearly last have roofs with tassles that wouldn't last five minutes with my driving in this country! Oh well. I am slightly more inclined towards the Bermuda Taxi as it is, after all a nice Ford Thunderbird and, in non-taxi form it is one of my favourites. They're not uncommon and not even expensive. I just want one with the roof and without damage. Many have broken screens and scratches which look bad on the white paint.

Then there's the (slightly annoying) Mini. I say 'slightly annoying' because it seems to have become the one model everyone identifies as 'rare' and whilst yes, it is, I just feel the prices people ask are crazy. There's been one from the States for sale at about £200 for ages, but it has scratches and a badly broken rear window. There are quite a few restorations around as well, as lots of individuals realise that they can paint an old mini, put cast wheels on it, add jewels and some stickers and get more than they'll get for most other restorations other than a Batmobile or Green Hornet with a very modest outlay. I have accepted the likelihood that it will be the last I do tick off the list so there we go. Hmph.

There is a fifth, I should add:

412 Bedford Utilecon ambulance Type II

Strictly speaking it's a variation and I have a 412 but that single window really does make it a different model for me, despite the number not changing. Yes, I have got that restored version but I can't really count that! In many ways this old Bedford is the one I am really trying to find as opposed to just casually hoping to find. Every day I search new listings for one. There is an old, very crappy example for sale but it comes with a pile of ancient and reasonable-looking Dinky Toys and there's a high reserve on the lot too from what I can tell. So unless that changes I won't be getting that one but it was satisfying, in a way, to see there really is one.

The other items that I am also genuinely making an effort to track down almost every day include:

210 Citroen DS19 in green and black
217 Fiat 1800 in blue and dark blue
241 Ghia L6.4 in silver-blue
246 Chrysler Imperial in Kingfisher blue
253 Mercedes-Benz 220SE Coupe in metallic cerise
300 Austin Healey in blue
300 Austin Healey in red
301 Triumph TR2 in cream
302 MGA in red
303 Mercedes-Benz 300SL open in blue with white interior
303S Mercedes-Benz 300SL open white with blue or brown interior
303S Mercedes-Benz 300SL open blue with yellow interior
304S Mercedes-Benz 300SL hard top white with red roof
310 Chevrolet Sting Ray in bronze
332 Lancia Flavia Zagato in metallic green
497 The Man From UNCLE Oldsmobile in white

Those in italics are particularly difficult to find and I just hope I have some spare funds when I do encounter any as, unlike the others, they may only appear very occasionally. (There is a 246 in blue at the time of writing but it's £600! There are limits to what I can manage!) The others, like the Citroen and Fiat, for instance, are quite common but I am just holding out for a nice example at the right price.

There are a few others as well, including things like Mustangs with normal wheels, Land Rovers with cast wheels and some Whizzwheel variations, the only three I really look for being the Jaguar E Type 4.2 in red (most are yellow), a metallic purple Toyota 2000GT and the Mini Marcos in blue. There are other shades and models with cast wheels but they're the ones I don't mind paying for!

If anyone happens across any of these on their travels, do let me know. If you would like a number, send me an email and I'll reply with a mobile you can text and I might get you to buy something for me.

So what was the second model to get jewelled lights?

I often wonder how Corgi decided which colours to use for new models. Did they have a committee where several different examples were presented and voted upon? Did someone actually research the options available for buyers of the vehicles. I remember the real car catalogues often had little rectangles to show the colours of paint, like Dulux probably still provide today.

So often they did, though, seem to choose colours I had never seen on the cars but here, with the plain old Fiat 1800 and 2100 they seem to have got them about right. There are just four variations, three for the 1800 and,a delightfully simple, for us collectors, one for the 2100.

You can find the 1800 in pale blue all over, the same pale blue with a dark blue roof and mustard. The mustard is the scarcest to track down now and the two-tone blue one elusive in good condition. I saw one on an Australian site with the dark blue also on the rear pillars but I am pretty sure that was a repaint.

I haven't yet found a two-tone blue one yet but have both single colour models for sale and each is in excellent condition. The very bright yellow interior is a bit odd but that seems to have been the order of the day with many Corgis. Perhaps bright yellow plastic was cheap for some reason. You can probably think of all, well not all but a good number, of the others with this interior.

The later issue 2100 came in pale pink and a sort of plum colour on the roof. It actually looks very good, better than it might sound. Corgi added jewels to this and a Venetian blind in the rear window, not something you'd often spot on our cars then! The car is otherwise identical, this being an early example of their extending the life of a decent cast for a while.

These Fiats were never particularly popular models or a sight on our roads, especially in that colour! However, I like them a lot and will be sad to see any of the four (when I eventually get the fourth) go. I'll probably get some more.

Incidentally if anyone ever asks you which was the second car to get jewelled headlamps you now know. The Bentley Continental was the first in April 1961. This Fiat 2100 a few months later. I have only just realised that.

Fiat 1800 and 2100

An early model with seats and suspension was #217, a Fiat 1800. Not the most interesting of cars and although it was only around from 1960 to 1963, Corgi managed to create several colour schemes for this one: all blue, like the illustration, blue with a dark blue roof, a strange mustard colour and, apparently a lilac with mauve roof version. This last is the scheme for the later Fiat 2100 (also illustrated) which also had a Venetian blind and jewelled headlamps fitted. Otherwise it looks like the same cast.

The Fiat 2100 has an even shorter life span, from 1961 to 1963. So it seems that both cars were being made for two years which is a bit odd, bearing in mind how similar they were. Whilst there were variants in competition form (or as used by the army, police, TV etc.) the only other car that was produced side by side like this was the mini.