Mustang on a Mission path in Texas.

When I had to send a Mustang to Texas the image in my mind was rather different to this! Indeed, I feel that the car will have to be much better parked to fit in with the pristine and very clean environment in this suburb called Mission.

Apart from the two small single storey houses shown here, the houses are huge and the cars neatly parked or well-hidden in garages that look big enough to take a combine harvester.

Fortunately perhaps, this car had an original box where it can be tidily stored so as not to upset any neighbours.

Bring Back Corgi Toys!

Model Collector magazine had an interesting article with this title in its Xmas 2016 edition. A chap called Wilf Bainbridge wrote suggesting that Corgi pay serious attention to producing replicas of some old models. He says that with modern production techniques permitting far cheaper manufacture it ought to be possible for the present Corgi to make new copies of the old models at rather less than we have to pay for originals in good condition.

He's right. Recent editions like the latest 'anniversary' Bond Aston Martin have cost less than £20 and they've had all sorts of operating features too. If anything, the precision of the Chinese manufacturing process seems to be too neat and tidy! Corgi Toys always had some flaw in the cast or paintwork somewhere! There can be no doubt that there is a market for nice, clean examples of their old models - and in boxes. This needn't be seen as incompatible with a thriving market for originals either. Collectors will always want those - with or without a box and in almost any condition!

There have been some rather half-hearted attempts - Corgi Classics, for example - but they fail in my view as the models are quite different and the boxes don't seem right either. Some items come affixed to a plastic base and, whilst that does keep them safe in transit and keeps the dust off on display, I much prefer the idea of opening a box and simply getting the car out and, if not playing with it nowadays, at least letting it roll across the desk.

Many recent models seem deficient in not having suspension or having fixed wheels when the originals might have had suspension or free wheels. The new ones are not as pleasant to push along so good replicas should reflect closely what the early ones were like and certainly have rubber tyres.

The card boxes in blue and yellow just didn't work for me. Like the models they contained, there was a similarity to the original in some respects but then there were obvious differences which were annoying. The wheels on most models, for instance, may have been more like the real ones but they were not Corgi Toy wheels.

The 'Archive Corgi' range seems to be just Commercial vehicles and it's not a bad effort. However, there is just too much detail and I do feel that you either match the old boxes or have something substantially different. The 'half-way house' approach doesn't work for me.

The first effort to rekindle our interests came with Corgi Classics which were very similar to Vanguards. The packaging, of course, is completely different. The models included some that were similar to those issued originally but, again, too much detail and small but important differences meant they didn't work for me either. I also did not like models that were fixed to a base.

The 'Golden Oldies' range I had not noticed a great deal. They try to reflect the old blue box and seem to be reproducing the models of the day too, just like Archive Corgis above. 

It may, therefore, be asking a lot to get Corgi to take yet another look at this market but it's worth a try.

What I would love to see, and would definitely want to buy, would be exact replicas of the old models, with the same features and wheels. Corgi could use this opportunity to put better suspension on the Hillman Imp, Mustang and others that suffered too! We know that there are already excellent reproduction boxes around. They are the easy part, although, I suppose that would not be great news for the firms presently making the best ones which are, indeed, very good indeed and often almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Perhaps they will still have a market for collectors wishing to rehouse their original models. There will be some identification of the Corgi 'replicas' so that they only get used for the 'replica' models.

Mr Bainbridge suggests six models for the first launch:

150 Vanwall Formula 1 Grand Prix (with special Vandervell promotion)
204 Rover 90 (in two tone grey)
225 Austin Seven (in primrose)
258 Volvo P1800 (The Saint's car)
422 Bedford CA Van (in Corgi Toys livery, including the rarer versions from 1961)
424 Ford Zephyr Estate (in a range of two-tone finishes)

That's a reasonable group, although none of them have any 'features' other than interiors or suspension. I think there should be at least one with opening doors, bonnet or boot in the first set. Mr Bainbridge chose the Rover 90 because he is a big fan of Rovers. It is, however, generally regarded, (including by Corgi personnel at the time), as a rather poor representation of that particular model so I would suggest one of the other initial releases. Much as we might like to see a 'corrected' Rover 90, that is not the point of this!

I wonder whether Corgi shouldn't, in fact, plan to re-issue every model, including some deliberately scarce colour variations. They could truncate the 1956-73 period somewhat but it could still be a major project covering several years and I am sure it would have a dramatic impact on the market. It would also have a dramatic impact on my own finances if they really did get it right!  I know I would simply have to collect them all.

Oh dear, what have we started?

I am quite surprised (and, indeed, disappointed) that Corgi did not see fit to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 1956 launch with something more interesting than a very strange electric truck. I am quite sure there is a lot of profit to be made from re-issues. So I hereby add my voice to Mr Bainbridge's appeal and hope someone somewhere that can make decisions is listening.

The Saint takes a Volvo back to Sweden

Off to Västra Frölunda in Sweden is this version of The Saint's Volvo P1800.

Corgi Toys at Sixty: January 1957

After the launch in 1956 there was a gap of a few months until January 1957 when the Karrier Bantam was released.

Always in blue with a red base this is No.455. It is a pleasantly simple model and very strong. You might think that the completely open rear section would be flimsy but I have yet to see one that has bent or collapsed!

We could do things with this model, like fill it with stuff and hope it didn't fall out as we went along. This is a fine example that I only found a short while ago.

