danthecapriman

As promised, the old Corgi A60 is painted! I still couldn’t decide on colours. I very nearly painted it maroon with white stripe, but having tested the paint colour first I wasn’t convinced. But, to be honest the colour scheme corgi used was nice. It was just the L plates and roof wheel thingy that bothered me so I decided in the end, if it ain’t broke… or whatever! So, Lada Adriatic blue with a gloss white stripe. The blue will tone down a bit once it dries. The stripe was a bastard to mask up well. A combination of fairly rough casting edges along what would be bright trims on the real car and this particular car has some pretty heavy chips and dings in the same place so the tape was hard to cut where they were. But, it’s a toy that’s been played with over the past half century plus so what do you expect! The good thing is though I can disguise the wavy edges between blue & white by painting in the bright trim which Corgi didn’t do. That’ll have to wait a few days though as the blue needs to harden off. There is a bit of a ding/damage to the boot lid too which I didn’t fix, and a slight - very slight! - bend to the roof… but it’s an old toy! Not sure if I’ll find a replacement front solid axle for this or just glue the original steering wheels in the straight position. Obviously the steering mechanism won’t be getting refitted so the steering wheels will just flop around independently of each other if I don’t glue them. I still think Corgi missed a trick not releasing this model later, maybe by altering the tooling to remove the L plates and fill the hole in the roof, and punt it out in various colour combo’s but what’s done is done I guess! We’ll never know!

It’s actually in white primer now with the base painted, but I couldn’t make my mind up about colour(s) so it’s been sat on the bench in the shed for ages! I will make my mind up tomorrow and paint it. No excuses!

That’s lovely. Really well done when compared to an original. That A60 was one of my biggest frustrations as a youngster though! I wanted a standard car not one with the big red thing on top and those cast in L plates really were a let down as they were impossible to get rid of without grinding the thing down. Im sure that would have sold well as a standard car too if Corgi would have done it. Reminds me, I’ve still not finished my original one I’m converting into what Corgi should have done…

Funnily enough, my thoughts on both those series’s is the same! They are a bit shit really! But, on the other hand they can provide a slightly cheaper way to bag a Vanguard’s model to use as repaint material, which was pretty much my intention with the Allegro. I wonder if the rust paint would wipe off with a dab of thinners on some tissue? Maybe I’ll test it on this one before I strip all the paint. Wasnt there a hidden treasures Granada mk1 too?

The base model is nice, but the rust effect looks like someone just dipped a brush in brown paint and slapped it on rough. Not the best finish at all, but maybe that’s why they go cheaper? Maybe a candidate for a repaint in future though. Possibly into blue like my grandads old one.

Allegro was with a Consul taxi in poverty stricken citizen spec.

Short MOT on this lil’ bastard but I’m assured it’s a good rig that drives like a train!😄 These Vanguards hidden treasures versions seem less expensive than the normal releases for some reason. Although to be fair, some of the rust paint looks a bit pants!

Here’s a quick question for all you big rig fella’s… How come lots of the European manufacturers of commercial vehicles didn’t import or even build their trucks here in the UK? Theres so many makes (back in the good old days I mean!) that came from Europe and were very very popular there but for some reason never made it over here. Berliet for example. Was it as simple as they decided the domestic products popularity meant it was unlikely their stuff would sell here? Couldn’t be arsed with the hassle of right hand drive? Maybe our little island wasn’t thought of as a substantial enough market? I just think it’s weird how we’re so close physically to the European mainland yet we got bugger all from them really truck wise. Cars obviously made it here and sold well enough for the most part.

Some beauties there @FakeConcern you do really well at these fairs! Those Dinky ElCamino’s are great looking models, it’s a pity though so many of them seem to have broken roof pillars. You can kind of see why though. Very nice haul👍

Nice haul there. Pontiac is always a good find in either colour! I like the Visa too. Happy Birthday btw!

In another month I’d imagine the weather will be just fine. It is good fun running something old on a long trip, it might help take your mind off the reason for the trip too. I used to use my mid 80’s Volvo’s to do the run up to see family in Doncaster, didn’t get any problems. They’re brilliant for it too, so comfortable! Your Senator should have no problem whatsoever with a trip like this, it’s exactly what it was built for.

