Corgi Toys @ 60: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and a Lotus Racing Set

 

August 1966 brought two new items on to your local Corgi store shelves. The Lotus Racing Team Gift Set was quite expensive at 36/- (that's 36 shillings, or the equivalent of £1.80) but there was a lot you could do with what it contained.

In the box there are two Lotus Elans, each quite different from the #318 model issued a year earlier in July 1965. The green open top model with a yellow stripe has a red interior and a removable chassis. The hard-top version is in yellow with a green stripe and a white interior, also having a removable chassis. This model would appear in June 1967 as a separate model #319 in a box, although most will be red or blue with a white top.

A separate chassis is also included, mounted on a slightly larger trailer to that used for the Ferrari Gift Set 17 and now in red rather than yellow. That, in turn, is towed by another new model, the VW Breakdown Truck. This is finished in white and has 'Racing Club' stickers on the doors, a winch operated by a wheel at the back and you can open the red plastic lid in the rear section to find a nice array of chrome tools. There should also be be a couple of spare tyres in the space provided, one small and one normal. I'm not sure how they would cope should one of the Lotus F1 Racing Car tyres burst as there's not space for the three sizes they would really need for the cars included. The Lotus Racing Car is the same #155 model as appeared first in December 1964, with the same driver and same RN1 decals.

The VW Breakdown Truck will also be issued as #490 in December 1966 but only in beige initially and with different stickers.

A pack of bollards was included too and I believe this was the first time you could get these. They will appear in later sets and many, many years later with the VW Driving School Car.

Early sets had chassis elements with small size shaped wheels. Later these were replaced by the normal size cast wheels, which quite significantly changed the appearance and stance of the Lotus Elans. As a result of the later change, you may now find 1967 #319 models with shaped wheels, where someone has swapped the chassis with one from an old Gift Set 37.

One oddity for me was the lack of suspension on the chassis pieces. Disregarding some utility items, these Lotus Elans would be the first issues without suspension since late 1960 when the Triumph TR3 was first issued and that appears to have been the last non-suspension car. (I am not counting the Bluebird or revised Lotus XI models).

August was not to be the only month when Corgi abandoned suspension in a new issue, however, as the other new arrival also suffered the same shortcoming!

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - United Network Command for Law Enforcement - was a popular TV series but you very seldom actually saw much of the car the stars drove. It was, in fact, a modified Piranha Coupé, based on a Chevrolet Corvair. Now Corgi did have a Chevrolet Corvair but, for some reason best know to them, they decided to use an Oldsmobile Super 88 instead! Even that would have originally have had suspension, though.

Early editions had shaped wheels but these were fairly quickly changed to cast wheels. There are two colours - a cream edition, which is quite hard to find these days, significantly scarcer than the metallic deep blue edition. The cream model is also a quite different casting, the most obvious difference being on the bonnet, with lines defining the area for the U.N.C.L.E. motif. You will find many people respraying blue models and trying sell them as scarce cream (or even white!) variations but, naturally, they always use the wrong casting.

In the box there is a ring which has an image of both Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin - it changes depending on the angle at which it is viewed. The original rings often get lost or filed away by mothers in a box of assorted animals, characters and bits and pieces when tidying up so are quite valuable now. Reproductions are, however, readily available and actually very good, although different sizes in most cases. So, without an original to compare, buyers need to be wary.

From what I read, early editions had cast metal search lights mounted on the wings, replaced at some point by chrome plated plastic. However, on the early editions that I have had with shaped wheels these lights have been plastic not cast metal. So I am uncertain about some of what is published in this respect and I wonder whether, in fact, the plastic ones came first, later replaced by the metal, possibly due to the delicate plastic breaking when being fitted.

The roof element that needs to be pushed down to move the pair in and out of the windows and make a gunshot noise is plastic.

Even without suspension, this model sold very well and stays on the order sheets through to 1969.

I appreciate that some room might have been needed for the mechanism but Corgi managed to get suspension on the James Bond Aston Martin and other models with steering occupying much of the interior below the seat like the Austin A60, VW 1200 for example. The Oldsmobile would have had the reliable old wires and I am surprised they were not retained. Indeed, I may well have to get a cheap 497 - and there are lots around for a few pounds - and see if I can install some suspension and make the model much more pleasant. I have always liked the Oldsmobile and, whilst a bit dated by then, it deserved better treatment.

Big Bedford cabs and suspension

 

Now here's a funny little thing that has started to intrigue me. It's the familiar 'Big Bedford' cab in what was probably a brighter shade of red when it was made. I bought it with a transporter unit, thinking the pair were an original 1101 item. However, when they arrived, I noticed that the transporter section had suspension so my first thoughts were that someone had simply combined a 1101 cab with a 1105 transporter and not known any better when advertising this. There weren't many pictures so I didn't see any bases.

Looking around, though, I have found precious few transporters with  a red cab with shaped wheels. One, strangely, also is attached to a transporter section with suspension. (It's easy to tell the difference as the bases look completely different and this time there were pictures.)

So I am wondering whether there might have been a transitional issue, sold as 1101 but with the Big Bedford cab attached to a transporter with suspension?

