Lotus Elan S2

Not all Lotus Elans are the same. The model number may be 318 for all of the open top versions but you'll see that this green one with a yellow stripe has the detachable chassis that you may have been more familiar finding on 319, the hard top Coupé.

Although some may have found their way into individual model boxes, this was really intended to be issued only as part of Gift Set 37, the Lotus Racing set. The set included the open and hard top cars with interchangeable chasses and a white VW Rescue Truck with a red trailer and a third chassis, as well as the Lotus Climax racing car and some bollards.

I could never quite figure out what the attraction of the removable chassis was as they were identical so changing them over seemed a bit pointless!

In white, the Lotus lost its driver and sticker on the boot to become Emma Peel's car from the first TV series of The Avengers.

Occasionally you might find white ones with the I've Got A Tiger In My Tank sticker and a driver but most would be a silver-blue colour.

Racing Number decals were supplied - usually 2, 3 5 or 6 in white on black circles. I always thought the car looked so much better without them but they're only paper so can be easily removed or reapplied as you please.

For my alternative sets for The Avengers, I created a slightly darker shade of silver-blue to match better the car that Mrs Peel used in the colour TV series - the second series on.

A colour trial of a pea green version was produced but you'll not see this for sale anywhere!

Most 319s that came in boxes had larger, cast wheels and never really sat as they should, appearing too high off the ground. The Racing Set version, however, always in yellow with a green stripe had the smaller wheels and looked much better.

Remarkably, the interiors are the same across the range. So you have folding seats in the hard top even though you can barely get at them! There are three colours - cream for all the 319s, red for the Racing Set 318 and black for the white and silver-blue cars.

There is just one other variation I have encountered - small cast wheels on a white 318 that I think came from a late Avengers set. I have not seen either red or blue 319s with normal wheels. I suppose someone could switch the chassis over but I don't think they were sold in that format. I must try one day, just to see what the alternative versions look like.

The Classics

Often overlooked in listings of Corgi Toys from the era before things went wrong are the Classics that they produced from around 1964. These were beautifully detailed models of jalopies from yesteryear and that, of course, may have been one of the terms they had in mind at the time as Matchbox had established a good name in this field already with their 'Yesteryear' brand.

These were not models that kids would zoom around the floor, though, and were, perhaps, the first that may really have been aimed at older collectors, not just because they were a bit staid in comparison to Oldsmobile Toronados or Buick Rivieras but they had bits that might break off more easily. I remember that I had no interest in them at all and only had the Steed Bentley because I had been a huge fan of The Avengers and my parents bought me the Gift Set. The Lotus was well played with but the Bentley, to this day, stayed virtually unmarked.

That set, however, was not where things started and may even have only come about as a result of sales of the Bentleys not being exactly massive. It all started with a green 'racing' edition which came with a hood and a driver clad in what looked like a pile of bandages. I didn't put the driver in the photos. 

The wheels of 9001 were always steel and it can be identified from similar models by having white Racing Number 3 on the rear and radiator grill. There is also a Union Jack on the passenger door panel.

In the first launch also was 9002, a red Bentley, just the same as 9001 but this had red wheels and no Racing Numbers. It had the same full hood. I think it also had a driver who still seemed to be wearing bandages but not as white.

The same Bentley appeared later in Gift Set 40, as Steed's vehicle from The Avengers TV series. Most were red with steel wheels but there were also green Bentleys (which would have been a more appropriate colour as Steed never actually had a red one!) which were like 9001 but with no Racing Numbers or Union Jack. In either case the full hood was replaced by a folded variety. The green Bentley would have red or steel wheels. A figure of John Steed, dressed in a grey-brown suit and tie would be at the wheel.

Much later than all the others, the same Bentley re-appeared as 9004 in green again but this time with grey-black rails and a much brighter red-brown interior. Jeeves would be at the wheel with his master, Bertie Wooster, leaning against the car in quite a remarkable tweed suit and nice reproduction of his monocle.

This would have steel wheels and, again, no Racing Numbers or flag.

After the Bentleys came the Ford Model T cars. Again, wonderfully well-made but quite vulnerable to damage. the screens on these are often broken. First was 9011 in black with a couple of figures.

9012 was the same Model T but in yellow and with the same two figures in the box. Both 9011 and 9012 were open with folded holds at the rear.