Deffo the Senator. Give a really good run out and the weather seems ok at the moment too so take advantage of that! It’ll probably do the car a world of good. Id offer help but I’m in the opposite direction😄

I do apologise, but just think what you’ll have when you get one!😄

Could very well have been. There’s another one of those vans in that series but it’s in Austin Rover livery. It has got a tow bar too so maybe it towed a trailer with the car on?

Got this today. Absolutely love it! One of the 1:43 rally support vehicle partwork ones. Right hand drive and just look at the number plates! Really captures the look of the old Freight Rover I think.

I love that! Very well bought. Pretty much exactly what a mk1 or 2 Escort should look like. If it was mine, the badges and spoiler would go in the bin, and I’d sell the Capri alloys in favour of a set of dartboard steels… but that’s just me! Well done👍

I’ll have a look for that AK stuff. These 1:43’s can be a twat for glazing. Most of them have an individual window unit for every opening and aren’t like the older single piece glazing units so you need something that’s strong enough to hold them in but won’t ruin the plastic. You can see it on this Sierra. Every side has a pair of pegs/rivets that hold one window section in place. Some are worse than this one! It makes the windows quite weak unless the glue is good, obviously once you do all this to the model you can’t do what the factory did and use the rivets.

Cheers! The paint I used on it is just a can of cheapo eBay metallic red motorcycle paint. I didn’t actually expect much of it but it goes on beautifully and the spray from the can is a perfect little fan pattern for stuff like this. Ive been trying a new (to me) glue for the glazing too. I was using non blooming superglue but had mixed results with it. It’s not meant to leave that white residue behind but sometimes still does so I’ve been using Deluxe Materials Glue n’ glaze glue, which so far has been absolutely brilliant on clear plastic.

Had a few new arrivals the last week. Down here at Dans Redneck Trucking inc business has gone through the roof. So much so we’ve had to buy a new tractor unit! Seen here ready to take out our new tanker trailer. Spanish Dodge. Originally built by Barrieros but the company was bought out by Chrysler Europe, who began selling these in the UK as the Dodge 300 from the mid 70’s to sometime in the mid 80’s. Never around in big numbers really but here they certainly were. And from the sounds of it, they were pretty rapid! This model is actually of a much later one after they raised the cab height and gave it a tilt mechanism. Eventually I’ll modify this one to become the older lower version. Did a bit of painting and other bits & bobs too. Got the ex 007 partwork Dodge RAM pickup finished. Can’t decide whether or not to paint the wiper arms & mirrors silver? I’m pretty pleased with this one.

Glad you like them Eddy! By the way, did you find the small bits I put inside the box truck body? I didn’t want them to get missed just floating about in that big box. That Caprice is a bloody lovely model too.

I’ve got the yellow cab version, still in its box and a really nice unboxed plain green one. They are really nice. One of my favourite Corgi’s in that scale. Im pretty sure the 2 tone silver & blue ones are the rarest. I think some of those ones also still used the earlier 4 spoke style wheels too.

Had a little box arrive today from @AndyW201 A rather lovely Capri! Im well pleased with it. A+ better than described would use again etc 👍

I’ve always kept old spare nuts, bolts, washers, screws etc etc. you never know when you might need them. Even stuff like plastic clips and blanking plugs. In my last job I even used to go as far as removing and keeping assorted nuts and bolts from scrap equipment when we raided it for spare parts before it went off to the scrap yard. All my colleagues used to wonder why I bothered, but then when they lost a bolt or nut, or something stripped off I was the only one with a tray of replacements! Most of that stuff was old whitworth sizes though so more difficult to buy new.

Just caught up with this! Glad you’ve (hopefully!) got it cracked. Those fake plugs are more common than you’d believe. I heard about these knock off plugs being about but thought nothing of it. Until I bought a set of allegedly Bosch plugs for my Capri. Of course they were absolute crap and worked if they felt like it. Showed them to someone I know who works in a garage and he immediately said they were cheap Chinese fakes. Apparently he’s had problems with them too.

That was the colour my old school bus mk2 was in. As you say, very common. It was a B reg that they’d had from new. They sold it eventually to a church at the end of the road I live on now where it sat outside slowly rotting into the ground because they only used once or twice a year for day trips. By the time the scrap man took it away it was absolutely hanging! It was actually in a combination of green mould, orange rust and a little patch of faded blue here and there!