A Citroën SM and a scary tree with no leaves in Albertson NY

A short while ago, I sent a Chevrolet Corvette to someone who lived at an address that translated as something like Devil's Kitchen Road. Now this lovely mauve Citroën SM is on its way to somewhere just west of New York, to an owner who refers to himself as Hell's Kitchen Deuce!

Heavens alive, with Amityville just down the road I am wondering just what is happening to my customer base!

That tree looks pretty scary too! Shouldn't it have at least one or two leaves on it?

With what looks like a nice BMW 635i sitting outside, this should be a good home for the Citroën and it is certainly easier to park there than in Unpronounceable in Wales where the Lincoln went and a Mini Cooper is also heading soon. 

On the subject of the devil and travels, I'll have to do a suitable picture for the Vauxhall Velox and Rover 90 that will be making their way to Italy at the end of the month. I would normally say I'd be happy taking them there myself but the signs haven't been so good there either with earthquakes not far away from their destination.

Just to settle things down somewhat, someone in St. Albans wants the orange-red Volvo 1800. 

The colour has a devilish tinge but, come on, it's St. Albans. I mean, what could go wrong in St. Albans? I was born and went to school there. Ah, right. OK. Let's move on!

Red seats in the Corgi Pony Club Land Rover

Somewhere in the States a colleague found this Gift Set 15. A seemingly ordinary but nice and clean Whizzwheels Land Rover towing the usual Rice Beaufort Horse-Box with cast wheels containing two original issue ponies too.

Red seats? he rightly queried. Red seats!? I exclaimed and immediately placed a ridiculously high bid to make sure I bought it. These days I do tend to avoid buying from across The Pond if at all possible as many sellers demand the most extraordinary postal charges. (Pitney Bowes has a lot to answer for in that respect but I'll leave that for another day). This was actually advertised with a couple of Corgi Classics: a 9041 Rolls and a 9012 Model T Ford with a broken screen. I really did not want either of those and hoped the seller could just send me the Land Rover but it didn't seem to make any difference to a postal charge of about £25 so I swallowed hard and tried not to worry about it too much.

I did win at a modest price, but more than I had expected it to go for and then only with the last second assistance of some software, which made me think that someone else had noticed the unusual interior. It took an age for the expensive postal service actually to deliver the damn thing but it has been well worth the wait. At one point I did wonder whether the 'red' was merely the result of a poorly-lit photograph! Quite a relief when it did, finally, arrive. It was red.

It looks very much like the old interior put in the fawn coloured edition but with a black steering wheel. The Longleat Land Rover has a red interior and black steering wheel but the interior is quite different, needing a hole for the hunter. Someone would have had to select the red interior, add a black steering wheel and then insert it during the manufacturing process when you would have expected the box to be full of lemon ones with grey steering wheels. So it is a curious development and my guess is that this dates from a period when the change from the flimsy lemon plastic to new yellow interior was taking place. If some models came trundling down the production line and the lemon flavour had run out but no yellow solid affairs were available then the factory staff may well have made up some temporary alternatives. 

Despite looking quite carefully at hundreds of these Land Rovers over the years, and discovering all sorts of varieties in the Gift Set 15 components, this has to be the one with the biggest 'Wow!' factor. I have not seen a single other one anywhere. The dark green 438 with a red interior is known to be scarce and I was delighted to find one of those a while ago that I shall not part with cheaply. Unless I discover that there are more of these around which I simply have just not noticed. which I doubt will be the case, then this will take its place as one of the really quite special models in my collection.

I really do like models that look a bit normal and may be initially uninteresting but which are, in fact, wonderfully scarce and potentially valuable. Finding these small but fascinating differences does help the days go by!

As you will see in the previous article today, the Horse-Box was also a surprise, having a different type of wheel. So I'm glad that I didn't press to have just the Land Rover after all. The two Classics, though, will be effectively free to a good home.

Gift Set 15. The Gift Set that keeps on giving.

Oh, not another Rice Beaufort Double Horse-Box you may say. Yes, another one! We've had open vents and closed vents, then blue and white tops and all white tops. Before that there was the strange one with cast 8 spoke wheels (like those fitted to racing cars!) Now I've found a fourth type of wheel.

As you can see from the illustration, the cast wheels on the left have a distinctly deeper rim, a different spoke pattern and what appears to be a slightly larger centre hub (although that might be an optical illusion). At first I thought it was just a cleaner version, maybe a crisper casting but that is not the case.

This came with a black plastic hook, blue and white top and a closed vent. I bought it in a Gift set 15 with a Whizzwheels Land Rover (which you'll read about in the next post) from the States. So it would seem to be a later edition but that's all I can tell you about it.

Well, I could talk about how the rear ramp falls off if you don't open it carefully but, fortunately, it slips back into place again easily and stays in position.

I presume that there will be plenty of these around with this style of wheel but, once again, I shall have to study these little blue and white wonders a little more carefully. Somehow I shall have to make a list of what types you're likely to come across and do some counting to get some idea of which are more common than others.

In case you missed them, here are the other two wheel types:

I think it is safe to assume now that there were none issued with 'normal' wheels, although you'll find sets where the Land Rovers have normal wheels.

There are, at the other end, several sets where the Land Rover has Whizzwheels and the Horse-Box cast wheels but I don't think I've seen them the other way round. Even sets with both components having Whizzwheels are not that common, Corgi beginning to look at other things to do with the Land Rover by then.