9013 was the Model T in blue and came with a fixed full hood. It also had a chap leaning down at the front, grabbing the starter handle. I have him but he isn't in the photo.

The catalogues illustrate 9014, a Lyons Tea Model T commercial vehicle but that never made it into production.

9021 is a very impressive and bright Daimler. This is packed with characters and is also a very heavy model compared to the others. The bright red paint and yellow wheels really look quite extraordinary. I totally missed this car at the time and it was only a few months ago that I became acquainted with it. There's no way I would have bought one then. Now, you'll see in the catalogues another Daimler described as 9022 with a hood, I think it is in dark blue. This never made it into production although I have seen a pre-production example from the factory and maybe some are circulating.

Next in the catalogue come two 1910 Renaults. 9031 is a sort of mauve colour and 9032 is primrose.

In other respects these are identical and had no characters with them, a cheaper option all round.

The series ends quite soon after it began with this extremely old-fashioned and rather unappealing to the young Rolls Royce Silver Cloud which is more like a bus than a car. It is, again, beautifully made, with remarkable detail, jewelled headlamps on this one and the flying lady on the radiator. I have two varieties: one with gold wheels and a grey exhaust, another with steel colour wheels and  a black exhaust. 

These are all models for older folk to display. Indeed, most came with picture boxes and some had stands included or a sort of street scene illustration inside the box. Not the Rolls, though, which came in a ubiquitous bubble pack - quite inappropriate for that class of vehicle! Cost were being cut, though, and these didn't sell well. Many were made, though, and as a consequence you can but these for really low prices, even with their boxes.

If you just want to buy the cars themselves then you'll find Rolls Royces going for £10-£20 and the Renaults and Fords seldom cost more than £30. The Bentleys can be a bit more expensive, often because people confuse them with Steed's from the Gift Set. A 9001 would be £30-£40, a 9002 £40 -£50 and the most expensive is the comparatively scarce 9004 with Jeeves and Wooster at around £60.

An original Steed's Bentley in good condition may also cost you around £60. Most green ones I encounter are adaptations of one of the others and original green Steed's Bentleys are likely to be a bit more.

If you ignore the Bentleys, though, you'll realise that you can have a complete set of the Classics, all easily found in A/A+ condition, on display for less than £100.

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.

Cars with boxes and cars with cases

The bronze Hillman Imp finally arrived this morning and I shall be selling it with the nice box that came with a blue one. The maths is simply so clear - a blue one with a box goes for about £100 and a bronze one £200 or more. But without a box a blue one is just £40 and a bronze one maybe £80. So I lose £60 but gain £120 by swapping them round. These aren't the figures actually involved as the bronze one will be a bit cheaper and the blue one a little more by virtue of their condition but you'll get the idea.

Strangely, another bronze Imp with jewels has appeared too. It also seems to be a bit of a wreck but that does make me believe that this was a real release after all. The paintwork is a shinier bronze than the one illustrated above and the 'Sunbeam' front screen is apparent on the second one too.

With the Hillman Imp came a massive suitcase! It opened too which was fun. It just looks a bit crazy as it would fill up the rear shelf completely! It is, of course, the same case as was supplied with a number of other models, notably the Jaguar Mk X which also had a small case. I am trying to remember which other models had cases. The MGB had a black one in the same style and, I think, the MGC too. The VW Karmann Ghia had two small cases. The Later Mercedes-Benz 220, model #253 had the large and small cases and the Chrysler Imperial in Bermuda taxi guise was supposed to have had a big one and a small one but I suspect the few blue ones that did appear late in the day were in #246 boxes and had golf clubs if anything, like the common red ones. Possibly the two large occupants too.. I think that's it - a lot fewer than I had thought.

Going back to the jewelled bronze Imp I am wondering whether this was a specially adapted model to go in a Transporter set? The set shows a bronze Hillman Imp on the Transporter in the 1967-8 catalogue which changes to a Sunbeam #340 Rally version in the 1969 catalogue. My guess is that they ran out of #340s and decided that the simple Hillman was not good enough value as a substitute so adjusted some, made them shiney gold and added some jewels for a while. That would sort of explain the Sunbeam-style screens as they would have stopped making the normal Hillman by then and only would have the Sunbeam screens for the Rally car and the Police car. 

