Corgi Toys @ 60: Two Trailers

January 1958 brought two things you could tow behind your Land Rover or Commer lorry; 101, the Platform Trailer and 102, the Pony Trailer. The Platform Trailer can be found in many combinations of chassis and load section colours but I think there would only have been these three available initially.

These would have had the simple wire drawbar. It would not be until 1962 that that got replaced in a boxed edition, although in March 1960 the records show that a set comprising an ERF lorry with cement and plank loads had a cast drawbar. I am not so sure that is correct, though. You will also see a blue and red trailer carrying a Chipperfields Circus elephant cage and a blue and cream trailer carrying milk churns but both these will have cast drawbars. There is, of course, also the yellow trailer from the Farming Set but that also only appeared later and had a fixed cast drawbar.

The Pony Trailer I have written about on several occasions. What seemed a very straightforward issue - just the choice of three colours, I had thought, turned out to be a lot more complicated! However, here in January 1958 you would have opened the box to find just one of two possible editions: a cream horsebox on a red chassis or a red horsebox on a black chassis. Either would have a wire drawbar, exactly the same as was fitted to the trailers.

In the box would be a brown pony with a blanket on. The blanket would usually be blue. I have seen other colours but believe that the early ones were always blue. If you had one of the very early editions then you would have struggled a bit to get the pony out because there was no 'handle' or protrusion at the top of the ramp to help you in lifting it to unlatch and then drop it down. Pretty soon after the first issue, however, the casting of the ramp was changed and a 'handle' added.

Both the cream and red and red and black editions can be found with and without handles. The red and black one carried on rather longer than the cream and red and even got a fixed drawbar at some late stage. There is no documentation on this but my guess is that it would have appeared a little before the time when the brown and cream Pony Trailer appeared for the revised Gift Set 2. That would correspond with the 1962 debut of the same thing on the Platform Trailers.

And another Pony Trailer.

Just as I thought I had finally got a complete collection of Rice Pony Trailers, along comes this fascinating edition.

The fixed, shaped wheels first caught my eye and then the fixed drawbar which I had thought was only available on the brown and cream trailer with a silver chassis. Clearly, sometime in 1962 before the new brown and cream colour scheme was introduced, the red trailer did get a fixed drawbar but I would guess that it would not have been around for many months. The upgraded dropside and flatbed trailers were not released until December 1962 and it looks a very similar design.

The rest of the trailer looks identical to the previous edition, with the 'handle' on the ramp. The wheels are still fixed, however, whereas I believe all the brown and cream trailers have free-spinning wheels.

I think you may have a hard job finding another of these. Another for the 'Scarce Corgis' list, I think.

The Pony Trailer you probably don't have

The old Corgi Pony trailers never cease to surprise me. This is a very nice example of the scarcer cream and red edition of 102 that arrived today. It's nice but didn't strike me as anything exceptional. Then I tried to open and drop down the ramp. It seemed a lot more difficult than the others I have had.

It was like there was a sort of handle missing. That, indeed, is what it was. All the other 102s that I have ever encountered have had a lump of metal at the top of the ramp that acts as a sort of handle.

This one also came with most of its box. If you look at the image carefully you'll see that the artist has drawn a ramp without a handle. So that makes me think that perhaps this is the very earliest edition which was later amended. Having said that, on the other side he has drawn a cream trailer with a black chassis so you can never really come to much of a conclusion from these.

This is another cream and red one that I have at the moment and you can see the difference. Because the one that has just arrived is in good condition it is clear that there never has been a 'handle' and it is not a simple case of something having been chipped off at some point.

So there's another 102 that you may need to add to your collection! Indeed, as the red and black one was, I think, also issued at the outset, perhaps there will be some of those without the 'handle' too.

I have read on one site that there are editions of the red and black model with a fixed drawbar instead of the wire affair. I am not at all sure that is the case and believe that there were several changes made at that time and they only applied to the brown and cream version. However, maybe you can look out in case there really is a third red and black type! 

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.

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?