And another jewelled bronze Hillman Imp

Having never seen the bronze Hillman Imp with jewels before, I now find myself with two of them in a matter of weeks!

This one is rather better paint-wise and the screens are all intact apart from a small scratch on the windscreen. Its suspension, however, is as flat as a pancake, non-existent. Such a shame and I can't see a way to repair it without taking the car apart which I don't want to do. The base on the other one is quite loose, though, and I can't see anyone wanting it with no front suspension, broken windows and no opening rear window so that one I may decide to work on. If I can find some suitable bronze paint, and a tailgate that is. My only concern is that it could just as easily be regarded then as a more common #328 that someone has resprayed. Now, I do have a set of #328 Monte Carlo transfers. Hmm. Watch this space.

I hope the suspension is reasonable easy to fix. I've never looked inside one before but guess some plastic is broken.

The curious case of the Imp and the jewels.

This is a very strange item. It would seem to be a bronze Imp with original paint and with the white stripe unmarked and no sign of base removal. The odd thing is that it has the two jewels that would normally have been in a dark blue metallic Rally edition #328.

They seem to be factory fitted rather than a later addition, although I suppose one can never be absolutely sure considering the skill of some people in adapting models.

The screens are very badly broken and the rear window is missing. The front suspension is broken too and there are scratches on the roof and knocks here and there. The screen appears to have the two horizontal lines that I’ve only seen on the second rally car, the Sunbeam variant #340! So, all in all it’s quite a mystery and not one I expect to see solved any day soon.

And following on from the 'list' discussion earlier, no, this will not be in the list of variants!

A bronze Oldsmobile Toronado

This is something I haven't seen anywhere else; a bronze Oldsmobile Toronado. It is the #276 model with Golden Jacks and arrived in pretty poor condition, missing all four wheels. Whilst the front bumper has some damage the paintwork is pretty good and, apart from a small crack in the rear window the interior is excellent and the suspension perfectly sound.

I have no idea what price to put on this as I can't find another for sale anywhere. I have two immaculate red versions in original and unmarked boxes in stock and they're £240 each so that's what I shall set as the price for this until I can find some more for sale somewhere.

This was very cheap to buy and I am sure the seller had no idea that he had the only one in this colour of all the 100 or so Toronados for sale at the time. Obviously the condition dragged its price down too, especially without wheels! Observers who didn't appreciate that it was a #276 and not a #264 would also have thought that replacing wheels would be a difficult task requiring baseplate removal! Luckily I found some original wheels going at a modest price too.