Datsuncog

I don't think so - I had one of those Magirus Deutz cement mixers from a nipper, and the back axle had the same non-matching wheels. No idea why - I don't recognise them from other Majorettes of the era either. Mine also had a two-tone mixer drum. Still, excellent haul!

Seems to be an XM thing to get your sills back in a plastic bag... Mine was pretty flash; it even came with the bags already stuffed inside the sills to carry the rust home in. Fancy. Great to hear yours is now sorted and legal - now y'can enjoy!

That's a decent loft. I'll probably be flooring ours at some point in the new place - unfortunately it's still too low to stand up in, just like the previous place. I did store my diecast up there, until MrsDC twigged that much of the stuff occupying the attic space was diecast... hence the haphazard and bitterly-regretted fire-sale back in January. . At least the cull survivors are a bit more accessible now they're under the bed, and I can pull out one on a daily basis and look at it while I'm working. Today's pick: 1/43 Peugeot 504 Rurale.

Under a nest: protected gulls roost on roof of Dorset police car | Wildlife | The Guardian

Excellent news!!!

Heh, funnily enough that's exactly why I kept that CX on my desk in work - it really is wonderfully tactile. Glad it's still getting good use!

#clubwardrobe here also... The Matchbox stuff in the blue carry-cases used to live in a couple of wall display cases in the old house; however, I'm not sure if those will reappear in the design scheme for the new place. Also #clubunderbed... Not sure what's to become of these either. I've the recent Corgi Model Club repros in the top of the bureau I currently work from, along with some other odds and ends. But the bureau's also slated for rehoming, so who knows... Pity the married diecast collector. 😆

One of my best-ever days was going to my local primary school's May Festival, where I managed to score a big carrier bag full of fairly playworn 1950s, 60s and 70s Dinky, Corgi, Spot-On, Budgie and Lesney toys for £2. Then I got a hot dog from the barbeque in the playground, and went and watched Liverpool win the FA Cup (against Sunderland?) in the school's TV room. Later, at home, my mum put a load of pizzas and garlic bread in the oven and we watched a local girl, Linda Martin, win the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland while I cleaned up my diecast haul and tried to work out how I'd fix them up. I think it must have been around 1992 or so. I mean, I've had a lot of good days since - but that's probably the one that continues to stand out as a day I'd quite like to re-live.

Unfashionably late to the MB Capri party, but finally found one on Saturday night - right at the back of the pegs in Tesco. Not really sure what to do with it - if previous form is anything to go by, hide it in a wardrobe for a year then sell it for a quarter of what I paid - but it's nice to try my own 'then and now' comparison. As others have said, the Superfast Capri's not really a great model in terms of proportions - but it still oozes appeal. It's the only original mint and boxed Matchbox I still have, and it's a definite keeper.

Nicely played on the Corolla wagon - looks a well-used but honest wee thing. Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for two months ago, but ended up with a bugeye-era liftback instead. Hopefully it'll prove reliable for as long as you need it!