1101 first appeared in October 1957. It would be over five years before 1105 was issued in November 1962. We see suspension arriving with the Renault Floride in 1959 and shaped wheels were fitted to most new models from issue from mid-1961 on and would have gradually replaced smooth wheels on existing models still in production from then on. So a shaped wheel cab is very much to be expected in the late issues in the few months before the change to a TK cab type. Could it be that the transporter section, which also has shaped wheels in the examples of this combination I have seen, was upgraded before being attached to the new cab?

The only other explanation is that both sellers have mixed up their cabs and transporters, which, of course, is also entirely feasible!

The cab was also used for several other issues such as the 1100 Low Loader, 1104 Machinery Carrier and 1110 Mobilgas Tanker. It would be extraordinarily late, December 1965 before the Mobilgas Tanker gets the TK cab (although the tanker still doesn't get suspension!) so all production prior to that will have had a red Big Bedford cab and most of the later production would surely have had shaped wheels. That would support the mix-up of components by a seller.

I am still a little intrigued by the possibility of a transitional issue, though. If anyone knows more about this do get in touch.

Update: I have since found several 1101 models with shaped wheels and both the red cab and transporter section but they're few and far between in comparison to the smooth wheel editions. There is also the problem with the different bases on the cabs. Early models have a black base and these appear all to have three rivets. The later models, however, with grey bases, can have either two or three rivets and either smooth or shaped wheels for each type! So far that's five different red cabs!

The two tankers released in December 1965 were, incidentally, almost the last 'normal' models to have no suspension (on the rear tanker section, that is, which didn't get updated and still has its ancient tin plate base so beware people swapping that cabs as the red TK cab is fairly easy to find but a genuine later Mobilgas original model is not.). I'm excluding Classics, farm machinery and the like, as well as the Man From U.N.C.L.E. Oldsmobile and the Monkeemobile which leaves just the odd 319 Lotus Elan S2 as the last normal vehicle to be issued without suspension. I remember being disappointed when I bought it. OK, the chassis could be removed but surely it could not have been that difficult to include some suspension in the chassis? Only a month earlier they had issued the 1142 Holmes Recovery Truck with a mass of devices included and a month later we could buy the Lincoln Continental with a TV screen inside which could light up! Suspension on a 319 chassis would surely have been simple in comparison.

Corgi Toys @ 60 : Missiles, Harvesters and Suspension

It's October 1959 and the shops get what I think is Corgi's biggest single item, a specially constructed vehicle to carry the massive Corporal missile issued in the summer. This vehicle doesn't just carry the thing, though, it also has nicely manufactured mechanisms by which you could transfer the missile to the launching ramp (if you had one handy) in a vertical position.

The photograph below, featured in The Great Book of Corgi, shows a number of Corgi personnel, including Marcel Van Cleemput (writing, with glasses,) and Percy Wilford (in a white coat to the right) the senior design and production engineers, making rapid sketches and notes when, we are told, the driver of an erector vehicle stopped near the factory in Northampton.

The result was an impressive  model, catalogued as a Corgi Major 1113 and sold with a missile.

The weight of the section carrying the missile produced some heavy forces acting on the gearing as it was manoeuvred into a vertical position - and probably often less than steadily so when in play - led to some of the cogs slipping over time and many examples have worn or broken teeth now.

The front wheels steered on the chassis and did so in a realistic way, although, without suspension one did have to encourage them to move one way or another. Nevertheless, here was the first Corgi model with steering!

It was expensive, though, and sales were not high of any of the military equipment. Good examples now, in the thick card boxes with packing pieces and instruction leaflets are now much sought-after by collectors, not just of Corgis but of military models generally, this being regarded as quite a 'classic' now.

The month also saw the previously issued Massey Ferguson tractor, trailer and Combine Harvester put together in Gift Set 8.

The third release in October 1959 is a notable event; the first Corgi with suspension. Termed Glidamatic and with 'Spring Suspension' on the box this made a big difference to your enjoyment when playing with the cars. The first was number 222, a Renault Floride. You could press down on the front to pretend you were braking hard, on the sides to whizz around corners (although the fixed wheels in the first models still made cornering tricky) and, of course, you could imitate zooming off with the rear being depressed as in the real thing.

Bumps on your layout could be driven over and the simple device of two pieces of wire providing resistance to the movement of the axles near the wheels was a great success. Even now, 60 years later, you'll find the Renault Floride suspension still sound and solid. 

The model itself was also a very attractive one, the real car being very pretty. First issues were in an olive green colour and would have had fixed smooth wheels and a red interior. Later models were produced in dark red and metallic blue. Bright yellow and cream interiors are found in the dark red models and the blue ones had either red or yellow.

As well as a few colour and interior variations to collect, early models had open vents in the rear wings, with the casting being punched through. Later models had the fin shapes still but no holes visible. This type seems to be quite hard to find and is not always very easy to spot in small illustrations unless the photograph has been taken at just the right angle. So far, I have bought three models which appeared to have 'closed' vents but which turned out to be 'open' on arrival!