And yes, I have just looked and there is a big hole in the top of the screen unit where a Police beacon would have gone. Perhaps that is a mystery almost solved! All by myself.

Unless, of course, you know different...

Chevrolet Impala

A collector in The Netherlands just asked me some questions about Impalas so I thought I may as well share my answers generally here.

He was concerned about there being an all blue 248 (as mentioned in The Great Book of Corgi) and not sure what variations might be out there for the Impalas.

Although that book is a great resource for us collectors, the authors and photographers were a bit too close to the production lines and maybe not so much aware of what really made it to the shops. So there are entries which may have existed in the factory and even a few may have escaped into the wild but really there is little hope of you and I actually finding one.

Or being able to afford it even if we did! 

So I tend to ignore some 'versions' and not worry about trying to find them. 

That is a general comment - now to answer your Impala queries.  

220 comes in pale blue and that interesting and very 1960s pink colour. The only variation is the blue one can have yellow or red interiors. Anything else is what I call an 'oddity'! 

To the best of my knowledge, there is only the one 248 that was available to buy. That is the one with two shades of brown-yellow. I have never seen a variation of this but I can understand that, at the time of the change, there will have been examples made using the old colours. 

248 is an example of the second type of Impala that was produced in 1965 in an attempt to extend the life of the old casting. They cleverly split the old one in two and inserted a piece of chrome all the way along, providing chrome grill and front end, stripes along the side and shiny rear lights and bumper!  

This worked very well and they applied it to all the Impalas - the taxi, Fire Chief's car, Police car getting extended life with Type II models. There may, therefore, be examples of different tops and bottoms that factory workers may have decided to mess about with on a Friday afternoon when the boss wasn't looking! I haven't seen any, though, so I doubt if many actually made it to the shops. Some good restorers can also 'create' variants quite simply as all the parts match. 

All Impalas have good suspension and interiors. The 220 types will have fixed wheels (fitted either way round) and there may be some with free spinning wheels (but I haven't seen any). All the 248 types have free spinning wheels which had become the norm by the time they appeared. 

The thin roof supports can be easily bent and the screen unit extends a lot at the front which makes it vulnerable to damage. If the unit becomes a little loose it can hang down as there isn't much to support it. 

My list of 'all models' may be worth referring to as I have compiled this over time with advice from many sources and been able to detect some of the innocent mistakes I find - even in respectable and well-informed sites. It is also constantly updated - for instance your question reminded me that I hadn't included the different interior colours so I have today updated that.

The curious case of the Land Rover Breakdown truck jib

Just as I thought I was beginning to understand the progress from one variant to another for the Land Rover Breakdown Trucks, this one comes along!

With its suspension and interior it is clearly a 417S but on the back is a Type 1 jib. I had mistakenly thought that the jib had been replaced by the more solid affair on the 417 models so, when suspension came along, it would have been just the Type 2 jibs on the 417S models. 

So my earlier article needs some amendment, I'm afraid. I suppose it is feasible now to find a 417 with a Type 2 jib. I find that hard to believe but it did actually seem to me the more likely, as I had thought that the Type 2 jib came in before the 417S update. This model would imply that the 417S update came before the change to Type 2 jibs.

It's all very confusing, especially as all the 417S examples I have encountered so far have had the Type 2 jib! As many examples are from very reliable sources like QDT and come from recognised experts' collections too, you just have to believe that they are, indeed, 417S and not 477 with a tin roof. In fact, I sem to recall that all the illustrations of 417S on QDT's site had closed jibs. 

So the only conclusion I can come to is that 417S models exist with both types of jib and I guess that was because the dates of both changes must have been quite close.

So there would have been a pile of red models and a box of assorted jibs for a while and there still remained a sort of random selection when the production process brought in suspension and seats. By my reckoning, there really won't have been very many of either the 417 with the closed type 2 jib or the 417S with the open type 1 jib and I shall now set about trying to find some good examples of each.

Of course, someone out there may know different.

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Just to make you smile, or grimace, here is what you get for 417S from a Vectis archive! A plastic canopy? As I have said before, we all make mistakes. 

Or there is yet another variation of the 417S which would then make late versions totally indistinguishable from a 477?

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!