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.

Another Corgi Pony Club edition. You'll soon need stables to store them all!

Who would have thought that the Corgi Pony Club would be so troublesome!? First we see that the Land Rover can have three different types of wheels, grey or black tow bars and then the two types of yellow interior. At least the good old 112 Rice Double Horsebox stayed the same...

Oh, that changed too? Yup. Three different types of wheel, red or black tow bars, open or closed vents and now I find another difference. Heavens alive! This one is actually pretty obvious too but I had missed it all this time. It's the roof.

Some have just part painted white, others have the whole roof section in white. There seem to be slightly fewer of the all-white roof version around but they are not at all uncommon. The one illustrated here I purchased for a collector in Germany and came with an early blue Land Rover with normal wheels. So, assuming that they were once a set, the all-white roof may have been issued from pretty early on. The painting process would have probably seen the whole thing get a coat of blue and then a mask would be applied so that only a section remaining visible gets the white paint.

The two different finishes would have necessitated a change of masks rather than two different ones being lying around. So someone must have decided to make the change at some point but which came first I really don't know. I am guessing that the all-white roof was the first variety because I have not seen any Whizzwheel versions with that feature. I may be wrong, though. 

This one is also a rather weak and watery white which seems to let the blue come through, making a pale creamy-green-blue colour. I think we have enough varieties, though, so I will resist listing that as yet another model!

There is also the problem of what look like distinctly darker blue models of the Land Rover and Horsebox that are issued in their later years. When I get some good examples I may have to add them to the list. I am also aware that the stickers were moved from the canopy to the body of the Land Rover at some point but I don't intend to list that as a variation. You may well find that you get both versions when you set about finding the other types.

The story does not end, even there, however. A very exciting instalment is coming! Watch this space in a few days' time.

We need to go back to the Pony Club again.

Just as you might have thought it safe to get out of the farmyard, there's something else you'll need to look out for with the Pony Club Gift Set 15. 

As I have previously mentioned, the interior of the 438 Land Rover changed at some time in the early 1970s, after Whizzwheels (I believe), and so there are the baby blue editions with both types as well as the darker blue Flying Club Gift Set 19 and metallic green issue.

The missing one arrived today and I am hoping that completes the range. One thing that did strike me, though, was the distinct difference in shade between my Type I which is the normal baby blue (grey tow bar and steering wheel) and the Type II which is definitely darker. That's the one with the black hook and all yellow interior.

This came as a set but the horsebox / pony trailer was the normal baby blue colour. They may have come from different sources, though, so we need to look out for the darker horsebox now.

That is not where the story ends, though, dear collector. I looked again at the ridiculous number of these 112 Horseboxes that I now have around the house. I was looking at any colour differences but did find something else which is actually more interesting. I have one with an open vent on the top. All the others are closed!

So there is something you need to take a look at. If your model is closed you'll need an open one, or the other way round, of course. And while you're at it, you may want to get a darker blue one too (I am assuming they exist, being the later shade adopted). Surely there can be no more variations on these things? I had always considered these trailers and horseboxes to be pretty plain affairs but they've become quite entertaining.

Below are the two types of interior for the Land Rover in baby blue. I am really hoping that the normal wheels and cast wheels versions only have the Type I interior with the grey steering wheel. I am pretty sure that has to be the case but - who knows what you'll find! I should imagine that a cast wheel version (in either baby blue or metallic green) of the 438 with a Type II interior does not exist or would be very scarce indeed.

Type I lemon with grey plastic steering wheel

Type II all yellow plastic

Pony trailers and horse boxes

Life was fairly simple at the beginning when in early 1958 you could have bought just two types of the Rice's Pony Trailer - cream with red mudguards or red with black.

They will also have had fixed wheels and a piece of wire acting as the drawbar. These early models were drawn by a green Land Rover #406 with a tan tin rear cover. (That was also the only #406 with a rear cover).

In December 1962 the #438 Land Rover with suspension appears and early Gift Sets had a dark green one with a cream plastic cover pulling red pony trailers. These were replaced by a fawn brown pair, the pony trailer having silver mudguards and a solid silver drawbar. The trailer still did not have suspension but the wheels were now free spinning.

A new Gift Set comes out in time for Christmas 1968, a mere ten years after (no, not the band, they didn't hit the charts until 1970). This is Gift Set 15, designated Corgi Pony Club and has a new trailer, now described as Rice's Beaufort Double Horse Box. It's a splendid affair with two ramps, each with cork matting and the wider trailer has a clever partition that can be moved to ensure just one horse exits or enters at each side. This version also gets suspension.

The horse box is #112 and becomes available to buy in its own box in early 1969. These all seem to have had the attractive cast, spoke-effect wheels familiar to collectors at that time. The early Land Rovers, however, still had the normal wheels. I don't know when they got the cast type but the normal wheel are not that easy to find now so I suspect they were not around for long. All the blue Land Rovers with normal or cast wheels had grey plastic tow bars.

I have not yet seen or heard of the trailer with normal wheels and suspect that it does not exist with them

What did surprise me, though, when looking around, was the use of the eight-spoke wheels on some of these trailers! These also differed in having a black coupling. I have only ever seen red couplings on the others. Again, I have no idea when these were introduced. It is, I suppose, even feasible that they preceded the spoke effect ones as these eight spoke wheels look the same as those used on the 1967 Maserati #156 and also its replacement #159 which was also issued at the same time as the trailer.

Then, sometime from 1970 onwards, I cannot be sure when, Corgi fit Whizzwheels to both the Land Rover and the horse box, each retaining its catalogue number. The horse box loses suspension and the base has been slightly adjusted to ensure the thin axles stay in place. These last versions of the set are not very popular but are also not very common and have started to command quite high prices. I say 'last' versions as I am assuming that those other eight spoke wheels did, indeed, precede Whizzwheels. 

Although it is not clear from this photo, the trailer remains the same shade of blue as before but the Land Rover now comes in a distinctly darker shade with Whizzwheels and has a black plastic tow hook.

The two brown horses in the illustration above are probably not correct. I am pretty sure from looking at catalogues that it will have been the black horse and smaller white pony that occupied the Pony Club trailers. The #102 trailers always had a brown horse with a blue blanket on its back.

The blue 'Pony Club' Land Rover with normal wheels. I wonder if I'll ever find a trailer to match?