Dunno if you're thinking of my recently purchased bugeye Corolla - the seller had given the tyres a (very fresh) coat of brush-on tyre paint; it was still wet when I viewed it. Seemed like a bit of a niche activity these days, when spray tyre shine is widely available, but okay. A day or two later, once it had all dried in... Ah, they'll all be totally perished then. I wasn't too annoyed, as I'd clocked the car was wearing an ill-starred assortment of bargain-basement deathrings and had budgeted for a full set of matched replacements - it just meant this became a sooner rather than later job. I think I've already bored everyone previously about my Car & Classic advertised XM estate with sills made out of plastic bags and electrical conduit, but I'll throw it in again; I knew there was something suspect when I bought it, but I'd travelled quite a distance to view, and needed a big estate with a towbar in a hurry. It had been advertised in Derry; upon driving all the way up there and meeting the seller at the given address, it turned out that he actually lived way out in the wilds of Donegal, over the border in the Irish Republic. So I had to follow him across rural backroads for another thirty miles to see the car. He claimed it was all good, with receipts showing new spheres fitted only a few weeks previously - but having bought the car, he said he couldn't afford to register it in ROI because of the fairly hefty VRT charge applicable on a 2.4 litre turbodiesel. Which didn't sound like total bullshit, as a friend of mine moved to Galway around 2006 and I knew it had cost him a tidy sum to reregister his Rover 200 down there - maybe the guts of a grand. Anyway, the XM went really well on the test drive, quiet and smooth, although when I was prodding the sills after I did hear a bit of a crunch and a crack appeared down near the seam join. This was disquieting, but I was moving house in a matter of weeks and couldn't shift sofas in a Mk2 Polo - nor did I want to return from a 250 mile round-trip empty handed. It still had nine months MOT - how bad could it be? So I half-heartedly haggled £50 off the asking, and drove off home. Only nine months later, at MOT time, did reality bite and the horrible truth become apparent. I sold it for spares through Club XM to a fella from up the country who specialised in breaking them; it turned out mine was a 'known car', which had passed through a few owners and had a bit of a reputation amongst the Citroen fraternity for having numerous unwise bodges - including the block tapped and heater matrix bypassed using household plumbing bits (which I hadn't spotted). In fairness, even if it was a complete lash-up it still did the job of a house renovation load-lugger very capably, and was totally reliable the whole time. But you'll be unsurprised that I didn't see much of my £800 outlay back from the scrapman.

Looks a bit more like the corporate greenwashing movement of late-stage capitalism to me... ...but what do I know?

Got the new house in some semblance of order, and now watching Eurovision with a few drinks and a late late buffet dinner. Feeling alright for the first time in months.

40p!!! *Faints* (Definitely suffering tat withdrawal symptoms here)

Great haul there - the Corgi Rover P6 looks an ace find also!

Surely not oil leaks - that's the Dynamic Underbody Anti-rust System (patent pending) working to spec, no? 🙃 I tell you, my Cortinas could have greatly benefited from such a device...

There's a few threads on the Open Forum about it - this is the most recent, I think. Pro tip seems to be - bring a book.

Going by the smallish wheel size/ ride height, I'd have said Transit rather than A Series as well. I'd love to know what that gothic fever-dream on the back is made of - is the coffin bed and canopy carved wood, or glassfibre?

This cost me £975 in March. It seems a great wee thing, but I can't help but think it would've been a £400 car a few years ago. The paradox is that I was willing to pay a bit more because it has vastly fewer things fitted that could go wrong compared to newer/ more luxurious models.

Definitely don't waste time trying to remove droplinks gently; after my fuckabout with such things back in December, it's angry grinder all the way in future. It seems that links don't really last long these days - the one shown was less than a year old at the point of failure, yet looks like it's spent a decade or three on the seabed.

OOFT for that Montego. Very, very nice. Seems insane that these models are so hard to find; you'd think a ready market would exist to sell them in the UK. I'm still not sure why diecast partworks like these seem common enough elsewhere in Europe, just not really here? Other than the Bond series and the fairly short-lived Atlas Dinky reissues, I can't think of any comparable stuff sold on these shores from the like of Ixo or Altaya. One day I'll nab myself one of these wondrous ARG miniatures... one day. But not for a while, I'd think.

Freshly applied - with bonus real bird shite. Yes, I'll wash it properly at some point...

Triple pack of beige wonderment received this morning - many thanks! Will stick one into the Corolla later...

Went out to Turkey in 2008; was surprised and delighted to see so much tat still in circulation. Plenty of Otosan Fords and Tofas Fiats, plus Renault 11s and 12s still blatting about - and a handful of 70s yank stuff, too. Highlights included what looked like a municipal car pound in Altinkum with dozens of dusty Taunuses and Capris lying abandoned, and a mega-rare Anadol A8 parked in a quiet residential street.

That's bloody impressive! Congrats on making it there and back again in the kind of old nail that would otherwise be wearing Heinz branding if not for your intervention. Bravo!